Archive for September, 2009
In recent years, comic books and their movie adaptations have moved away from black-and-white depictions of good and evil. In The Dark Knight, for example, Batman has a dark, seedy past of his own; he often crosses the line in the pursuit of the villainous Joker. Adults are perfectly capable of recognizing that morality can be ambiguous, and that shades of gray are often necessary to achieve realism. But the same cannot be said for children.
Kids benefit from strong, positive messages – the kind that mainstream comics just don’t provide these days. It takes a Christian comic, such as the PowerMark series, to provide a clear demarcation between what’s wrong and what’s right. These comics supply kids with fictional role models around which they can modify their behavior. Even if the adventures and settings described in these comics are fictional, they remain applicable to real life in many ways.
In recent years, scientific evidence has shown that people learn in vastly different ways. Visual learners need to see information written down before they can fully internalize it, and auditory learners prefer to hear the information presented out loud. Early in childhood, however, we are all tactile learners to one degree or another. We learn best by actively participating in the process.
Phonics hot dots cater to every learning style, as they can be used in a number of ways according to a parent’s preference and a child’s skill level. These flash cards are meant to be used and reused for as long as it takes young children to master the basics of speech sounds and elementary reading. Advanced kids can even get a head start on their kindergarten cohorts by working with learning materials at home under the tutelage of a trusty parent.