You're right Edna, he was five. And yeah, he is pretty advanced. He has his own PC, and an N64 as well. He's had those for about a year and, quite frankly, he's better with Windows than some of the people in my office.
He can read and do all the basic mathematic operators now. They're already talking about him skipping a year in school. I guess he's not the average toddler, as queeq puts it, but I do believe that if you treat kids like little adults they will truely grow. And thankfully, not at the expence of his childhood.
OK, so I'm sounding a little too much like the proud father here? 🙂
You had a ZX-81 eh, RC? Same here! I even expanded mine with a real keyboard and a joystick! Yeah, those were the days.
Actually, it wasn't the first one I saw. I did a course in programming when I was 12 at IBM. That was pretty fun, but not fun enough to make a career out of it.
I myself keep my kids a bit away from the computer. I prefer them to read books first. And my eldest, 3, is doing quite well. He knows most of the alphabet already.
Oh I agree queeq, but the PC is a tool for knowledge first and a plaything a big second.
But if I were you, I'd look at a lot of the educational packages aimed at children in the 3-10 age group. A great deal of Bens Mathematical and Reading ability came from us sitting with him at the PC, playing these learning games.
Now he would rather use the Reading Rabbit package than play a normal game.
When you add this to the reading and maths he does with us and at school, it gives a big boost. In fact, I would go as far as to say that I don't think he would be doing so well if he didn't have the computer. Plus it's great fun for us to sit with him and help him learn.