Stop Teaching ABCs Before Age 3, Teach This Instead

Naming a child’s feelings during a meltdown, you’re frustrated the blocks fell, teaches them that emotions have names and are understandable. Hoffman argues that this emotional literacy supports the attention and self-regulation that later learning depends on. Simple back-and-forth interaction, rolling a ball, copying a sound, taking turns, builds neural circuitry for attention and communication. These reciprocal exchanges are described as more valuable to early brain development than passive educational content or apps. Neither of these skills looks like traditional academics, but both are described as building the architecture academics later require.

Next time your toddler has a meltdown, name the feeling out loud instead of distracting or trying to fix it right away.

She encourages climbing, crawling, pushing, pulling, and other movement, describing core strength, coordination, spatial awareness, and sensory development as important foundations for later classroom tasks. Hoffman frames this kind of physical play as worth prioritizing rather than skipping in favor of early seated academics. Hoffman highlights repetitive, hands-on play as a way children get practice with cause and effect. Stacking blocks that fall and rebuilding them, or pushing a ball and watching it roll away, gives a child hands-on practice with prediction and problem-solving. This kind of hands-on practice, not memorized facts, is what Hoffman emphasizes as most useful at this age.

Let your child climb, spin, crawl, or move freely today rather than treating it as a distraction from learning.

Hoffman describes a parent’s own calm, or lack of it, during a child’s distress as an important model for how children gradually learn to handle difficult emotions themselves. She frames this kind of co-regulation as one way children learn, through observation, whether big feelings are manageable or dangerous. Hoffman places greater emphasis on alphabet learning around ages three to four, when she says symbolic thinking and other foundational skills are more developed. Based on her own observations rather than cited research, Hoffman says children introduced to letters later can sometimes become stronger readers than children drilled on the alphabet much earlier. Hoffman frames this as one possible benefit of waiting until a child is developmentally ready, not a guarantee.

Next time you feel your own frustration rising during your child’s distress, pause and take a few breaths before responding.