10 books like The Little Ones of Silent Movies

1961: My life’s thrill was Danny’s birth—happy, loving, and by age 2, articulate speech that turned heads. But in Montessori school, despite numerous materials for writing and reading, he was called “hand retarded.” He struggled, only acquiring reading in high school. Today he is a clinical psychologist with honors galore! 1961: We knew little. 1971: First brain scan. 1977: Cognitive science was born as scientists from numerous fields began brain studies. In Danny’s youth, there were guesses and alleged treatments but little science.

Cognitive-Behavioral Neurologist/Kennedy Krieger Institute, Developmental Neuropsychologist and Professor Emeritus/Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Martha Bridge Denckla’s book, Understanding Learning and Related Disabilities: Inconvenient Brains, gives a scientific understanding of ADD, ADHD, ASD, and six other brain dysfunctions to parents, teachers, and others suspecting learning problems.

Wow! Dr. Denkla is so deeply knowledgeable. Her scholarship and explanations of conditions provide information to relieve readers' anxieties.

Steven Pinker’s The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language, explains how children master language: “Pidgin,” a “rough jargon,” results when persons speaking different languages must communicate to accomplish work. Pidgin is transmuted into a full complex language in one fell swoop by a group, exposed at the age children acquire their mother tongue.” Amazingly, we watch complex language created “from scratch.”

The brain’s inherent wiring drives language acquisition. “Humans are so innately hardwired for language, they can no more suppress learning and using language than suppress the instinct to remove a hand from a hot surface.”* Sequencing language from birth, Pinker concludes: “Three-year-olds are grammatical geniuses—master most constructions, usually obey rules, respect universals, err in sensible, adultlike ways, and avoid many kinds of errors altogether.”

*Quoted: S. Dehane, p.64. Thank you Steven Pinker for the “bible” on what language is! I can find everything I need in Pinker's… show more.

Cognitive Neuroscientist and Developmental Psycholinguistic Maryanne Wolf’s trilogy is foundational to understanding how the brain reads, how to teach reading, and the impact that learning to read has on reorganizing the brain. In Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, Wolf lucidly explains: Because the brain has no “reading center,” each child must create literacy by adapting brain functions that evolved for other purposes. Wolf explains so lucidly what a reading brain is! Bravo! A real tour de force!

Kornei Chukovsky, leading Russian children’s poet, in his book From Two to Five, describes children’s “whimsical, elusive thinking—original, picturesque, amusing speech.” "Children two to five are earth’s most inquisitive creatures with questions evoked by the mind’s tireless need to comprehend its surroundings.” I know of no other author who so brilliantly captures children’s own words. I read this book over and over for inspiration.

Vividly and poetically, Dr. Kaplan describes the emotional development of infants, including the choreography of each stage, through ‘holding on and letting go,’ and ’no-saying’ in the Separation / Individuation stage, to a psychological rebirth by the end of the toddler period. The writer carefully delineates the struggles of each baby toward this rebirth as a person who can handle the contradictions of his or her own feelings and those of the parents.

By three years of age, toddler brains are two and half times as active as those of adults and they stay that way for a decade. New brain imaging techniques reveal how powerful adult-child positive interactions are for enhancing brain development from birth. With large print, charming infant and toddler photos, and easy-to-read charts, this book should galvanize parents and program personnel to support care providers’ frequent, sensitive, and enriching social interactions from birth onward to enhance and optimize early brain development.

Psychiatrist Dr., Greenspan illuminates in careful detail for parents six emotional milestones on an infant’s journey toward becoming a more self-regulated person with an organized sense of self. He provides positive and wise supports for parents to help each child along this pathway.

A board book with simple illustrations and words. A child will easily see him or herself in the pages and begin to understand that one’s varying mood changes or expressions are all just fine. Through each expression a child is loved and treasured. So, express yourself! You got this!

Chances are your kiddo is either totally obsessed with Paw Patrol or just hasn’t ever seen it. There doesn’t seem to be an in-between. So, never mind that this book has kid characters who say things like, “We like our diapers just fine.” Instead, just let the plucky crew of puppies hypnotize your kid into going to the bathroom. The puppies are on a mission to help kids view potty as an exciting adventure, from overcoming fears to making bubbles from the hand soap. It’s...pawsome!