The Bright Stuff: Playful Ways to Nurture Your Child's Extraordinary Mind

Recent studies have identified the home learning environment as the most important factor in a child's pre-school development, so it is no surprise that the Early Years Foundation Stage places so much emphasis on working with parents and carers and helping them to continue topics and activities in the home. With this in mind, I was very interested to read more about how I, as a parent, could help my children to develop reasoning and thinking skills.

Initially, I was concerned that this would be a weighty text that left me feeling inadequate because life in the real world, with all our time pressures, rarely matches up to academic theories. However, this is a highly readable book; one can dip in and out of it or use it for support with a particular issue. Many of the ideas are quick and easy and there are good summaries and easy-to-digest "quick tips".

My 11-year-old son decreed the Have I Got News for You noticeboard to be a good idea so we shall be cutting out news headlines and blanking out key words to encourage a little creative thinking over supper once a week. As university and job interviews become more about how a child thinks than about what they know, this book can surely only be of benefit.

Right, I'm off to finish the chapter on reasoning skills, so I can better explain to my nine-year-old daughter why she can't have her ears pierced yet. Next stop is the "advert alert" section, which encourages children to think about how not all adverts are completely true. I recommend this book to any parent or anyone working with children, from two-year-olds to teenagers.

Buy The Bright Stuff: Playful Ways to Nurture Your Child's Extraordinary Mind