Some parents with older children have asked me what are some right brain activities they could do with their older children, especially children beyond those critical first 6 years. The common concern is having missed the “potential” phase, however, even if you learned about right brain development late, you can still do a number of things to help your child bring out their right brain potential. In fact, you can also do the same activities for yourself. Yumiko Tobitani stated that it is never too late to begin right brain training, merely that the older you get the harder you have to work to see results.
1. Right Brain School
If you have access to a right brain school and they accept older students, then it is still not to late to start. Although it is ideal to start as early as possible, Ruiko Henmi reported that older children have also had very positive feedback from the program despite starting late.
2. Shichida/Heguru/TweedleWink Right Brain Activities
There are also a lot of the activities that are done in right brain classes that can also be done with older children at home, such as linking memory, space memory, mandala patterns, imaging, and eye training. Right Brain Kids’ Wink program covers most of these activities if you are looking for an easy source for materials. You can also join us on the Right Brain Child to learn more about these activities, how to practice them at home, and to download our resources.
3. Puzzle Games
What else can you do? Puzzle games like jigsaw puzzles, tangrams, Lego, and other similar activities are also great activities to get your children involved with.
If you have a Nintendo Wii, try looking for Big Brain Academy. Not only is it fun, but I believe some of the activities on that game are great right brain activities. If your grey matter is feeling a bit sluggish, you can also play it with your children to sharpen your own brain.
If you don’t have the Nintendo Wii, there is a site called Lumosity that offer similar brain sharpening games. Lumosity might be a bit advanced for the younger children, but certainly if you have older children, they would definitely benefit from a program like this. Lumosity has a lot of activities that are not only great for brain development, but they can also help you improve your brain function. With performance tracking, your children can compare how they are progressing over time, and against others to see how they stack up against other individuals at their age. Lumosity games are fun, and because they have a large variety, your child won’t easily get bored from having to play the same game over and over. Lumosity offers even more activities than Big Brain Academy.
4. Stereograms
A couple of nights back, I was flipping through the book “Beyond Magic Eye: Improve Your Vision” and rereading some of the benefits of Magic Eye books. Many of these benefits coincide with right brain functions such as accelerated learning, speed reading, and intuition. Yumiko Tobitani has also used stereograms (Magic Eye pictures) in her book “Quantum Speed Reading” for developing the right brain and the Quantum Speed Reading ability. So dig out those old Magic Eye books and practice looking at them with your older children. (Magic Eye books are not so appropriate for younger children because they may not understand what they need to do to see the picture.)
5. Reading
This has always been the fundamental activity for all early child development programs, and so it would appear, for right brain development, too. That’s not all, the benefits of reading continue regardless of how old you are. According to Ryuta Kawashima, if you read aloud, you activate more areas of your brain than many other activities, including solving difficult Math problems, reading silently, and thinking. Reading out loud is an easy way to train your brain.
Susan says
Hi Shen Li,
For point 5 reading, are you saying that by reading aloud, the child activates more areas of the brain than reading silently? Or do you mean reading aloud TO the child?
I read in the book: reading magic: Why reading alot to your child will change their live forwever by Menn Fox, it says that asking the child to read aloud actually slows down the speed of reading.
Would like to know your point of view in this and do you make ur child read aloud to you?
Shen-Li says
Hi Susan – Reading aloud is beneficial for us, the parents. But when your children are older, it can be beneficial for them to practice reading aloud, too.
According to the research by Ryuta Kawashima, they took brain images of their subjects while they performed a variety of activities:
– reading aloud
– reading silently
– watching TV
– solving simple math equations slowly
– solving simple math equations quickly
– solving complex math equations
– writing
– thinking (meditating)
The brain images should greatest activity in many parts of the brain when the subjects were reading aloud and solving simple math equations quickly. Unfortunately there was no mention about the age of subjects with regards to reading aloud. Personally, I found reading aloud to my children helped me. I think anyone reading aloud reads more slowly compared to reading silently – it is definitely the case for me, anyway. So yes, I agree that asking a child to read aloud will slow down the speed of reading. Perhaps it is related to the fact that more areas of the brain are working when you read aloud? I know it feels harder to read aloud compared to when I read silently.
I do from time to time get Gavin to read aloud for me but this is only in fairly recent times. It’s more like – you read one page and I’ll read the next. When he was younger, I wouldn’t ask him to. He would occasionally read aloud of his own accord. I think when they are very young, I would thread carefully with this because you don’t want to put them off reading. If they resist reading aloud, I wouldn’t push it. But certainly when they are much older and reading has become second nature, then I would definitely make reading aloud part of the practice.
Susan says
Thanks Shen Li for your reply. I read somewhere in Glenn Doman book, there is no need to put finger under the words when we read aloud to the child. As this will slow down their speed of reading. He also mentioned that kids have wider viewing angle than adults. However, from my personal experience, Alyssa reading skill improved drastically ever since i started pointing to the words as i read aloud to her when she was around 1.5 years old. She started reading in sentences shortly after her 2nd birthday. Now that she has just turned 3, would you advice to get her to read aloud?
Alyssa has the habit of putting figer under the words whenever she reads softly to herself. Guess she is imitating how we read to her. I was worried that this might hinder her from speed reading.
Susan says
Shen Li, i would also like to ask if doing mazes is more of a right brain activity? Alyssa loves doing the kumon mazes book.
Shen-Li says
Yup, I read the same thing from Glenn Doman’s book, too – that it isn’t necessary to put your finger under the words. But I, too, have noticed that Gavin sometimes does that when he reads aloud to himself.
I think at age 3 you can probably just follow her lead. If she wants to read aloud then encourage it, but don’t make it a point that she MUST read aloud.
As for speed reading, I think that is a completely different form altogether. Then again, not being able to speed read myself (or read fast, for that matter), it is difficult to comment. But based on what I have read about it, it seems to me that speed reading requires you to be able to take in the whole page at once. I honestly don’t know how you would teach this to a child. Right brain education methods do it by using imaging exercises. So perhaps if we continue exercising the right brain with imaging exercises, our children will eventually learn to speed read?
In the Magic Eye book, they made a reference to photo reading in which they said that the reader should adopt a “soft gaze” which is effectively the same look you would achieve when trying to view a magic eye picture. I can see Magic Eye pictures, but I still can’t photo read. Then again, maybe the method of reading one word at a time is just so ingrained in me that it is difficult to kick the habit.
I’m sorry I have no answers for you. I have read a lot on these subjects, but my practical experience is still very limited.
Shen-Li says
I would say so because mazes are images and the right brain is an image brain. Gavin enjoyed mazes when he was younger, too. He was actually pretty good at it. He could see the way through very quickly. But I didn’t keep it up and he didn’t do mazes for a long time. Recently, he looked at a maze and told me it was too hard. I could see he was getting a bit frustrated by it. I’m wondering if he’s lost that ability to “see” the way through. So yes, I would definitely encourage your daughter to keep doing mazes if she enjoys it.
Susan says
Thanks Shen Li for all the info. I am always lookinng forward to read your post everyday. They are so informative. 🙂 By the way, i got this Brain Box set from Singapore and find it very good. It is a right brain activity where you look at the card for 10 secs. Then turn the card over and aswer all the questions stated behind the card.
Alyssa likes that too. I’m not sure you have heard it before. You can start off with My First Brain Box set. The pictures are interesting and i’m sure Gavin will like it. Let me know if you need further info.
Shen-Li says
My Brain Box sounds very interesting. I googled it and found this link:
http://www.timberdoodle.com/My_First_BrainBox_p/785-714.htm
I’m assuming that is what you are referring to? I have never seen it being sold here. Where did you buy it in Singapore? Perhaps the next time we are there we can look for it.
Susan says
Yes thats the one. You can get it from ‘Growing Fun’ in United Square or Paragon in Orchard. Or you can get it from Yoko Yong in face book. She sells alot of educational products. I don’t think she sells overseas.
Shen-Li says
Thanks! I will check it out the next time I am in Singapore.