The Brilliance of a Five-Year Old
“It is certainly true that a five-year-old has a keenness and awareness that will probably be displaced or blunted later.” MAC BARNETT AND JON KLASSEN
Since a child dear to me just turned five years old yesterday, I am intrigued by by Mac Barnett’s and Sarah Jacoby’s Substack post on “Are Five-Year-Olds Better at Reading than Adults?” They quote the opening of an essay written by Margaret Wise Brown:
When a child reaches the age of five he is the sum total of all his younger experiences and discoveries in a brand new world. He carries with him the two-year-old's delight in sheer sound and pounding rhythms and the glamor of the two-year-old's own small self; the three-year-old's humor and love of pattern, and his pleasure in the familiar sights of his own world; the four-year-old's further joining of sound and pattern with rhythm and content, and four-year-old's first playful flights into the humor of the incongruous things that he just knows enough to know are not true; and finally the five-year-old's own keen humor and penetrating observation of the world around him, the careful watching of his own eyes and ears, the keenness of his nose and the sensitiveness of his touch, and the fine and vivid imagery of his own language.
How can we cultivate that keeness and awareness so that it won’t be displaced or blunted as he grows older? Perhaps by listening to the five-year old, as he absorbs the world around him, reading books, telling and drawing stories, immersing in a variety of media and in play.
I am intrigued by the child’s book preferences, the illustrations, the words, and how he creates his own stories, real and imaginary, based on what he reads and experiences in the media.
Adults have much to learn from five-year olds, if we let ourselves listen and observe.
Something To Think About
Observe a five-year old read a picture book or read a picture book with you. What do you learn from observing him?
How can you cultivate your relationship with the child by reading with and observing/listening to him?
How can you enhance your own life by reading with and observing/listening to a five-year old?
Thank you Mac Barnett and Joh Klassen for your insight into a five-year old’s spirit and for authoring The Important Thing about Margaret Wise Brown.