Q:How does your plan compare with the other programs for young children that are out there – programs such as those offered by Junior Kumon and Score!?
A:We share with those programs a belief that young children are far more capable than is usually imagined, and that we should not erect artificial barriers (through our limited expectations) to their intellectual progress and growth.That said, we differ from those programs in many ways.Most importantly, (i) the Pittsburgh Plan is not our program, it is your program; we merely provide materials that help you work with your child, (ii) let me say that again, in another way, because it is so important – our program does not provide lessons taught by a paid professional instructor, it provides you with materials and asks you to share time with your child, one-on-one, (iii) we are committed to avoiding putting pressure on the child, and have structured our program with that as our highest priority, (iv) our program emphasizes child-driven learning rather than adult-driven teaching, with materials and approaches that are carefully structured to enlist the child’s innate inductive learning ability, (v) as a result we help a child build intelligence rather than rote knowledge, and (vi) those other programs cost many hundreds or even thousands of dollars; the entire cost of our program is the cost of this book, a little paper, and a few pencils – oh, and a few minutes each week of your time and attention.