Making Kids Smarter

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Summary: Making Kids Smarter Review
Review: Dr. Pedro Portes' book has proven to be an insightful look into conditions and methods most condusive to children reaching their intellectual potential.This book would be helpful for all persons with children to read. As a daycare provider I strongly agree with Dr. Portes in fostering and supporting children's innate abilities and interests. It is from this support that children gain the self-esteem and ability to excel intellectually. I recommend this book to all who are around children or are planning to be. It is a great resource in understanding and promoting holistic intelligence.

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Summary: Review of MKS
Review: I feel that the book Making Kids Smarter is a useful tool for parents as well as teachers. One aspect that I particulary like about the book is how it takes the reader through the processes of a child's development and breaks down the stages. A first time parent may not know exactly what is "normal" for a child and Making Kids Smarter is a beneficial reference to have when trying to understand what your child is thinking and processing the information.

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Summary: MKS critique
Review: I purchased this book because it was part of required reading for one of my graduate level education classes. As most of us know, education course reading can sometimes have either impassive or pedantic leanings...and as I do not have children of my own - and have no interest in working with children - I was apprehensive as to what I could actually gather from this book. However, I was completely wrong!
Not only does the book provide parents with a basic guide to smarter parenting, exploring abilities, and developing a home of `intelligent culture'; it also reveals (for parents) that intelligence is mostly cultivated in a child by the parents - a far different approach than what my parents generation learned (makes me wonder if I wouldn't be at Harvard instead of the University of Louisville working on my doctorate).
If you're a parent you NEED this book! (I'm giving it as Christmas presents to all of my friends and family with children.)

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Summary: Making Kids Smarter
Review: I read this book as part of a Human Development Course at the University of Louisville. I found it a very helpful resource that served to tie what I had learned in other classes to my real-world experience as a parent. The book is based on current research. It breaks down major learning theories into practical parenting advice. Simple tips to help your child develop thinking skills are embedded throughout. Parents can adopt a crisis management style or put a well-defined plan into place. Making Kids Smarter is a great parenting plan-of-action. Kids do come with instruction books!

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Summary: Making Kids Smarter
Review: I read this book as part of a Human Development Course at the University of Louisville. I found it a very helpful resource that served to tie what I had learned in other classes to my real-world experience as a parent. The book is based on current research. It breaks down major learning theories into practical parenting advice. Simple tips to help your child develop thinking skills are embedded throughout. Parents can adopt a crisis management style or put a well-defined plan into place. Making Kids Smarter is a great parenting plan-of-action. Kids do come with instruction books!

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Summary: Parenting Handbook
Review: I read this book as part of Dr. Portes' class at the University of Louisville. It offers parents with hands-on strategies on helping their children successfully navigate through their childhood and the adolescent passage. Dr. Portes' writing style makes learning difficult theoretical concepts easy. For those parents who need a handbook of parenting, particularly during those trying years, this is the book for you!!!!

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Summary: Educational
Review: I think Dr. Pedro Portes' book, Making Kids Smarter, is an insightful approach to parenting. Although I am not currently a parent, I think several parents could benefit from the approaches to parenting offered in the text. I found the book to be intellectually stimulating and resourceful.

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Summary: Excellent manual for parents on raising their children.
Review: In a world of high-school massacre's, violent video games, music, media, and a lack of info on child development, this book spells parenting to have smarter children plainly. It starts from birth and goes through the preschool years specifically, and explains strategies for heightening motivation, learning, and creativity. With the recent studies in "Nature" regarding the effects of the environment (most recently with the twin rats study and their varying addictions to alcohol and cocaine regardless of their identical genetic makeup), it is becoming clearer that children are not "born that way" but are "made that way." This book details methods for parents on how to make their children successful in all areas of life. I think every parent should read this book.

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Summary: Educational
Review: This book is a disappointment in that it reads very poorly, as the writer repeats the exact paragraph, verbatim, in later chapters. This is one of many typographical errors that the book is saturated with. The actual content of the book is repetitive, as it fails to obtain, to any minimal standards, what the title claims to do. The suggestions given in the book border on the sublime, and have very little, if any practical purpose in reality. I myself am an educator, with 20 + years in the profession, and this is the worse book I have ever read. My career spans many years, and numerous publications, and I have never come across such ludicrious statements in a publication. One such statement claimed that a three-year old would know when, where, and how often he/she should be given attention, or stimulated intellectually, and that the child will let you become aware of this by his/her actions and behaviors. This kind of sublime reasoning permeates throughout this publication. This book is not worthy to be in print, let alone stake the future of your son or daughter on it.

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Summary: Book review
Review: This book was a requirement for a graduate-level course in developmental psychology, as I was mandated to read the book in its entireity. That not withstanding, the book was an excellent resource, as I have utilized it not only for academic purposes, but as a valuable resource tool in my chosen profession of mental therapy, or counseling. I recommend this book for any practioner of the social sciences, as well as budding new parents, or seasoned ones if they wish to give their parenting skills an overhaul.