Evgenia Belonoshchenko

Every mother wants to see her child smart and creative, open and self-confident. But, unfortunately, not everyone knows how to contribute to the careful development of the intellect of their baby.
Masaru Ibuki's book "It's Too Late After Three" talks about the necessity and importance of early childhood development. After all, the first three years of life is a unique period in the formation of a child's intellectual abilities, when every day can become an important stage in rapid and comprehensive growth.
This book turned my life around. She helped to correctly and consciously approach the development of my own children. And I have not yet met a single mother who, after reading this book, would not be imbued with the idea of ​​early development. We are sure that now we will have more such mothers and fathers.
By initiating the reprint of Masaru Ibuki's book, we want to give parents of young children the pleasure of reading it. And they will get even more pleasure from the future successes of their kids. We really want our country to have more smart children and happy parents.

Evgenia Belonoshchenko,

founder and soul of the Baby Club company
Masaru Ibuka

Kindergarten Is Too Late!

Masaru Ibuka

After three it's too late

Translation from English by N. A. Perova

Publishing house Art. Lebedev Studios

Introduction to the English edition
If, behind the kindness and benevolence with which this book is written, you feel the importance of what it tells about, then perhaps, together with other similar books, it will make one of the greatest and kindest revolutions in the world in your ideas. And I sincerely wish that this goal will be achieved.
Imagine a revolution that will bring the most wonderful change, but without bloodshed and torment, without hatred and hunger, without death and destruction.
This kindest of revolutions has only two enemies. The first is inveterate traditions, the second is the status quo. It is not necessary that ingrained traditions be shattered and ancient prejudices disappear from the face of the Earth. No need to destroy something that can still bring at least some benefit. But what seems terrible today, let it gradually disappear as unnecessary.
Masaru Ibuki's theory makes possible the destruction of such realities as ignorance, illiteracy, self-doubt, and, who knows, maybe, in turn, will bring a reduction in poverty, hatred and crime.
Masaru Ibuki's book does not make these promises, but the astute reader will have this perspective at all times. At least such thoughts were born in me while I was reading this book.
This wonderfully kind book makes no startling claims. The author simply assumes that young children have the ability to learn anything.
He believes that what they learn without any effort in two, three or four years, in the future is given to them with difficulty or not at all. In his opinion, what adults learn with difficulty, children learn with play. What adults learn at a snail's pace, children are given almost instantly. He says that adults are sometimes lazy to learn, while children are always ready to learn. And he says it unobtrusively and tactfully. His book is simple, straightforward and crystal clear.
According to the author, one of the most difficult activities for a person is learning foreign languages, learning to read and play the violin or piano. Adults master such skills with difficulty, and for children it is an almost unconscious effort. And my life is a vivid confirmation of this. Although I have tried to learn as many as a dozen foreign languages, having worked as a teacher on all continents, teaching children from both the most privileged sections of society and the very bottom, I really know only my native language. I love music, but I can't play any musical instrument, I can't even memorize the melody properly.
In order for our children, growing up, to be fluent in several languages, to be able to swim, ride a horse, paint in oils, play the violin - and all this at a high professional level - they need to be loved (which we do), respected (which we do rarely) and put at their disposal everything that we would like to teach them.
It is not difficult to imagine how much richer, healthier, safer the world would be if all children knew languages, arts, basic sciences before they reached adolescence, so that later years could be used to study philosophy, ethics, linguistics, religion, and also art, science and so on at a more advanced level.
It is not difficult to imagine what the world would be like if children's great desire to learn was not blunted by toys and entertainment, but encouraged and developed. It is easy to imagine how much better the world would be if the hunger for knowledge of a three-year-old child was satisfied not only by Mickey Mouse and the circus, but also by the works of Michelangelo, Manet, Rembrandt, Renoir, Leonardo da Vinci. After all, a small child has an infinite desire to know everything that he does not know, and he does not have the slightest idea of ​​\u200b\u200bwhat is bad and what is good.
What reason do we have to trust Masaru Ibuki's advice? What speaks in his favor?
1. He is not an expert in the theory of education, therefore, does not know what is possible and what is not: a necessary condition for making a significant breakthrough in an established field.
2. He is definitely a genius. Starting in 1947, when his country was devastated, he founded a company with three young partners and $700 in his pocket, which he called Sony. He was one of those pioneers who raised Japan from ruins and despair to the level of a world leader.
3. He not only talks, he does. As Acting Director of the Early Development Association and Director of Talent Education at Matsumoto, he is currently enabling thousands of Japanese children to learn through the program described in this book. Masaru Ibuka proposes to change not the content, but the way a child learns.
Is it all doable or is it a rosy dream? Both. And I am a witness to that. I saw the newborn children of the Timmermans swimming in Australia. I heard four-year-old Japanese kids talking in English with Dr. Honda. I've seen very young kids do complex gymnastics under Jenkins in the USA. I saw three-year-olds playing violin and piano with Dr. Suzuki in Matsumoto. I saw a three year old child reading in three languages ​​under Dr. Versa in Brazil. I saw 2 year olds from Sioux ride adult horses in the Dakotas. I have received thousands of letters from mothers all over the world asking them to explain to them the miracles that happen to their children when they are taught to read from my book.
I think this book is one of the most important books ever written. And I think that all parents living on Earth should read it.

Glen Doman,

Director of the Development Institute
human potential,
Philadelphia, USA
Author's Preface
Since ancient times, it has been believed that outstanding talent is primarily heredity, a whim of nature. When we are told that Mozart gave his first concert at the age of three, or that John Stuart Mill read classical literature in Latin at the same age, most people simply respond: “Of course, they are geniuses.”
However, a detailed analysis of the early years of both Mozart and Mill suggests that they were raised strictly by fathers who wanted to make their children outstanding. I assume that neither Mozart nor Mill were born geniuses, their talent developed to the maximum due to the fact that they were created favorable conditions from early childhood and were given an excellent education.
Conversely, if a newborn is brought up in an environment that is initially alien to his nature, he has no chance of developing fully in the future. The most striking example is the story of the “wolf girls”, Amala and Kamala, found in the 1920s in a cave southwest of Calcutta (India) by a missionary and his wife. They made every effort to return the children raised by wolves to human form, but all efforts were in vain. It is taken for granted that a human-born child is a human, and a wolf cub is a wolf. However, these girls continued to show wolf habits even in human conditions. It turns out that education and the environment in which the baby enters immediately after birth, most likely determines who he will become - a man or a wolf!
As I reflect on these examples, I am thinking more and more about the huge impact education and environment have on the newborn.
This problem has become of the greatest importance, not only for individual children, but for the health and happiness of all mankind. So in 1969, I set about founding the Japan Association for Early Development. Our and foreign scientists gathered to study, analyze and expand the application of Dr. Shinichi Suzuki's method of teaching kids to play the violin in experimental classes, which then attracted the attention of the whole world.
As we progressed in our work, it became quite clear to us how flawed the traditional approach to children was. We habitually believe that we know everything about children, while we know very little about their real capabilities. We pay a lot of attention to the question of what to teach children over three years of age. But according to modern research, by this age, the development of brain cells has already been completed by 70-80 percent. Doesn't this mean that we should focus our efforts on the early development of the child's brain before the age of three? Early Development does not offer force feeding of infants with facts and figures. The main thing is the introduction of new experience "on time". But only the one who cares for the child day in and day out, usually the mother, can recognize this “on time”. I wrote this book to help these moms.

Masaru Ibuka