SHICHIDA PRACTICES

Some of the practices and goals that characterize the Shichida Method founded by Dr Shichida Makoto of the Shichida Academy are:

– visual imaging: images are flashed at speed of half a second, to bring out the right-brained speed recall. This is done many times throughout every sessions. Subject-matter varies considerably (they say content doesn’t matter as much as development of the ability)

– memorization of stories — practice is done on 100 picture cue cards shown as story is read. The stories are quite ridiculous and difficult to memorize and change over the weeks. But kids learn to memorize at first 10, then 20, then 30 and up to 1,000 cards. By two terms, 90 per cent recall is aimed at. Kids can recall which picture falls in which square, or by word cue, or in any manner of recall. This appears to be very effective, I’ve seen most kids excel at this over time. This trains the kids to associate words with images in their heads, and eventually they see pictures instead of words in their heads and can achieve perfect recall of books they’ve read.

– memorization of numbers — the kids practice memorization of a thousand images linked to numbers. Eventually they will be able to recall any number combination using image-association.

– speed-reading and speed-listening is done every lesson

– memorization of several hundred mandala patterns, Dr Shichida says there is a finite number of shapes that make up everything in nature and the universe, once the child has seen every combination, he can spot and recall all the patterns in science and nature. This seems to be rather fascinating as well. The children are flashed in a few seconds and must recall all the colors in the pattern flashed.

– Kids are flashed different shapes and color patterns on a grid or in a
random picture and must reproduce them in a blank format. Sometimes they are asked to reproduce a line drawing of an animal or even a complicated maze. These are again amazing activities with great results. My two year old started with 3 patterns and colors to progressively difficult combinations and can do them. My 6 year old has to contend with 20 or more at a flash, and has improved tremendously on this skill.

– Mathematical calculation skills – there is an intricate 65 day math course that you must do with your kid — it is repeated about three times to achieve speed-calculation skills.

– There are many spatial puzzles to be solved in a very short space of time during each session. These are very challenging. They are reinforced through the worksheets taken home. My two-year old has 30-day worksheets as well as my 6 yr old. The worksheets are very varied, from mazes, to puzzles, to logic exercises, to math. They work on skills incrementally as well.

– Others: Speed listening, speed-reading; perfect pitch skills training; the basic sounds of many foreign languages are taught in songs, proverbs, flashcards during the sessions as well. These will not help the child master any language but will give the child an ear for most world languages should he or she choose to pick it up later. Language activities are also often incorporated — riddles, tongue-twisters, excellent selection of poetry.

– For my 6 yr old, one science experiment is demonstrated every now and then.

– Exercise of Imagination (this seems to be a key component and is never compromised upon, every lesson starts with this. Apparently, exercising the imagination is a trigger to activating the right-brain’s abilities.

– One very unconventional activity is the ESP (guessing) game that is also never compromised upon. Even 2 year olds get into the habit of doing these games very well. Dr Shichida’s premise is that everything in the universe boils down to some form of wave energy, so energy-wave reading is a key skill that all students are expected to perfect. The lessons, following the imagery/imagination exercises, incorporate ESP activities. I can tell you that many a parent starts out a skeptic and is quite converted at the end of the course. For the past three lessons, all the students in my son’s class (including my son) achieved perfect scores in guessing matching cards in a set of 4’s (and my son has quite astounded me at home as well). My then two year old for the most part takes to the ESP games like a duck to water (the 2 year olds don’t work with cards though).

Shichida Lesson 1 (2 y/o)

Breathing Training:

1. Draw a picture of an octopus without the tentacles. Paste thick woolen treads below as the tentacles. (If you want, you can laminate the octopus so that you can reuse it)

2. Give your baby the octopus and show him how to BLOW. This will help him to breath better.

Sound Training:

1. Use three small containers and put different things inside. Eg, paperclips, green beans and wooden blocks.

2. Shake the three sounds and let your child listen to them. Repeat what they are as you shake.

3. Afterward, give your child a card with drawings of the three things on them. To make it more interesting, you may want to add a FLAP on top to cover these three things.

4. Shake one of the containers and ask your child to flip open the correct answer.

Sight Training

1. Draw a colourful picture of something. (You could draw and octopus and use hanging paper clips and bells as the legs) Hang a bell next to it so that it produces a loud sound. Attach a handle at the back for easy holding if you want.

2. Show your baby the picture and shake it so that his eyes are focused on the picture.

3. Move the picture left, right, up, down horizontally or vertically. You can also move around in a zig zag manner just to let his eyes move around. This will work his eye muscles.

Language Training:

1. Tell a story in English.
2. Tell the same story in Chinese/Japanese.

Sing a song:

1. Sing at normal speed
2. Sing at half the speed (to help them remember)

Flash Cards:

1. Prepare a series of flashcards with a theme. Eg, vehicles, fruits, foods, numbers, alphabets.
2. Flash them quickly at your child. Show each picture only for two seconds and read out what it is as you flash it. You do not have to worry about getting tongue tied.
3. Repeat and flash the pictures and read out again.
   
   NOTE: You can do so also for alphabets (Letters A-M, N-Z, Numbers 1-10, 11-20, Dots (1 small, 1 big, 2 small, 2 big.. etc)

Shape Sorting

1. Give your child a picture filled with things of different shapes.
2. Try to make sure that these shapes are removable and restickable (you can laminate your picture and paste Velcro on the picture and underneath the shapes)
3. Tell your child about the different shapes and ask them to paste it back or pull it out.
4. Repeat about 2-3 times for each individual shape. (Eg, circle, oval, parallelogram, trapezium, square, rectangle, triangle.

Intuition- Find the hexagon:

1. Use two cards of the same size. One is a blank card. The other one has a particular shape (eg, a green hexagon).
2. Turn the cards over and ask your child to feel it and find the hexagon.
3. Repeat 2-3 times

Intuition- Find the insect:

1. Draw a big bedroom slipper. Colour and laminate it.
2. Prepare picture of three insects. Pick of of the insects and paste it behind the slipper.
3. Tell a story. Use a big bedroom slipper and tell them that an insect has crawled behind the bedroom slipper.
4. Show them the picture of the three insects and ask them to guess which insect it is.

Imagery- Under The Sea

1. Prepare a picture of the sea. Prepare also a picture of a dolphin. Cut cut another set of dolphins and seashells.
2. Show your child the picture of the sea and tell them that dolphins and seashells are from under the sea.
3. Hide either the Dolphin or seashells behind the sea and send the image of the picture to your child.
4. Show your child the picture of these two items and ask them to guess which item you hid behind the picture of the sea.
   
   

Sensory Play- Play Dough

1. Roll play dough into a ball
2. Press it and roll it into a long strip.
3. Twirl it and make it into a ring

Science- Growth of a butterfly:

1. Prepare a picture of a leaf, a Butterfly, an egg, a small caterpillar, a big caterpillar and a cacoon.
2. Paste a Velcro strip on the leaf and at the back of all the various objects.
3. Share the life story of a butterfly and how the butterfly will lay an egg on the leaf, the egg will become a small caterpillar, and the caterpillar will eat and become a big caterpillar and then change into a cocoon and in the end transform into a butterfly.
4. As you share the story, stick the related item onto the leaf.
5. Tell the story again and let your child stick it on.

Linking memory game

1. The purpose of this game is to help your child improve their memory by linking things up. You can tell a story and link the things up in order. It does not have to be a logical story.
2. Eg: if you had a picture of a crown, a tv, a hotel, a crab, a door. The story would go like this: This is the crown, given by the King of TV in a hotel and there is a crab next door.
3. Repeat this story and ask your child to place the pictures in this order.
4. Now turn the cards around so that the back (which is blank) is facing you and ask your child to pick out the hotel or the crab and see if they can remember where it should be.

Memory game: Hot stuff

1. Show a picture of three hot cups of stuff. Milk, Water, Soup which is put in a table with three columns in this particular order
2. Now, give them an empty Card with the table and pass them a picture of a glass of milk, a glass of water and a bowl of soup.
3. Ask your child to place them in the right order inside the columns.
4. If your child is unable to choose. You can give him two choices and ask him to point.

Memory game: Little Froggie

1. Show a picture of 3 Little Froggies in bed with three different expressions. The expressions are in the following order- Smiling, crying and laughing.
2. Now give your child a picture of three beds with slits at the top.
3. Give them three heads of froggies with different expressions and ask them to place the heads at the correct bed.
4. You can ask them to point while you help them with the slotting in.

Colours: Fly the aeroplane

1. Give your child a box full of coloured aeroplanes.
2. Prepare 5 coloured containers and place it in front of him.
3. Let your child match the colours and fly the aeroplane into the container.
   PS: For the container, you could just use a file like an envelope.

Intuition/ Memory Game: Guess which picture I show you

1. Prepare two similar looking pictures.
2. Show your child one of them.
3. Take out the two pics and ask them to guess which one was it that you showed them.(dun be surprised, they get it right VERY OFTEN!)

Bring the animals to their mamas

1. Show a picture with 8 animals.
2. Give your child 8 baby animals and ask them to bring the animals to their mothers.
3. Ask them to Velcro stick the babies next to the mummies.
4. Once done, ask them to take out the babies by saying the name of the animal.
   
   

Art work: Stick the windows

1. Use a coloured paper and draw a train with two carriages.
2. Draw rectangles as the windows.
3. Give your child some white stickers and let them stick on the windows themselves.

Writing

1. Prepare a practice sheet for your child.
2. Laminate the practice sheet
3. Give your child a whiteboard marker (non toxic) and hold their hands to help them write out the numbers on the practice sheet.
4. One number at a time please. Eg, just practice to write the number 2.
5. After that, the child is free to draw on the practice sheet.
6. Wipe clean and reuse it again.

The 89 Cardinal Facts For Making Any Baby Into A Superb Human Being

These were lecture notes given to me at the Institute, and I am reproducing these without their permission, and I claim no credit from this whatsoever except the fact that I have typed them out myself and added the links to IAHP and credits to Glenn Doman and the Institute.

I believe these are very simple easy to read, yet vital to any understanding of what Glenn and the Institute is trying to teach us, and what some parents here might agree with.

There again, I am only speculating, and I speak for no one but myself really.

I also attach it as a MS Word file, so you can easily print it out.

Here's what the 89 facts...says.

===========================================
The 89 Cardinal Facts For Making Any Baby Into A Superb Human Being
Written by :
Glenn Doman,
The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential
http://www.iahp.org

AN INITIAL SUMMARY OF THE FACTS

1. The world has looked at brain growth and development as if it were a predestined and unchangeable fact, instead, brain growth and development is a dynamic and ever-changing process.

2. This is a process that can be stopped. This is a process that can be slowed. But most significantly, this is a process that can be speeded.

3. All that we do to speed the process is to give kids visual, auditory, and tactile information with increased frequency, intensity, and duration in recognition of the orderly way in which the human brain grows.

4. Heredity and environment are springboards, not prison cells.

5. Our individual genetic potential is that of the human race.

6. Our individual genetic potential is that of Leonardo, Shakespeare, Mozart, Michelangelo, Edison, and Einstein.

7. Our individual genetic potential is not that of our parents or grandparents.

8. We are primarily members of the human race and only incidentally Lees, Aisens, Domans, Kerrs, or van Dyks.

9. All intelligence is a product of the environment.

10. High intelligence is a product of the environment.

11. Low intelligence is a product of the environment.

12. The wildly intellectual differences in us are a result of the wildly wide differences in the environments in which we are raised.

13. It is the environment of poverty, not the genetics of poverty, which begets poverty.

14. It is the environment of knowledge which begets knowledge. There is no genetics of poverty or of knowledge. If there were, how could we explain the single individual who escapes poverty or comes to knowledge.

15. Children are not dehydrated adults.

16. All games were invented by adults to get rid of kids.

17. All toys were invented by adults to get rid of kids.

18. Tiny children make tools, not toys.

19. Kids prefer patty-cake to solitary confinement.

20. Kids prefer Greek to patty-cake.

21. Tiny children believe that it is their job to grow up.

22. Tiny children want to grow up right now.

23. Tiny children have a rage to learn.

24. All tiny kids have a rage to learn because learning is a survival skill.

25. Tiny children want to learn about everything and they want to learn right now.

26. Tiny kids would rather learn than eat.

27. Babies would much rather learn than play.

28. All children are linguistic geniuses.

29. Tiny kids learn an entire foreign language between birth and 24 months.

30. It is easier to teach a one-year-old a foreign language than it is to teach a seven-year-old.

31. It is easier to teach a one-year-old to read than it is to teach a seven-year-old.

32. The first six years of life are the genesis of genius.

33. The ability to take in raw facts is an inverse function of age.

34. Tiny kids learn more fact for fact prior to three years of age than they learn for the rest of their lives.

35. It is easy to make a baby a genius prior to six years of age.

36. It is extremely difficult to make a child a genius after six years of age.

37. Education begins at six, learning begins at birth or earlier.

38. Learning is not synonymous with education.

39. Function determines structure.

40. The brain grows by use.

41. Intelligence is the result of thinking.

42. Man is intelligent because he uses his brain.

43. When you improve one function of the brain you improve all functions to some degree.

44. First there is a need, and then there is a facility.

45. All humans are born with a greater potential that Leonardo ever used.

46. The human brain contains more than 12 billion functioning neurons.

47. We presently use a minute percentage of those 10 billion cells.

48. If we learned 1,000 facts per hour, 24 hours a day, for 100 years, we would use up only 876,000,000 cells.

49. The brain is the only container that the more you put into it, the more it will hold.

50. You can teach a baby anything that you can present in an honest and factual way.

51. It is easier to teach a one-year-old any set of facts than it is to teach a seven-year-old.

52. Facts are the base on which intelligence is built.

53. Without facts there can be no intelligence.

54. Individual facts are bits of intelligence.

55. The first requirement for intelligence is the ability to take in facts.

56. The second requirement for intelligence is the ability to store facts.

57. The third requirement for intelligence is the ability to retrieve stored facts as useful knowledge.

58. The fourth requirement for intelligence is the ability to use facts, knowledge, and laws to successfully solve problems of increasing importance.

59. The fifth requirement for intelligence is the ability to combine and permutate facts and knowledge to discover new facts and laws.

60. The first step in multiplying your baby's intelligence is to feed your baby with a huge number of clear facts.

61. The second step in multiplying your baby's intelligence is to present the facts frequently to insure their permanent storage.

62. The third step in multiplying your baby's intelligence is to provide frequent opportunity to retrieve the facts for useful purposes.

63. The fourth step in multiplying your tiny baby's intelligence is to present your tiny kid with ever increasing opportunity to solve problems of increasing importance.

64. The fifth step in multiplying your baby's intelligence is to provide your tiny kid with sets of related facts so that the baby can combine and permute the facts in the greatest number of useful ways.

65. Mothers were the only teachers from prehistoric times until the Age of Reason.

66. Mothers brought us from the caves to the Age of Reason.

67. Until the Age of Reason, there were no pediatricians, child psychologists, or teachers of children.

68. Mothers brought us from clubs to the Age of Reason.

69. Professionals brought us from the Age of Reason to the Atomic Age.

70. It is difficult to believe that the professionals will take us as far in the next 10,000 years as mothers have taken us in the past 10,000 years.

71. Mothers are the best teachers.

72. Mothers and kids are the most dynamic learning combination possible.

73. The process of learning is a joyous and intimate one for mother and child.

74. It is good, not bad, to be a genius.

75. Geniuses are made, not born.

76. The process of creating a genius is a joyous one.

77. All children should be geniuses.

78. Tiny kids learn facts at a tremendous rate which staggers the adult imagination.

79. If you teach a tiny kid the facts he will discover the laws.

80. If you teach a tiny kid the laws he cannot as a result discover the facts.

81. Definition of science.

82. Children have five laboratory tests available to them: To see, to hear, to feel, to taste, and to smell. They use these lab tests superbly.

83. Children have superb attention, interest, and concentration.

84. Tiny children are scientists.

85. Tiny kids use the exact same method of solving problems as do scientists.

86. Tiny children have the same objectives as do scientists.

87. Tiny children ask the exact same questions as scientists.

88. It is easier to teach a one-year-old math than it is to teach a seven-year-old.

89. Formulae

1. Formula for average intelligence is:

A.I. = F.I. + E.S.


2. Formula for total intelligence is:

T.I. = V.I. + Aud.I. + Tac.I. + Mob.I. + L.I. + Man.I, 6

3. Formula for potential intelligence:

P.I. = T.I. + E.E.S + E.P.S.

4. Formula for genius:

Genius = P.I. + M.E.E.S. + M.E.P.S.

DEFINITIONS OF INTELLIGENCE ABBREVIATIONS

V.I. = Visual Intelligence
Aud. 1. = Auditory Intelligence
Tac. I. = Tactile Intelligence
Mob. I. = Mobility Intelligence
L. I. = Language Intelligence
Man. 1. = Manual Intelligence
T. I. = Total Intelligence
A. I. = Average Intelligence
F. I. = Functional Intelligence
E. S. = Environmental Stimulation (accidental)
P. I. = Potential Intelligence
E. E. S. = Early Environmental Stimulation
E. P. S. = Early Parental Stimulation
M. E. E. S. = Maximum Early Environmental Stimulation
M. E. P. S. = Maximum Early Parental Stimulation

7 Secrets of Highly Successful Kids

1. Choose a Good Role Model

2. Be Organised

3. Make the Most of What You've Got

4. Stick With It and Try Your Hardest

5. Don't Be Afraid to Try New Things

6. Be A Loyal Friend

7. Be a Team Player

SHICHIDA MATERIALS

Maths Flashcards

Just uploaded eye training charts similar to what Sensei uses in class but with numbers 1-100. This exercise serves 3 purposes - eye training, hand-eye coordination as well as recognizing number sequence.

Also uploaded +1 to +10 Thomas and Friends Addition Charts. Goes well with the Shichida Addition Song CD. This my work around my son's interest as he's been fascinated by trains since he was 6 months old.

Linking Memory Flashcards

Your child's Right Brain has the ability to recall entire elements at a glance. Here's how you can use Linking Memory method to stimulate this ability:

For Babies:

Show 2 picture cards, eg. 'apple' and 'car'. Make up a story, eg. 'The apple jumped over the car'. Put the cards down. Once your child is able to tell or point to the correct cards when you ask, increase number of cards to 3, then 4 ensuring that they are always in the right order.

For 2yrs and above:

At this age your child is ready to memorize 50 cards per set in the correct order and something amazing will happen. He/She will be able to name the cards at a glance without the help of pictures. It is not necessary to show 50 individuals cards now. A chart of 50 pictures is fine. Either you or your child will point to the pictures as you read the storyline or while listening to the Linking Memory CD.

When my son was about 2 years old, I contemplated quitting Shichida classes. He had been in the program since 3 months old and we weren't seeing results. He wasn't even interested in 6 LM pictures but at 2yrs 3 mths, something miraculous happened. He could name all 50 pictures in Linking Memory Set 4 in the correct order without looking at the them. He went on to recite 150 pictures in LM Sets 4, 5 & 6 continuously 2 months later. That renewed my confidence in the system and thus I spent more time creating home practice materials.

At 4 yrs old now, he is currently doing LM Set 1C, 2C & 3C. Sensei has begun to time their recital. One of the kids in my son's class is super fast and can recite 150 pictures in about a minute. She mispronounces most of them but when you look at her during the recital, you can see her eyes rolling and that is a sign that she is seeing the pictures in her mind vividly.

We cannot share the LM Sets and CDs from Shichida but here are some home-made materials contributed by parents.

SHICHIDA VS GD

Stimulating Right Brain
------------------------------
Shichida method (SM) emphasizes the right brain stimulation through the 7 key components: Alpha Wave Relaxation, Eye Exercises, PhotoEyeplay, Mental Imaging, Observation Training, Memory Linking, and Photographic Memory & Speed Reading. GD also involves stimulating of right brain through the physical program.

Methodology
--------------
Both methods using flash card. The flash speed is concern for both methods, the parents must flash as fast as possible. The intention for GD to flash fast is to hold the child's attention while according to SM, if you flash real fast, the left brain can not catch up and the right brain will pick up automatically (activated). Anyway, both methods will achieve the same abilities for your child: encyclopedic knowledge and activate the right brain.

GD emphasizes on the frequency (repetition) which according to SM is a left brain function; SM emphasizes on large amount of input, for example for the bits program, you can show as many cards as you want as long as the child is interested (each session can contain as many as 20, 30, 40 ...) while for GD, one session contains 5 to 10 bits and there should be 3 sessions per day.

Reading Program and Maths Program
-------------------------------------------
For GD, read his book "How to Teach Your Baby To Read" and follow the 5 steps to teach your baby to read and "How To Teach Your Baby Math".

For SM, the Shichida 65 days Maths Program is quite similar to GD (flash dot cards). The difference between the two is on the frequency for flashing each card and the timing for introducing the arithmetic function. Beside this, read his book "How To Develop Your Baby To Read, Write and Calculate Ability" which introduce different methods to develop the interest of reading and to recognize word through different kind of games and activities. I found the activities very useful and efficient to develop the child ability to read, write and calculate (0-6). This is not cover in GD book.

Extra Sensory Perception (ESP)
-------------------------------------
SM involves the ESP training while GD doesn't. The ESP training involves all sorts of games for example what's in the box, guessing what's hidden and etc. Photographic Memory and Memory linking - nonsensical story linking system which encourages the brain to visualize each component in a fun and upbeat way!

Above all these similarities and differences, both methods MUST require the parents to show the child your love, your affection, encouraging them, praise and support them. And...ENJOY what you are both doing.

Computer-Like Math Skills Learned in Infancy!

Can infants learn math a few months after they are born? Yes, according to early childhood specialist Dr. Makoto Shichida. Shichida tells how infants learn by absorbing information through the right brain. He challenges the traditional belief that math is primarily a left brain activity by proving that children can learn to calculate subconsciously through the right brain.

Japanese studies have shown rapid calculation abilities stem from the brain's right hemisphere. In his book Right Brain Education In infancy Shichida cites a study at the Nippon Medical Center on Yuka Hatano who won world titles for mentally calculating sixteen digit problems faster than a calculator. Professor Yoshiya Shinagawa studied Ms. Hatano by PET scan while she was orally doing mental arithmetic. Shinagawa noted that the rear part of the right brain that governs visual functions was used.

The answers appear on the screen of the mind! These so-called math geniuses don't make conscious mathematical calculations! Answers automatically rise from the subconscious, where they are calculated faster than a calculator! Through the right brain, or image brain, the person sees a picture of the right answer. This function of the right brain is also exercised in people who have photographic memory. Shichida mentions 18th-century mathematician and physicist Leonard Euler who memorized books while ruffling through the pages and correctly answered 15 digit math problems in a second. Mentally handicapped people have also demonstrated this ability, baffling scientists. Shichida gives the example of Flure, a blind, mentally retarded man who spent his life in a French mental institution at the beginning of the century. Flure could answer complex math questions in less than 30 seconds and give perfect 20 digit answers.

Today, Shichida proves these extraordinary abilities can be developed in ordinary children, given the right training. Shichida uses dot cards and fact cards to stimulate 'lightning-rapid' calculating ability and photographic memory, which he believes are normal functions of the right brain. These flash cards are rapidly flashed in front of infants and young children who register the information subconsciously. Shichida explains that unlike the left brain, the right brain absorbs information very quickly.

In his book, Right Brain Education in Infancy, Shichida provides many examples of children who excel at calculating at a very early age, having been shown dot flash cards over a period of time. One mother witnesses her son's progress. "I've been teaching him all kinds of knowledge with homemade flash cards and charts that I placed in my house since his birth. He started answering mathematical problems in writing at age two and a half years old. He has no problem solving the four rules of arithmetic in four to six digits."

Lightning-rapid calculating ability is stimulated with dot flash cards, where dots replace numerals. "We took up dots when my son was two months old," says another mother. "Since he could not sit up by himself yet, I showed the cards to him while he was lying on his back. I was not sure if he understood what I was doing with him, but I kept on showing the cards as one of our games. When he was five months old, I showed him five addition problems using dots, then I tested him by giving the problem 48 + 29. I held up two answer cards 77 and 78. He tapped the card with the right answer--77. Then, I showed him only five subtraction problems and tested him. He gave me a correct answer again. I was totally amazed. Seeing my own son master addition and subtraction in a matter of ten seconds. I felt as if I was watching a magic trick. In this way, he was able to master the four rules of arithmetic by the age of six months."

Teaching your child with flashcards:
1) Experts agree that flashcards should be shown quickly (1 card per second). Presenting information quickly triggers the right brain into action!

2) Sessions should be brief but they can be frequent.

3) Flashcards should be fun and children shouldn't be forced. When children are pressured against their will resistance shuts down right brain learning.

4) Parents need to be relaxed and have fun with the process. Love is a key ingredient!

Shichida and Doman differ somewhat in their methods. Doman uses repetition (left brain), while Shichida does not (right brain.) You may want to experiment or try a combination of both, a whole brain approach.

Glenn Doman's book How to Teach Your Baby Math gives detailed instructions on using dot cards. You can download Math Diamonds and use them in the same way that you would use dots.