Sidney Ledson

Sidney Albert James Ledson, musician, artist, author and educator is best known for the school that bears his name and for his books on raising children’s intelligence. Though Ledson had no interest in becoming an educator, fate relieved him of choice when he began raising two infants single-handedly. Seeking an escape from their endless bicker and babble, he engaged the pair, age 2 and 3, in playful instruction: identifying small plastic dinosaurs and locating countries on a globe.  Of greater importance, he taught them, in the manner of a game, the sounds given to letters of the alphabet. Gradually, letters became words, words became sentences, and sentences became books. After only eight weeks of instruction, the pair were able to pass a certified reading test (described in his book, Teach Your Child to Read in 60 Days, W.W. Norton, 1975). An Ottawa newspaper reporter brought her own book to test the children’s reading ability and, satisfied, wrote a feature article describing their quick, simple program. By the time the pair reached school age they had read hundreds of books, some of 60,000-word length. 

Ledson moved to Toronto hoping the children might enter a program designed for advanced youngsters, then learned that admittance was restricted to children having a genius-level IQ of 140 points. Dismay turned to surprise when his two were accepted. 

Ledson began a study of past geniuses to see what intelligence-raising procedures he had unwittingly shared with their parents, and found that although some parents had made prodigious efforts to boost their children’s intelligence, others had merely taught their preschooler to read. As a consequence, his next book, Raising Brighter Children (McClelland and Stewart, 1983), combined reading instruction with a description of his children’s playful home instruction. 

Seeing how a simple game-like reading program could quickly grant literacy to very young children and boost their intelligence at the same time Ledson opened, in 1980, the Sidney Ledson Institute for Intellectual Advancement so other preschoolers could acquire these benefits. The unusual primary goal of the school, intellectual growth, has generated media coverage eleven times. Today, students frequently achieve newsworthy levels of academic excellence in an expanded program that goes up to Grade 6. Graduates routinely receive offers of scholarships and bursaries from leading colleges and universities.

Education

Self-schooled beyond Grade 10, Ledson’s education blossomed when he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force during WWII. Here, cast among better-educated fellows he saw the important role vocabulary played in establishing a veneer of learning: a discovery that prompted his beginning a lifelong study of words. This patchwork education proved its worth when a publisher asked Ledson, solely on the quality of his speech, to write a book of English grammar – a subject of which Ledson knew almost nothing. However, on examining grammar texts he saw the subject could be painlessly learned if the terms were simplified and expressed entertainingly.  His finished work, The Awful Grammar Book (Wolfe Publishing, 1968), sold throughout the British Isles and Canada.

Artist

The Great Depression, which began in 1929, obliged four-year-old Ledson to find inexpensive ways to occupy his time. Drawing endless copies of cartoon figures required only a pencil and paper; yet, this pastime yielded a valuable reward in the form of a sharpened ability to assess spacial distances and relationships. In time, Ledson began painting in oil, and years later he studied portrait painting at the Ontario College of Art. On graduating, he portrayed prominent military and political leaders, among them, Lester B. Pearson (sketched, oddly enough, in France).

In 1961, Ledson toured movie studios and film stars’ homes in Hollywood and England sketching actors Sammy Davis, Tony Randall, Bob Hope, Jayne Mansfield, Kim Novak, Clifton Webb, William Boyd, Barbara Stanwyck, Loretta Young, Vincent Price, Karl Malden, Tom Ewell and others. 

Musician

Falling heir to an obsolescent C-melody saxophone, Ledson learned to play it before moving on to models of the instrument in common use.  By adding a clarinet he was able to join combos and dance bands of the period, which provided a welcome income during student days at art college. Ledson is seen far-right in the photo. The vocalist, Shirley Harmer, later had her own television show. He played the roaming on-stage clarinetist in Ottawa’s Little Theatre production of Jean Anouilh’s Thieve’s Carnival.

Writer

Writing – or word-wrestling as Ledson sometimes called it – proved to be the most challenging art form he tackled.  His works include education, humor, and sometimes both. In 1957, between sketching brides-to-be and actors starring in Little Theatre plays for Ottawa’s newspapers, Ledson wrote, produced, and acted in a Cable TV series called Back Page Challenge: a take-off of the popular series, Front Page Challenge. In it, he interviewed troubled people (played by Ottawa actors): a man whose wife slowly turned into a St. Bernard dog, a cheese-making

brother from Oka (played by a youthful Dan Aykroyd) whose vow of celibacy was being splintered by an aggressive and attractive female.

Books by Sidney Ledson

Education

The Awful Grammar Book, Mosby-Wolfe, 1968 (ISBN 13: 9780723400363)

Teach Your Child to Read in 60 Days, W.W. Norton, 1975. ISBN: 9780773750319

Raising Brighter Children, Stoddart, 1992. ISBN: 9780802709240

Teach Your Child to Read in Just 10 Minutes a Day, Trafford, 1999. ISBN:9781412218627

Give Your Child Genius IQ, Createspace, 2016. ISBN: 9781412099004

Humor

Scratch ‘n Win, Trafford, 2003. ISBN: 9781412099028

Off My Skateboard, Granny!, Sister Trillium, Createspace, 2016. ISBN:9781533448262

Talk About a Bad Hair Day! (Sister Trillium, Trafford)

Health

Don’t Bother Living to 90 Without This Book, Createspace, 2016. ISBN:9781533392213

References

1. “Science to Parents: ‘Chill Out’ “

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/science-to-parents-chill-out/article1135079/