<font color="0000ff">An article to share ...</font>
http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2008/3/20/lifeparenting/20675337&sec=lifeparenting
<font size="+1">Don’t rush your child</font>
Childwise
By RUTH LIEW
Allow children of preschool age to learn at their own pace.
Preschool education provides children with early learning experiences, helping them to make an easier transition to formal schooling later on.
From my observations, I have found many kindergartens conducting formal schooling classes and their preschoolers are working on academic subjects beyond their developmental capabilities.
Most five- and six-year-olds are expected to behave and learn like seven- and eight-year-olds. These children are stressed out by the demand to learn as much as they can in their preschool years in the hope that they will do well in primary school.
In preschool programmes, pre-determined learning outcomes dominate the way children work on the activities rather than allowing children to determine whether learning is inherently interesting and worthy of effort, or boring and tedious. Most preschool programmes are teacher-directed rather than child-centred. Children are not allowed to choose what to learn but to follow everything the teacher instructs them to do.
To make matters worse, parents buy extra preschool workbooks and send their children to enrichment classes in mental arithmetic, memory skills and to learn languages.
The most important teachers for children are their parents. They are their first teachers. Many parents do not realise that their influence on their children’s learning will have a lifetime effect on them. If parents approach learning as challenging and worthwhile, children will do so too.
Here are some ideas to promote preschool children’s early learning:
1. Parents can encourage more physical exercise during the early years. The preschool child is at the critical period of brain development. Take your children for outdoor activities instead of placing them in extra classes. The more they get to play freely and explore the outdoor surroundings, the more skilful they become.
Spend your pre-dinner time in a nearby park with your children instead of watching television. Children need to work on their large motor skills such as running, jumping, climbing, skipping, galloping and hopping.
Young children need to practise using their fine motor skills in using scissors, pasting, tracing with a crayon or colour pencil and drawing. Worksheets are not stimulating. Children can colour their own drawings and write their own stories. Help them put their ideas into words and write down their words for them. It is more fun and interesting when children read their own stories rather than struggling through a reader book.
2. Many parents focus on their children’s intellectual skills, particularly in their reading, writing and arithmetic. Very little time is spent on dealing with children’s emerging emotional self. Preschool children need to work through their feelings in creative, non-destructive ways. To begin helping your child, talk about what you and your child do every day in household chores and errands. Talk about your feelings in various situations.
For example, after completing your grocery shopping, you can say, “I feel happy that I have managed to complete what I set out to do. It is always satisfying when we succeed in doing things we have planned.” When your preschool child is upset or angry, refrain from saying, “You don’t have to be angry.” Try acknowledging his feelings and let him know that he can put his feelings in words. Say, “You are angry with me. It is hard to find the right words to say. Tell me about it. I will listen patiently to you.”
3. Promote family literacy at home. Young children’s “reading” usually means looking at pictures and following their mums or dads’ reading-aloud sessions. There are parents who complain that their preschoolers refuse to sit patiently for a read-aloud session. Don’t worry. Children may not have the patience to listen to a book read aloud but they can still develop language skills when parents read signs and notices to them in their environment.
Build a family library at home. Arrange your books next to your children’s books. When you pick a book to read, your child can choose to do the same. Share your favourite book with your child. Let him know what you are reading. He will probably follow suit with his own book.
Learning to read is important. It is a skill that children should acquire early if they are fascinated by books. However, early literacy experiences should not be confined to reading and writing. The drill and practice exercises in worksheets are definitely not going to entice children to want to read and write.
Storytelling or reading aloud helps children to think about the meaning in words and learn to pay attention to stories. The best part is that children get to talk about and act out the story and this makes them active learners.
4. Children need to make connections between words and ideas. In shared reading, children get to hear new words, talk about meanings of words and connect the words with the pictures.
Rather than getting children to read a set of readers, choose beautifully illustrated and written storybooks. Encourage your child to do problem solving. Based on the stories, allow him to take on character roles. He may change the characters according to his understanding and interpretation.
Children between three and six years old ask many questions. Instead of providing them with all the answers when they ask “why”, you can try by asking back, “What do you think?” “How does that make you feel?”
Children who are allowed to think for themselves and make their own decisions tend to be self-efficient and self-reliant. When you encourage children to give their point of view, you also get to know what they are thinking.
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<font color="0000ff">What's your view?</font>
