The Joy Of Learning

Children who ask questions

Parents often get really impatient with the endless whys and hows their little ones throw at them. Especially if they are exhausted after a hard day at work or have plenty of house chores to catch up with.

Children are naturally curious and inquisitive, we should be proud that they are asking all this intelligent questions, that show they are observant and smart. If you don’t know the answers, do not just yell at them or just sit there. Be a resourceful parent, and be as smart as your child. Grab a book, search on the net, they are many things you can do!

Teenagers often complain that their parents don’t know ANYTHING! If you do not care to help your child finding answers to his questions, one day he will tell you to search on Google before asking dumb questions.

Beginner, emergent and fluent readers

One of the most valuable skills one can acquired through life is the ability of self learning. The foundation of self learning is the ability to read independently and analytically.

Most children do not just start reading overnight, it’s a gradual process as they acquire certain set of skill. These skills include:

(1) Symbolic representations

-Understanding that marks on a page represent letters and words

(2) Phonemic awareness
-understand that words are made up of smaller sounds which are called phonograms

(3)Vocabulary development
- have a large pool of words and know how to use them

Reading aloud to your child at home is the best thing you can do to help him or her learn to read independently. You need to read to your child as often as possible, even though he might read independently yet. Once children have acquired the above skills, they will sooner or later burst into reading and develop from an emergent reader to be a fluent reader who can read independently.

Introduce National Geographic to your Children

We have no idea why he did that, but whenever the guy who collected old newspaper for recycling got some National Geographic magazines in the piles, he would give them to our daddy.

As children who grew up in a small village in Malaysia, where it was quite common for children during our time to drop out of school before 10 years old back then, of course none of us heard of any designer brands nor own  any Guess watches. We (my siblings and I) were very privilege to have access to old National Geographic magazines. We could hardly read the articles due to our poor English, but we were always fascinated with all the colorful pictures, in awed with the wonder of natures and enjoyed flipping through the pages endlessly.

Do you know that National Geographic has a section for children on its website now?

http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/

There are many pictures, maps, videos, games and activities about nature and animals on this section for children. You may find them interesting for introducing natures and animals to your children. I think children would love them to bits.

Getting your children excited about learning

For most of us adults, nothing excites us more than seeing a child developing a burning desire to learn more about the world around him. Most children are curious and inquisitive by nature, they will start asking you all sort of questions about the world, and you need to show him that it’s indeed a good way to live - ask when in doubt. :-)

A child who questions everything shows that he or she is intelligent and will grow up to be a brilliant individual. They are many ways you can foster and encourage this kind of attitude in a child.

First, you need to introduce books into the lives of your child from a very young age. Even before your child can response to you verbally, you should read picture books and describe in details what the pictures tell. This may seem silly or even pointless, but educational studies have shown that the child is absorbing. He will be a more eloquent and verbose child once he is ready to talk.

As the child gets older, you can start reading more encyclopedic and knowledge based books. For toddlers and preschoolers, it is best to avoid fantasy books because many might not be able to tell realty from fantasy. Make the trip to book store or library a special and fun outing for you and your kids. Go often to get new books, and encourage your kids to finish the books before the next outing so that they can get more books. As your kids become more proficient readers, they would want more and higher content levels.

Everyone of us may have different experience and parenting journey, helping your children to develop a healthy relationship with books is just one important aspect that will be rewarding in itself, and this should inspire you to try your best as a parent.

Everybody can homeschool

I have written on this blog a few times about homeschooling and a number of people had emailed me to voice about their concerns and the possible cons of homeschooling. I haven’t had any posts explaining the basics of homeschooling, where to go for more online resources, or how to find the legalities of homeschooling for where you live. This was brought home to me when a 15 years old boy asked me last week how could he get started with homeschooling.

For a 15 years old boy who has a few more years to go in the public school system before going to college, homeschooling is about taking the route of self-education. It’s not about buying the most expensive curriculum or passively waiting for a “teacher” to spoon feed him. He can take on a program for independent study through a local homeschooling chapter. In these programs, students usually meet with a teacher several times a week and the center would provide the materials. While this is not true “homeschooling,” it may meet his needs and satisfy his parents. In fact, a few good books and some educational software could cover almost everything.

What is Homeschooling?

Homeschooling is basically is parent directed instead of institutionalized education. This can occur in the kitchen of a home or at other locations in a home, for example a spare bedroom, the garage, the basement, or the study room. Many parents also find ways to teach their children outside of the home i.e. taking lessons, going to the library, going on field trips and visiting museums. In short, parents assume full responsibility in educating their children. The parents may choose to involve others to help, but they are still in charge.

Why do people homeschool?

There are a wide array of reasons why parents may choose not to enroll their children in public schools. However, a majority of parents have chosen to homeschool for one or a mixture of more of the following three basic reasons: school environment, academics and religious or moral.

Many homeschooling parents were concerned about the environment of public schools. The worries ranged from safety, bullies, gangsters to drugs, and so on. Many also homeschool because they are dissatisfied with the academic and education standard at public schools. Some parents choose to homeschool desire to impart their religious or moral instruction at homel. There are also many more other reasons people choose to homeschool i.e. their children have learning difficulties, special needs. Some try to get away from bad public school teachers, some do it because of the father’s work schedule. The reasons can go on, and on.

How to homeschool?

There are just as many ways how people homeschool as in why they homeschool. Some people use a very structured curriculum, other have a more relaxed approach. Some parents pick and choose individual curriculum for each subject. Some might use a particular approach like Montessori, Charlotte Mason and Unschooling . Some parents take a mixed of a few approaches, some are doing school at home, some allow child directed learning. It’s also very often to find parents who use one approach for one child, and another approach for another child. Most families also find their approach changes over time. You would find a diverse demographic of homeschoolers, they are people with different ethnics background, educational levels and financial situation.

If you are interested to become a homeschooler but worry about the financial aspect of it, Here’s how it can be tuition-free! You should never let your financial circumstance deter you from homeschooling, because you can homeschool with tuition free materials through this K-12 Free Homeschool. If you need additional thoughts, resources and information on homeschooling, check this out, you can browse through the K-12FreeHomeschool.org Course Catalog for more information.

Why teach children to read through spelling and writing?

Excerpt from an article published in Newsweek magazine(Oct 22, 2007)

Petitto, for instance, led a 2007 study that settled a decades-long debate over how children learn to spell: does the brain uses the same processes for words you can sound out (”blink”) as for those you can’t (”yacht”)? Brain imaging showed that blink-like words use the brain’s soundprocessing system, while yacht-like words rely on circuits that encode memory and meaning. That suggests “a dual-route model of spelling,” Petitto says. “Knowing this, there’s no way I’d teach a child spelling without phonological information. This is finally evidence that the brain needs that and uses it.”

The new journal, called Mind, Brain, and Education, is full of other fascinating hints. One study found that when children begin forming mental representations of letters, more than the visual sense comes into play. Crucially, the brain’s premotor area, which plans movements, does. That suggests that having children try to write letters at the same time that they’re learning to recognize them might produce what Denes Szucs and Usha Goswami of the University of Cambridge call “a multisensory representation” of letters, and “deepen learning.”

The full article is titled The case for Chutes and Ladders“, written by Sharon Begly. She cited two recently done studies.

1) Laura-Ann Petitto of the University of Toronto’s study of the dualprocessing of the spelling of words - and the need to include phonic instruction for reading.

2) A study published in the new journal of Mind, Brain, and Education by Denes Szucs and Usha Goswami of the University of Cambridge: early readers use the pre-motor part of the brain, so writing instruction is important for reading instruction.

Many asked me if they know the phonetic system of English, can’t they use use what they know to teach their children, why should they use Spell to Write and Read? I would say, SWR doesn’t just teach phonics, it teaches a completely different methodology which employs multi-sensory approach to deepen learning.

And I thought these study conclusions were fun, because those of us who are using SWR are already doing just that. :-)

Importance of parental involvement

Parents education is considered a very important part of Montessori education. Ideally, before a child to be accepted into a Montessori program, the parents are to be interviewed to ensure their philosophy of education and level of involvement are consistent with what the school desired.

Parents are expected to involve and participate in the educational process of their children in a variety of ways. They can get involved in helping their children improve their schoolwork by providing encouragement, prepared the right environment at home conducive for learning and modeling desired behavior (such as reading for pleasure). Those who do not work outside of home can also serve as classroom volunteers, homework assistance, or involve in decision making and other aspects of school governance.

Children achievement and learning outcomes are positively related to parent involvement in education of their children, the more intensively involve they are, more beneficial are the achievement effects. This hold true for all types of parent involvement and for all ages of students. However, parents differ greatly in their willingness, ability, and available time for involvement in school activities and their children educational process. In order for the parent involvement programs to run successfully, schools need a variety of parental involvement resources, so that they can offer a variety of ways which parents can participate. Schools that can provide a continuum of options for parent participation usually have successful, well organized and long lasting parent participation efforts.

Teaching penmanship using large motor skills part 3

You want to check out part 1 and part 2 before you proceed.

We started with the clock letters, writing on the floor using chalks.

We started with him tracing my writing and says the movement as he swings his arm i.e. “Start from the base line, go to 2 O’clock, turn back and then put a connector” for cursive a.

Once he is able to trace smoothly, he would write on his own by chanting the same as above.

Do it on blackboard with lines.

Children don’t automatically know where to start the letters, so it’s important to teach the placement and position of the letters.