Helping your child achieve their best
As part of helping your child to be successful at school it is important to devote time to oversee their homework personally. Also of great importance is to have honest communication with the teacher as to your child's weak points - how else will you know what needs extra work.
In our 6 year old son's case he wasn't spelling. We actually wished the teacher had told us earlier so that we could have addressed the situation earlier. My wife decided to create flash cards of the words on his spelling list. We brought a laminated ($40) and 100 sheets ($15) and produced the spelling list on an A4 piece of paper. You then cut out the words and play a game with the child. Each card they get right they keep. They win if they end up with more cards than you. The result - our son's spelling tests went from zero to 80% or better with the wrong words now only a letter or two out. A massive improvement.
One area our son does very well is reading. However even here it is important to personalize their education. In this you must remember how you learned because your child being partially a product of you will very likely learn in the same manner as well. This brings me back to my own child hood and a teacher yelling and screaming at me to sound the words out. She thought I was a lousy reader because I didn't sound words out and ended up having me in tears. Quite frankly I now look back with disgust and wonder who was more stupid - the pupil not learning in HER way - or the teacher for trying to same thing again and again. Whilst sounding out words is very popular in the school system, I and my son don't learn to read this way. I learned to read by hearing the word said and associating that written word with the word sound, i.e. asking that question again and again - "whats that word". Now I am an adult I can sound out, but even so I still prefer to hear a word pronounced so I can correctly speak that word. Thats because I "read" in my head - I speak the words in my head - in fact as I type this out I am speaking it out in my mind. My son has excellent "RECALL" memory and so learning thousands of words by association rather than by sounding out is not difficult for him. To force him to learn by sounding out words only would frankly slow his reading progress. If you think of the Chinese, they can't sound out words - they associate a symbol or picture character with a word and there are thousands upon thousands of them - a classic example of learning to read by association rather than sounding out.
Examples such as these often lead some to just accept their child can't succeed at school. This is wrong unless your child has a specific learning or physical disability, the vast majority of children are vast sponges just waiting to soak up knowledge. The real question is have you tailored their education into a format in which they will not only understand but excel.
Also remember that children learn best through play so try to invent ways to learn through play. Children also learn by copying. So be careful what you model.
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This article is the property of Alastair HARRIS and his immediate family. It may be freely republished over the internet but must include original links.
Alastair HARRIS is the main promoter for article-gems.com article directory (visit http://www.article-gems.com) and the getfinancialfreedom4u family of websites, blogs and projects (visit http://getfinancialfreedom4u.ws) specializing in online business opportunities and education, income being generated by affiliate marketing, Google, GDI, eBay, e books, clip flipping and more. Alastair is rated as an expert author on numerous article directories and is very open to assisting others on the internet
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