How to teach my 5 year old to study?

[ChiefKiasu]

xavierine_angel:

... eg. when he wants to play ps3, i will ask him to spell 'play' for me before he can play....

Err... he already plays the ps3? Then I'm afraid he will not be interested in any of the phonics games you can find on the Internet.

[tamarind]

xavierine_angel,

You are welcome. Now you should focus in phonics. Forget about making him repeat the letters after you, I have tried doing this with my boy, he also could not repeat after me when he was 4 to 5 years old. Now that he is almost 6 years old, he happily spells words without the need to practice. In fact, he likes spelling and he often asks me to give him spelling, so he can \"show off\". He is also able to write his own short stories and poems without asking me for help. All thanks to phonics, and of course, reading books regularly.

Also don't forget to praise your child once he has improved. I feel that praising a child is a very effective method of motivating him to learn. When my boy first started learning phonics and reading, every time he finished reading a page or his phonics words for the day, I would cheer and clap loudly That really made him happy

[tamarind]

ChiefKiasu:

xavierine_angel:

... eg. when he wants to play ps3, i will ask him to spell 'play' for me before he can play....

Err... he already plays the ps3? Then I'm afraid he will not be interested in any of the phonics games you can find on the Internet.

The first thing to do is to remove the ps3. Kids who play a lot of electronics games will not be motivated to study.

[xavierine_angel]

Hi all, i just found out tat i got soooooo... many books at home for him. But none of the phonics books. I got many story books as well so will start him on reading one page for a day and slowly build up his interest. But, I'm still not sure if i shld change the school from ICR to somewhere else. He did phonics with Edufarm and Mindstretcher previously. After that particular conversation with the teacher, I somehow felt that the teacher is not that expert in phonics. I dunno but this is just some negative feelings that i have. Should i continue to put him there? I'm just confused. It's not cheap so i dun want to put my son there to learn nothing out of it. :?

[noobparent]

I’m not sure if a 5 year old knows the concept of studying yet.


Have to sit down with the child and make them do their writing, spelling, reading etc. At this age, it is all about dedicated parental supervision. In fact, I think this will be the case at least till upper Primary or even Secondary.

[mummy of 2]

noobparent:

I'm not sure if a 5 year old knows the concept of studying yet.


Have to sit down with the child and make them do their writing, spelling, reading etc. At this age, it is all about dedicated parental supervision. In fact, I think this will be the case at least till upper Primary or even Secondary.

I agree. Every night, I will spend 20-30 minutes with DS1, who is also in K1 this year, to do some work. Right now it's reading Chinese readers and word recognition as I realise he can't recognise mnay Chinese words. Even though his PCF teacher commented his Chinese is very good, I think he can do better.

Other times, he will do assessment books. About 12-15 pages on average. When I first started this, he was quite resistant, could not concentrate for long and alwways tried to find excuses to stop doing work. After about half a year, it has become part of his routine, and he would remind us to take out the assessment books. Making it part of his routine will help, though it takes time, patience and perserverance.

[hongszeken]

Sometimes it could be because there is only so much information a young child can absorb if the course is too academic or rigid. Learning language is not easy even for adults.


Have you tried some of the alternative language lessons? Apparently music and light repetition can help children improve their memory of words in a language, and even in foreign languages.

[tamarind]

noobparent:

I'm not sure if a 5 year old knows the concept of studying yet.


Have to sit down with the child and make them do their writing, spelling, reading etc. At this age, it is all about dedicated parental supervision. In fact, I think this will be the case at least till upper Primary or even Secondary.

If a child is able to read very well in English, he will have no problems doing his English/Maths/Science homework independently. Most kids do not like to do homework because they have difficulty understanding the words. If a child is able to read effortlessly, then he will not mind doing the work because it is so easy for him and he can complete the work very quickly. A child who has a very strong foundation in phonics will be able to spell words easily, and there is no need to spend a lot of time learning spelling.

Before 6 years old, parents should focus in teaching languages only, rather than trying to send the kids to too many enrichment classes to learn all sorts of things. Reading very well does not mean reading books with 2 to 3 sentences a page. IMHO it means the ability to read a page of 200+ words in less than 2 minutes

[tamarind]

hongszeken:

Sometimes it could be because there is only so much information a young child can absorb if the course is too academic or rigid. Learning language is not easy even for adults.


Have you tried some of the alternative language lessons? Apparently music and light repetition can help children improve their memory of words in a language, and even in foreign languages.

Kids between the age of 3 to 6 have an amazing ability to learn languages, they are many times better than adults at learning languages. Adults lose this ability when they grow up. It is very important that parents make good use of this period of time to teach their kids. It is possible for kids of average and above learning ability, to be able to read long novels in both English and Chinese by the age of 7. The key is to find the most effective methods, and start from 3 years old. There is no need to spend many hours a day learning, less than 30 mins will do.

Check out my blog :
http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/

Also read this very good article :
http://www.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Asia/Story/A1Story20100511-215479.html

[Brenda10]

tamarind:

hongszeken:

Sometimes it could be because there is only so much information a young child can absorb if the course is too academic or rigid. Learning language is not easy even for adults.


Have you tried some of the alternative language lessons? Apparently music and light repetition can help children improve their memory of words in a language, and even in foreign languages.

Kids between the age of 3 to 6 have an amazing ability to learn languages, they are many times better than adults at learning languages. Adults lose this ability when they grow up. It is very important that parents make good use of this period of time to teach their kids. It is possible for kids of average and above learning ability, to be able to read long novels in both English and Chinese by the age of 7. The key is to find the most effective methods, and start from 3 years old. There is no need to spend many hours a day learning, less than 30 mins will do.

Check out my blog :
http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/

Also read this very good article :
http://www.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Asia/Story/A1Story20100511-215479.html

Hi Tamarind

I agree with you.

Although we did not teach dd the phonics, however I recall we did endorsed her a short term class during K1/k2 that offered by the childcare.
Another thing was when she was 4-5 five years old, I purchase a set of reading materials come with the CD which teach a lot on this area (e.g. matching voice to word, compound words, sounds of words, rhymes and blends etc). Now then I understand why dd has no problem in spelling/dictation after reading your bog. :lol:

Thank you.