Can Enrichment Classes replace Kindergarten?

[mum05]

insider:

The thousand and million are not important to young children but the base 10 is. With a solid ground with numbers 0 to 10, their subsequent grasping of the concept of multiples of 10 to whatever number will come easy.


There are so many things to cover for just these 11 numbers and several other maths concepts such as the greater/lesser, x number more/less, before/after, ordinal positioing, number bonds (8 is made up of 8/0, 7/1, 6/2, 5/3, etc), multiples/sets (of 2, 5, 10), arranging numbers from big to small and vice versa, odd/even, simple fractions, tell time, symmetry, grid, bar chart reading, money, subtraction (which is always more difficult for young children than addition, just like multiplication is easier than division for them). Then you have to teach about simple problem sums which include identifying key words in solving simple problems. Exposure to thousand and maybe also million is ok but not so necessary if the base 10 concepts are weak. Solid grounding of these 10 numbers will let a child sail smoothly through P1 usually...

jz fyi, our kid can count from 1 to hundreds, not juz recognising 00 as hundred and 000 as thousand, 000,000 as million.
that's precisely what want for our kid to learn, number bonds, etc etc, the school doesn't teach at all. Not saying that our kid is smart nor am trying to boost, but as a mother, I understand that our kid can do more than what the school is doing, comparing their school work to the worksheets I've bought from retail bookstores. Thus the want to go enrichment routes since they'd be more concentrated or rather, specialised in the appropriate manner and progress according to each child's ability rather than being too advanced or too slow(to have to cater to all other kids & then still pay for enrichment classes).

As for their English, cant imagine most still can't read, and those who can are those whom are attending enrichment classes from other resources since nursery level.

I'm considered late in considering to enrol our kid to these enrichment classes and this is becos we do not with to stress the kid too much plus it'd be straining for me due to the rush. But since there's such need to do the enrichment as not much/enough is achieved in the Kindy, we're considering this 'better learning' route...

Oh dear, I see that my post is also digressing alittle to other areas like some had, lolz... Probably better try to stick to the topic?

[tanglin]

my 4 yr old goes to 3 hr daily nursery, plus 2 enrichment classes on weekends.

He’s an only child. his 2 cousins are at least 2 years younger and they don’t see one another frequently. there are no children on our floor though we sometimes invite neighbours from another block to come to our house to play.

because of our situation, i feel that he benefits from the daily interaction with his peers in nursery. his class has 20 kids, so not only does he have fun playing with his friends and learn how to interact harmoniously with the other children, we also took the opportunity to teach him other self-care skills like how to ask for the teacher’s assistance when he needs help (eg. asking for more food serving or to go to the toilet). He is still learning to speak up louder and be more persistent with his call for help than at home since there is a roomful of kids running around vying for attention. we also reminded him to do whatever he can on his own like how to clean his mouth properly after lunch, wipe his own nose etc instead of waiting for an adult. i think these developments help to improve his confdence and independence, and are easier to train when he is in a daily classroom setting on his own.

[buds]

mum05:

....... led us to consider if kindy attendance is really that necessary. Can anyone share your views?

My take... With good knowledgable enrichment teachers,
kindy attendance not neccessary.

A plus if the sole caregiver has rich resources and time to cover the basics of
what is appropriate for kindy-aged children to learn at home. I have taught a
few students who did only enrichment time with me without the need for daily
kindy. Small teacher-children ratio enabled more time to develop each child's
learning potential. A few students were able to stretch their time to do even
Science and also Geography studies due to the personal attention. It is not
entirely true that enrichment lessons are unable to fulfill the need for the
teachings of values, self-help skills, practical life skills & grace and courtesy...
cos as mentioned earlier, a good teacher can do the job well regardless of
whether it is a kindy, cc or enrichment set-up.

Agree with a few others abt the socialization part... as this really depends on
the nature of the individual child. Children who have outgoing personality will
thrive well without the need for interaction with big group of children on a
daily basis. That said, having a good mix with children of other age groups &
characters can provide exposure to the life out there. Bullies, overbearing, shy
or just the typical talkative ones.. Children can learn to stand up for themselves
or help friends in distress and even develop leadership skills. This again can still
be achieved regardless of the centre set-up. Good teachers are ones who not
only just teach... but the ones who take the time to observe and guide children
effectively.

I always try to remind myself children should be an all-rounder. There is little or
no point at all in being extremely good in all aspect of academics, if the child is
poor in mannerism, basic respect & courtesy.

While we try to achieve the needs for a thorough pre-school education for our children & being so termed ready for Pri education... we must also always
remember to balance the holistic needs of our children for eg. emotional &
social needs for the child as well.

Mum05, from what you have shared here.. i say go for it!
All my best to your boy! :celebrate:

PS : Interesting topic by the way!

[buds]

insider:

Erm....maybe your son is in a school that doesn't have a good curriculum (or poor teachers who don't carry out the curriculum).

Oooh.. don't we know many of those kinds. :rubhands:

insider:

....... so by learning in K2 is already not pro-theory. Limited ones can do these well before 7 years old but preschool curriculum is written to cater to 'normal' children and not the extremely weak / bright (these two categories need other forms of support).

I agree with insider with this point. There are some parents who do tend to
over-teach children... much to their ignorance. Depending on the nature or
personality of the individual child, this can turn out to be either a positive
or negative effect to the advantage/detriment of the child respectively...

If a child is extremely advanced and has to adapt to the norms of a govt
primary school syllabus, the things he or she would be learning would bore
him/her to bits... which at times result in behavioural issues in class.

One friend's child was so advanced he finished his work so quickly and untidily
(untidy work cos he says he has done all of the assignments before... and he
even added that it was so lame..) and was fidgety waiting for other classmates
to finish. In the end, he went round disturbing other children & was labelled as
being an ill-behaving student. He became un-stimulated for awhile until mom &
teacher sat down to discuss what positives can be done to prevent similar
occurences of classroom disruptions.

Way better now... from the last i've seen him & definitely thanks to a very good,
passionate and patient teacher, who cares to observe children beyond their
academic strengths but on their hidden potentials instead.

insider:

Personal thought on this is even if a child can do addition and subtraction up to 100 or 1000 before P1, chances are most of them will 'average' out when they hit PSLE time and so the 'early gain' is not gain per se (exception if child is gifted but if gifted means totally different learning route).

Insider... with the exception of those (ctrs/teachers) who teach children age-
appropriately, i do think some children may not necessarily phase out as the
concepts are taught on time on target (not the advanced kind) & considered
to have had such skills embedded concretely and timely.. your take?

insider:

Basically no need to learn to such advance levels for maths before P1 but to each its own I know...

This is something preschool teachers, supervisors and managers have most
challenge convincing parents with.. While it is good to be a wee bit ahead,
and in the know... too advanced can prove otherwise. There is a saying
that too much of anything is not good.

insider:

Putting gifted kids aside (my writing is cater to average children), average children progress through stages in their cognitive development (which is the theory that curriculum writer based when writing curriculum).

Yes, indeed it is a fair and (wow) concise writing catered to average children.
Theory at a glance like that. :lol:

insider:

Almost all preschoolers can 'accomplish' a lot in their academic areas if we want to, but looking at overall development is more important for this young ones as after P1, it's almost like a non-stop academic journey...

Parents must be able to look at pre-school education beyond the needs of
preparing a child for only Primary 1...

[tanglin]

keenDaddy:

without concept in mind). So parents don't be so impressed if you go visiting and staff there telling you that a K1 child can recognise the thousand or million. Should ask whether can the child rearrange a string of numbers from big to small or a child knows that 3 more than 5 is 8 etc.

i totally agree.

DS shows a keen interest in numbers since young, so hubby always tries to teach him a little more. turned out that the little guy can do simple addition and recognises numbers with a string of zeros behind them, yet given 7 or 8 objects placed randomly there's no guarantee that he will count them correctly every time, cos he wasn't taught how to organise/group them in a systematic way so that he will not overcount or omit any one. it's always essential to get the basic fundamentals right first..

[pummanuel]

I think the crux of this topic is if the kindergarten/CC fits the child’s and the parents’ needs.


If parents can find a kindergarten/CC that suits the child to a T, meets the parents’ expectations in terms of curriculum (let’s not talk about whether the expectations are reasonable as ‘reasonableness’ can be so subjective), then I think a school environment will be better, esp for working parents. If the child is fine with the school except that the school’s curriculum leaves much to be desired, perhaps a change of school may do the trick.

However, if the child has problems adjusting to school or learns better under a different setting, then homeschooling + enrichment course may be a better alternative. But I think this requires more efforts from the parents as weekly enrichment classes + off-the-shelf worksheets may not be sufficient/appropriate since children learn well through repetition and very often than not, some customisation of learning materials.

My daughter spoke only Mandarin prior to N1 as she spent her first 3 years in China. I chose a preschool which conducts lessons in both English and Chinese. As all of her schoolmates spoke only English, she was forced to pick up English. Likewise, as the Chinese teacher was present at all times, her command of mother tongue didn’t compromise, except for losing some of the ‘sh’, ‘ch’ etc in her spoken language. I felt that if I had homeschooled her, this wouldn’t have been achieved in such a short period of time.

And as the only child, though she meets her cousins every weekend, no matter how strict I am with her, she tended to be self-centered in her behaviour at times. Through the daily interactions with her classmates, she has learnt to share and work with her peers.

From these perspectives, I believe a kindy suits her and my needs.

However, as Insider pointed out, the school curriculum is written with a target group in mind, and not a specific child, there are times when I felt that more could be done. For example, the school repeated the teaching of letter sounds in N2 for the first 3 terms. I felt this was a waste of time and she was getting bored in class, so I taught her to read using Letterland phonics + Tamarind’s method. Likewise, as the focus of the Chinese teachers is to encourage the use of Mandarin among the English-speaking children, little was done on recognition of Chinese characters. As my daughter was establishing herself in her English reading skills, I was petrified she may find recognising Chinese characters an uphill task, so I started to teach her Chinese. In other words, I complemented the school’s curriculum through some home-enrichment.

And yes, like what the experts pointed out, we have to be careful not to over-teach. I have this problem as I tend to set deadlines. But over the months, I’ve learnt to assess my daughter and myself better and thus, setting reasonable targets. How do I know? Coz my girl will bring me her books after her nap time and yelled "Mama, stop sitting in front of the laptop. It’s my study time!"

In conclusion, I felt that there is no definite right or wrong. Depending on the child’s and parents’ needs, we can go for either total kindy or total enrichment or a mix but ultimately, IMO, a certain level of home-learning is still required for young children.

[tweety17]

buds:

My take... With good knowledgable enrichment teachers,
kindy attendance not neccessary.

A plus if the sole caregiver has rich resources and time to cover the basics of
what is appropriate for kindy-aged children to learn at home. I have taught a
few students who did only enrichment time with me without the need for daily
kindy. Small teacher-children ratio enabled more time to develop each child's
learning potential. A few students were able to stretch their time to do even
Science and also Geography studies due to the personal attention. It is not
entirely true that enrichment lessons are unable to fulfill the need for the
teachings of values, self-help skills, practical life skills & grace and courtesy...
cos as mentioned earlier, a good teacher can do the job well regardless of
whether it is a kindy, cc or enrichment set-up.

well-said

buds:

I always try to remind myself children should be an all-rounder. There is little or
no point at all in being extremely good in all aspect of academics, if the child is
poor in mannerism, basic respect & courtesy.

While we try to achieve the needs for a thorough pre-school education for our children & being so termed ready for Pri education... we must also always
remember to balance the holistic needs of our children for eg. emotional &
social needs for the child as well.

agreed fully :goodpost:

[mum05]

me too, tweety17 :).


Actually, after reading sooo many responses, I don't know how to react anymore 'cos I think, what I wanted to say has been more or less related earlier, lazy to repeat la, :P. (plus some posts are not exactly related to this topic but in response to what I was also responding to...)

Anyway, our intention to go this 'route' is to give our kid more breathing space and more time to play and relax. Going to the Kindy and enrichment classes take up too much time and put strain on me as well and thus, since the Kindy's not exactly providing what our kid needs, we have to look for alternatives. However, bearing in mind that we will still go for those who conducts lessons in a more fun/creative way. Not the hard drilling and must achieve something by some time type.

Surprisingly, our kid has(concurrently), requested for us to change the school recently, w/out realising that the parents are already thinking about it!

Oh btw, insider, our child's not attending an Int'l school(too ex la, don't believe in paying sooo much for kindy education, :>) but a local school with many branches and >30 yrs of local preschool education experiences - thus, we(including many many parents - some already pulled out) are very disappointed with the overall education(we're talking about juz academic) they're providing.

Anyway, thanks again, for all yr contributions!

[keenDaddy]

tamarind:

You are very fortunate. My neighbour's little boy goes to a CC. He cannot feed himself, and the teachers didn't care, so he is now very pale and skinny. One day when his grandma fetched him in the evening, she found that his clothes were very wet. It turned out that teachers let kids \"bathe on his own\", and he did not know how to dry himself. So he put on his clothes when his body was still wet.


Yes it is important to find a good CC. But a good CC cost about $1000 or more ? Many families cannot afford that. Even if we can afford to pay that kind of money, there are no good CCs in our area.

Although, it is true that schools which collect more school fees can pay more for teachers (hence perhaps getting better quality teacher) and afford to have lower teacher-student ratio, there are still good CCs which cost <$1000. At least, I am also not paying that kind of fees.

[tweety17]

mum05:

me too, tweety17 :).

Actually, after reading sooo many responses, I don't know how to react anymore.....

Hi mum05, actually no need to react lah...cos' i think most of us here are just sharing experiences and exchanging ideas, no right or wrong Every child is unique and every family is different, and I think as parents, we all want the best for our children.

From the way you are concerned about your child's development, I think that you are a very responsible parent and as you are the closest to your child, you know what is best for him.

buds:

Mum05, from what you have shared here.. i say go for it!
All my best to your boy! :celebrate:

As per buds, I would also say go for it!