learning made easier

In the sun newspaper dated 13.2.07, child psychologist Goh Chee Leong

explained the 3 fundamental ways to help yr child's brain development by

creating healthy learning environment for children:

1) expand their horizon.

Expose them to different places(zoo, museum or bookstore) to gain

variety of experience. Travel is good too as it expands their mind and

fuel their curiosity.

2)reading is important

Read to children on anything. start fr young (1 or 2 yrs old). The idea

is to expose them to stories, characters and ideas.

3)be sensitive to their interest.

detect their interest and build on it, this is called Child Initiated

Learning. When a child ask a question, parent should always answer but

in a sensible way. If don't know, tell the child nicely, find out the

answer and the let the child know later.

If a child (age 3-6) awake 12 hours a day, no more than 40% of the day

(about 5 hrs)shd be structured learning(formal education in

kindergarten, piano classes, ballet, tuition etc)

There must be free time for unstructured learning(time to play).When a

child is playing , it is the time when information is being processed. The way

the brain operates is that it needs time to consolidate the info and

usually the info is when the child is playing.

A child, by nature, is already intellectually curious and seeks info.

The brain is designed to absorb info.

There are many children who hate learning because they associate it with

examination.


Nowadays parents are very 'kiasu'(afraid of being defeated), they will try to arrange their children to attend tuitions classes and other structure learning classes. These will very likely will deprive their playing time. I met a mother whom send his son (age 6) to both sessions of kindergarten classes as the morning class do not teach Mandarin.Since she is english educated and she would like her son to go to chinese school later on. She also enrol her son to mandarin classes in the afternoon. Now at age of 9, his son give up to learn.

Points to ponder:
How much time we let our kids spent on structure learning?How about unstructured learning/playing time?
If our kids not happy while attending structure learning,are we as parents care about their feeling?