Education
is a building block to success in life. As parents, we have a responsibility to
introduce our children to a lifelong love of learning and to help them to
discover life's wonders and possibilities. Educating our children begins in the
womb. From the moment that you read to your baby or sing to your baby in-utero,
you have started turning the wheels of educating them. Remember that you are
their first and, quite possibly, the most influential teacher that they will
ever have.
After it
is born, your baby may quickly be drawn to your voice because it has
"learned" it while in the womb. If you go to the hospital for your
delivery, you could really be amazed at how fast your newborn baby is able to
distinguish your voice from others. A newborn baby is definitely a quick study.
As they continue to grow, they will need you to fill their minds and lives with
the basics. It is so important that, as a parent, you take an active role in
your child's education, and not to leave it on the shoulders of others.
It is not
always easy to make the commitment to personally educate your child or to work
to prepare them for entering school. It takes a lot of discipline to create and
effectively execute a learning plan for your young child. One great way to
start the education process at home is by reading to your children. As you
read, talk to your children about what you have read. Ask them age appropriate
questions to make sure that they have understood the text. This will help them
with reading comprehension and problem solving, which are both skills that they
will need when they enter school. You can also take time to teach them many of
the basics of language skills such as identifying letters and high frequency
words, which are words, like "the" or "and", that we see
all of the time in text. Phonics also helps when incorporated into a reading
plan.
Another
wonderful way to prepare your children for school and to teach them
quantitative skills is by using daily math. Daily math encompasses the regular
day to day uses of numbers which can include understanding patterns, sorting by
shape or some other factor, counting or basic calculations like you would do
when preparing to shop, telling time, and using math to solve simple everyday
problems. You may be surprised at how fast your children will begin to
understand the correlation between numbers at the supermarket and numbers on a
worksheet. Also, introducing them to shapes, which is basic geometry, will be
extremely helpful as they prepare for school.
Behaviorally,
as you prepare your child for kindergarten, you can employ a "quiet
time" in which your child may have quiet reading to do or some other quiet
activity. Try to create a daily schedule that will help your child to start
understand that there is a time and place for everything. Children like
structure, even if it is a little loose or similar to a Montessori program in
which children are allowed more time for self-directed learning. Helping your
child to understand limits and setting some expectations around behavior will
encourage your child to exercise good judgement as they enter school.
Whether
you decide to home-school your young children or to prepare them for
kindergarten, this can be a very exciting time for you and your child. The
world is full of fun and marvelous learning opportunities. So, teach your child
to recognize and take advantage of them, and you will set your child up for a
life of great possibilities.
What Is Dyslexia and What Does It Look Like?
There are millions of people that have difficulty reading at the standard level for their age and education. Some will struggle due to their failure to understand how to read, because they do not recognize letter or understand phonetics and letter blends. Others, will have vision problems that hinder their reading. Still, there is a group that will lack the ability to read fluently because they are dyslexic.
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