Hating it

May 4, 2010

My son (age 4+) does not like reading very much. In school, he would cry with tears when the teacher asked him to do some reading and he says he hates it.

Hate is in his vocabulary. Whatever that displeases him, he would say he hates it. When it is time for him to go to sleep and he still wants to watch TV, he would say he hates it.  Sort of just casually out of the mouth kind of thing. But the fact that he would cry and refuse to read beckons something deeper?

I was discussing about it with my wife and I was already resolving not to press him to read if he does not like it. But how does discipline comes in? Shouldn't parents develop discipline in the child by repeatedly instilling in the child the need to read. He must be interested in order to proceed or shouldn't he? A difficult balance. Forcing him to read it will make him hate it but not forcing him will not do him good either. Maybe for a while, will just let loose and let him have his way. Not to force him to read until he becomes uninterested in it. To consistently remind him to do some reading but not forcing him to do it will be the way to go.

Any advice, anyone?

Spring comes

Mar 22, 2010

Spring comes

1) When we shed away our long johns.

2) When there's that last burst of snow shower

3) When there's regular rain shower rather than regular snow shower

4) When we tune our clocks one hour forward because of day light saving.

5) When we hear birds chirping outside our apartment

6) When we can open the front sliding glass door to let the fresh air come in during the day as the temperature climbs up to 50s.

7) When we turn up the thermostat because the temperatures are still in the 30s during the night

8) When we see motorbikes on the road again

9) When we see dew forming on the glass of our car again in the morning

10) It's suppose to be severe weather season also when tornado comes but march 2010 has been quiet thus far. Praise the Lord!

Harnessing his motivation

Mar 11, 2010

At this point of time, my son is attending preschool 3 times per week, around 3 hours each session. Other than that, he is either playing games on the computer or watching TV or playing with his toy cars. During winter, that's about the 3 or 4  things that he does day in day out. Maybe when summer comes, we will send him to some swimming classes.

I have talked to one of my friends and his son is one year younger than my son. He is attending mandarin classes and learning to play the keyboard. He says it's a singaporean 'kiasu' syndrome. 'Kiasu' is chinese hokkien dialect meaning afraid to lose out. If I were to compare my son to his,  it is as if my son is losing out. But, I choose not to think about it that way. To each his own.

My son likes to watch TV. He likes to play computer games. So I am harnessing that to my advantage. Sometimes before he goes to the TV or computer I will require him to do some things for me. I will ask him to either read a book from Fitzroy series or learn some chinese words from the learning aid posters or memorize scriptures. And he will be motivated to do these things that he does not like to do and finish it.

There are 10 books from the Fitzroy series and it's about phonics. Phonics is about learning the sound of each letter or letter combinations so that he is able to read sentences without memorizing individual words. The books increase in difficulty as the book number increase from 1 to 10. He's able to read the first 5 books now.

Learning mandarin is more difficult than reading the Fitzroy series. He easily forgets the words since he does not use it. I try to speak to him in mandarin sometimes but not using a lot of chinese words here.

He does scripture memory better than learning mandarin. Bible says faith comes from hearing. What better than hiding God's word in his heart and hopefully he will find it useful when he grows up. The other thing I am trying to do is to read Bible stories to him before he sleeps.

Romans 10

17Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ. -niv

17So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. -kjv

My friends, do share with us how your child learns, if possible, thanks