I was walking aimlessly in Popular Bookshop while waiting for Clement and I happened to pass by a stack of assessment books.Wow! They do have assessment books for nursery children!! However, when I picked up the books, I was quite shocked to see the difficulty level of these assessment books! For age 3-4 (that is Jaimie's age!), besides writing small and capital letters, they have a book on writing sentences too!!!! For the Chinese books, there are books on writing simple characters besides the easier ones on learning the basic strokes （笔画）and basic element （部首）of a word!
Suddenly I panicked.
Jaimie could only recognise the letters and write the capital A and B (I am not sure about the other letters as I seldom asked her to write for me to see). For Chinese characters, she could only recongise 小 at the moment. I have not even started to ask her to write anything!
Many of my friends' children who are of the same age as Jaimie seem to be far more advanced than her. Some can read, some can write, some can do maths, some can draw. Jaimie can only talk and dance. =_=
Sometimes I really wonder if I should be doing more than what the teachers are teaching her in her childcare. When should I start her on doing extra homework on a routine basis. How much should she be learning now. I do not need her to be very advanced but neither do I want her to be falling behind. I want her to have a fun childhood but am I sabotaging her future learning. Is there a guideline to advise parents the average progress of a child at different age.
I have no answers.
So I bought 2 letter tracing books for Jaimie just to make myself feel better.
13 voices:
Hi ANgie- Jus my 1cent worth hor. When i do homeschool, i only covers things that schools don cover. Which are those brain training stuffs, brain teaser, memory etc. Also cover on phonics via both cdroms & typical writing. I don usually call those books assessment books. I usually refer them as activity book. :D coz they doing activity ma...
Also i find that at home, can cover more on science, maths (not those typical adding), astronomy, biology & many more. :D Really...
Jus enjoy ya!
Err I bought a few letter tracing books and they are gathering dust. hehehe...
RR is able to write A to Z (some inverted, some with extra strokes)
The only word she can recognise and write is her own name RAIN, which sometimes turn out as RINA, ARIN etc..
Maybe you can start with JAIMIE first. Then whatever colouring, drawing she has done, she can put a name to it.
Chinese characters? RR can recognise 一 二 三 。 hahaha...
Dun panick lah..On our boss' DOE, there is no mention of academic development hor.. only holistic development.
I dun think you want a A* kids who is not resilient, is unhappy and fussy and unable to face the world.
Aiyo!!! Tell me about it man!
The level of difficulty is truly high now... As I recall, the words my younger one is learning in nursery was what I read in P1!!!!
for cherrlyn, she will find excuse or change topic when i asked her to one or two worksheet per day..so you see how can i not start early ...
for Jae, she is a bright girl. Her talent is dancing..trust me..she is very good and i see her enjoy to her fullest..as for the rest take things at a time lor..at least now let her do tracing the fundamentals 1 to 10 and small letter a to z..
According to Faith's principal, K1 is the time to "panic". That is, if a child hasn't mastered the basic stuff by end of N2, K1 is the time to work on their weak areas.
Actually for kids aged 3 and 4, the key thing is just to work on their fine motor skills and tracing skills (English and Chinese text), ensure they know their letters and sounds, and that they know one-to-one counting up to 10 or 20. At least this is what Faith's school focuses on. The kids will then be ready for greater emphasis on reading, writing and arithmetic skills by the time they're 5.
Maybe Faith's school is slow lah, but it works for me.
These books I have gotten them when Popular had a sale. That was when Dayan 2 yrs or younger (I'm more kiasu lor). One reason was cheap & the other was make him write or at least recognise what r they. Dayan has other assessment books but yet to do them.
Maybe u can ask Jae to write her fav cartoon character's name, eg "Dora" . Then u will know whether she can write all the letters or not.
thanks for the comments!
at least now i know i shd seriously start jae on the tracing skills... i mean, she can trace well bt i need to do it regularly with her and instill some discipline in learning/ doing worksheets.
You can still afford to wait for next year Nursery 2 - basic skills to recognise all alphabet letters, write them and numbers 1 - 20.
For now instilling them the interest to do such workbooks will be good.
haha make sure activities FUN not something they drag their feet to do.... I am not overly worried as long as they start to recognise the letters & letter sound and knowing number concept of 1-10 is considered very good for them.
if Jaimie is more keen in active games, use that as a means of learning maths or that matter everything else!!
Hi Angie, jus adding my 1 cent too..hehe..
I had the same thought as you previously so when my son Gavin was in N2, I didn't really give him any additional things other than some tracing books and activity books. I did have one assessment book on chinese and english each but I did not force Gavin to do it, just to get him started to be comfortable doing such books. But I was greatly shocked when Gavin reached K1 and teachers in school started giving spelling and 听写. The words they had to learn was what we learnt in Pri 1 or more!!!! In fact he is learning 海豚， 海狮 and 海象 for his upcoming 听写. What I suggest is you get Jae to start on her name, both english and chinese. Most teachers in pre-school start on that. Dun worry too much though, the most important thing is to let the kids learn happily and not force it on them. They will find it a dread if work is force onto them. 加油！
Samantha, thanks!!! and i am shocked at the 听写words!! i dont think clement can write 海豚！from a teacher's point of view, i find it quite silly to 听写on such low usage words. i thought words like 手、头、口etc are more appropriate and practical?! my oh my!! i have lost touch with the pre-primary and primary education! I dont think my JC students can write 海豚,you know!!*sob*
viv, that's the other thing Clement and i had been discussing... should we follow her nature or instill more discipline in her? the purpose of me buying the tracing books and making it a regular routine (i try!!!) is because i want her to have some discipline. nobody is going to have the patience to deal with her if she continues to behave the way she does nw when she is in Pri sch. so we're now taking the first step in introducing not-so-fun learning.
Angie,
Just a thought for u.
I had a frenz who send her kid to kumon and the kids over there have to complete worksheet everyday.
Maybe u can consider if u had a hard time teaching Jaimie to focus on worksheet since kid always prefer to follow their peers but seriously to speak be more relax about it and dun pressure urself too much as well ya.
I know that Jaimie is a very smart gal so u dun need to worry too much just that u really got to put in the effort to instil discipline and patience in her that all.
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