Ready? Or not?
Gina is all ready for school. She has her “Cat in the Hat”
book bag and her “Elmo” sneakers. She’s picked out her first-day-of-school
outfit and decided which friend she will sit next to on the bus. She can recite
her ABCs and write her name. Her parents have the camera ready and they are all
set for the big day.
Gina may not be as ready as she and her parents think.
There’s more to school than lunch boxes and ABCs. Children need adequate
preparation for the high-stakes world education has become. Concerned parents
are the first and best asset a child can have. Teach your child about the world
of school. Add some fun to your lessons; make getting ready for school a
pleasure for you and your child. Here are some suggestions for making school an
exciting adventure for you both.
·
Don’t
just sing the alphabet song:
We all know it; “A,B,C,D … next time won’t
you sing with me.” Children need letter awareness but this traditional little
ditty teaches children a string of sounds they may not comprehend. How many of
us thought “LMONP” was the name of one letter?
Language begins with thoughts, concepts, words, sentences, and lastly,
letters. Help your child feel language.
“RRRRufffff,”
says the dog.
“MMMMMoooooooo!”
says the cow.
Make connections
between sounds and letters:
“Top starts with
the same sound as Tommy.”
“Marshmallows
make Molly mumble.”
“Milk and moo
both come from cows.
So when singing
the song, help your child learn the language of the letters.
·
Sing,
sing, sing!
Music involves
rhythm, rhyme, melody, timing, and more. Teach your child many types of songs.
Dance with the rhythm. Bang wooden spoons in time to the beat. Play games with
songs. Leave out the last word to practice rhyming: “This Old Man he plays two,
he plays knick, knack on his shoe” or glue, or gnu, or stew!
What
funny images will your child envision by changing just one word. Illustrate your silly song. Pass out rhythm instruments and play along.
What rhythm instruments, you ask? Plastic jars filled with beans make great
maracas. Pot-lid cymbals and stew-pot
drums sound lovely in a pots and pans symphony.
Listen to many
versions of the same song. What’s different? What’s the same? Listen carefully;
try something new. Music hath charms to teach the savvy child.
·
Jump up!
Jump down! Turn all around!
Help your child
follow two- and three-step directions. Often a teacher will say something like,
“Find your orange crayon and color the pumpkin.” This may not seem complicated
but many children have trouble going more than one step.
Make
it a game. Add one more step each time. “Pick up your sweater, carry it to the
hook, and hang it up.” “Wash your face first, your belly next, then your elbow.” Let your child give you directions. Make
mistakes. Laugh a lot.
·
Math is
life!
Math is not some
subject in school that we all dread. Math is everywhere. Math is the great
puzzle of life. If Aunt Joan comes over with your three cousins, how many
plates will we need on the table?” Even if your child can’t count, he can lay
out one plate for Aunt Joan, one for Erica, one for Joanna, and one for Caleb.
One-to-one correspondence is a basic concept of math.
Make up riddles:
If there are 12 legs at a party, how many children are there? How many horses?
Draw pictures and figure it out. Make a giant paper doll by tracing your child
and then compare it to toys, furniture, and appliances.
Play math games
in the car, in the store, at the zoo – everywhere you go. If it takes three
“Wiggles” CDs to get to Granny’s, is the two CD trip to Uncle Jim’s closer or
farther? How can we split six cookies among three children? Make math fun and it will be E-Z for your
child in school.
·
Practice
focusing.
This is a tough one. Sitting still
is boring. Yet lots of time in school is spent using this skill. It must be
learned like any other. Sit together and share a book. Assemble a puzzle. Build a tower of blocks or
draw a picture. Do not sit in front of the TV. Television is a passive medium.
School is a participatory event. Children must be focused and actively engaged
in learning. Keep the body still, but
your
mind moving.
·
Learn to
listen.
Listening skills
are paramount in most learning situations. Your child needs to be an active
listener, sorting, categorizing, rearranging, and digesting a huge amount of
verbal material each day. Listening to children’s radio or recordings helps your
child to develop this skill. Listen with your child and then discuss what you have
heard. Again, turn off the television. The scattered visual images television
offers impair the concentration skills necessary for active learning. Sit still and let music wash over you like
waves from the ocean. Listen to the
still small voice of your child as he learns to listen to the world.
·
Write
Your Child’s Name in Many Different Ways.
It’s great when
a child can recognize and write his/her name. Every school today seems to have
its own system of handwriting. Block letters may be OK for some, but D’Nealian
is the thing for others. If you know which school your child will be attending,
take the time to check this out. Make sure that your child sees his name
written in many different styles, upper and lower case. Use that font feature
of your computer: Writing my name
can be lots
of fun!
·
Use proper English at home.
Now is the time for all good
parents to come to the aid of their children. Baby babble sounds sweet coming
from a toddler but sour coming from a big school boy. Be a good model. Use good grammar. Make this
a habit for your child.
It is much harder to give up
“brang” than to grow up saying brought. Reading and writing will be much less
of a chore for a child who naturally uses correct grammar. Enunciate
distinctly. Clear pronunciation helps tremendously with spelling. Sure English
is a crazy language with more exceptions than rules, but don’t make it a
“second language” for your child by allowing lazy grammar and pronunciation to
trip them up.
·
Practice small motor skills.
Use those little fingers and toes. Spread cereal “O’s on
the table and let little Robby pick them up with a lollipop stick. Roll small
pieces of clay into balls and make a pile of peas. Grab the washcloth with your
toes in the tub.
Put olives on all of your fingertips and eat them one at
a time. Jiggle them around to make an olive puppet theater. Wink, blink, and
wiggle your nose.
Primary students are expected to use pencils, crayons,
and scissors. Exercising the small muscles in hands with fun activities like
these develops the dexterity needed to write, color, and cut.
·
Build BK.
Background knowledge that is. Give your child a multitude
of experiences from which to draw in order to make those all-important learning
connections. Get out and explore the world. Start in your own back yard and
enter the world of science. Follow bees
and butterflies. Study the geography of the park. Explore the wonders of the
forest.
Learn about other cultures in specialty stores or ethnic
restaurants or just by visiting your neighbors. Visit a farm, a fire station,
or a police barracks. Open up your child’s eyes and ears to the great big
world.
·
Curiouser and Curiouser.
Why, why, why? It’s a three-year-old’s favorite question.
But in today’s hurry-up world, we don’t often enough take the time to encourage
a child’s natural curiosity. A good student needs to ask why – and what, when,
where, and how.
Encourage questions. You don’t have to know the
answers. Let your child experiment. What
happens if we don’t put the gelatin in the refrigerator? Will it gel on the
counter? How long will it take a little piece of soap to dissolve in the tub?
Guide your child in using the many resources available today in the library and
on the Web. Let them ask! Then, let them seek and find – or wonder some more.
·
Read! Read! Read!
Never were three more important words written about
preparing a child for school. Reading to your child creates an explosion of
learning. Reading involves all the skills listed above: listen to the letters,
feel the rhythm, hear the rhyme, follow the direction of the story, sequence
the events, sit still and concentrate, build background knowledge, ask
questions, comprehend and evaluate, hear the flow of the language, note the
different print in each book, and follow the left-to-right progression of the
sentences with your fingers and eyes.
Make reading with your child
a priority. Do it first, not after all
else is done. Studies show that reading to a child just twenty minutes a day
from the age of six months can raise a student’s high school achievement scores
up to 150 points.
Enjoy yourself! Do the funny voices.
Daddy does a great Big Bad Wolf, but listen to the scary one little Jimmy can
do. Stop and ask questions. Wonder why aloud. Record yourself reading your
child’s favorites and make wonderful keepsakes. Keep the computer in the
kitchen to look things up. Treat books like treasures and your child’s life
will be full of golden memories and silver dreams.
Now your child is ready for
the exciting adventure awaiting her in school. Propel your child into the world
of learning by preparing him/her at home with the necessary skills. No teaching
degree is necessary, just a sense of fun and a joy in learning. Watch out
world, ready or not, here they come!
