CHAPTER 7. PROBLEMS TO BE SOLVED
Problem one - won’t he get bored?
One of the questions I have had put to me time and time again is: what happens if my child gets ahead of the class and the teacher does not make any provision for him, won’t he get bored?
My answer should be that these days teachers are trained to teach each child as an individual at his own rate and develop his full potential - to know his ability and achievement and cater for this.
And some teachers can and do this well. But all teachers are human and sometimes it is hard to find just what a child does know, and it is always hard to cater for multiple levels of achievement.
It is the fate of many really bright children that they never learn anything new at school, ever! They always figure it out for themselves before the teacher gets there - they are then used to help the teacher to teach the slower children. Probably this does not really matter. But what does matter is that from somewhere, other than the school if necessary, the child has a source of learning. And for most children, this can only be with the help of his parents. Fortunately these days there are really good libraries available, including children’s libraries, computer programs and the internet.
If you can afford to buy books for your child, do so; but select them well as a child needs to read most books and then discard them and read another, if he is reading for interest and new information. A library is the only source of the many, many books a child can read.
Museums as a source of information
It occurred to me as our three and a half year old granddaughter was explaining to me why it is dark in Canada when it is light here - which had been explained to her by her cousin- (how the sun goes round the earth etc) that I would soon run out of appropriate information for her in a very few year’s time, if I were her parent.
But things like museums and the internet can supplement books. Trips to see things- whether it is a farm or a railway station - always provide a wonderful source of information for children - particularly if a knowledgeable adult can answer their questions. (These days your children are likely to learn about climbing steps on a Jumbo Jet or observing different foods in a cafe in Europe - our life has so changed!)
Will your child be bored?
But back to the original question - will your child not get bored at school if he learns at home? If he is really bright he will get ahead of the others anyway, and if he does not have the opportunity to learn as fast as he can he will become bored anyway.
My surgeon related that his grandchild came home from her first day at kindergarten and was asked how she liked it. “It was all right “ she said “but it was not really very stimulating.”
Teachers have real difficulty identifying really bright children, (they do not like us as parents to make suggestions about our own children, expecting us to be biased) and if you have helped your child to go ahead it may help the teacher to identify and assist your child in the future. (Some extra intelligent children are not identified and become naughty, unhappy, or misfits). But generally I believe most really bright children enjoy their school life, and are free to develop opportunities for leadership, lateral exploration of subjects and even teaching other children. But I also believe that a parent at home can provide much of the help at home to develop their children to their fullest potential.
What if my child is just average or having difficulty?
If your child is (or appears) just an average or above average child, is there any point in taking him further ahead?
Well unfortunately the children who are really achieving well at school, are in the “top” group, and are praised for doing well, these children get a very different view of school and learning from those who are just average or struggling. Therefore if your help can lift your child into this group, it is greatly to their advantage.
It can also help greatly to ensure your child is confident he can cope, enjoys learning and finds school relevant and of value.
If your child finds school irrelevant he will not learn.
As a principal I used to sit in classes assessing students or teachers teaching a class and wonder about those children I could see who were obviously not at all connected and obviously not learning, wondering what was going on in their minds.
Then I had the task of assessing the teaching of the language teachers in my school who were teaching German which I had never learned. I would sit in a lesson and watch the child -teacher interaction, the children’s responses, and all the peripherals. One day when I came out of one of those lessons I realized that I had not any idea of what the content of the lesson had been. I was just not interested in learning German. I had completely “turned off “ as regard to the content of the lesson. I had done exactly the same as those children who found their teacher’s subject matter irrelevant.
I then realized that is what many children do when a subject does not interest or engage them, or particularly if they think it will be too hard.
By introducing your child to reading in a fun way and showing him that he can succeed you can prevent this lack of engagement or reconnect him if he has turned off.
How does my child compare?
Parents of children who have not had much contact with other children are always unsure of how their child compares with the other children of his age. (They ask for this information from the school sometimes but only really want to know when it is positive! If you do not know you can treat your child as if he has all the potential in the world - which he has!)
Even parents with lots of experience have worries and find it hard to judge how their child is going.
I can remember having several other children from Lindy’s pre-school group playing and finding that all, not only Lindy, could all do jigsaws much more difficult than those at the pre-school. I also had access to various tests which I used to reassure my doubts.
This is particularly so if it is your first child. When you get to your second one you realize it does not really matter. But that is not much help to you now if you feel your child is not keeping up.
Individual differences
The most important thing I can say is that individual differences at pre school level are incredibly wide, and often they don’t mean anything at all or very little.
I had an interesting experience of identifying ten children in their first months of school aged four and a half to five from four different classes who the teachers and I thought were at risk. I was to work intensively with these children in the part time I had at the school. Then for some reason I was assigned to another job. At the end of the year I was able to revisit those children who had had no extra help in the meantime. Only two of them were still having trouble or were anywhere but in the middle or even top of their group!
Individual children have peaks and troughs in their development all the time. That is, children who are slower to develop at some level often catch up and overtake their early achieving mates.. But from my many years of experience, the children whose parents care and help, almost always do really well in the long run, even though they may have glitches along the way.
Our Lizzie was very late to talk, and did not do particularly well at primary school - her fourth grade teacher told me she was not very bright (like her sister) but she was "just a darling". But as a professor of neuroscience she now keeps her neurosurgeon sister running to keep up with her these days!
I noticed as a principal in the same school for many years that the best predictor of how a child would turn or secondary school years was taking a good look at their parents - their level of education, their stability, their willingness to put themselves out for their children, rather than their child’s achievement in their first year.
IQ testing of four year olds
I was quite interested in predicting children’s potential when I was a Prep teacher and tried doing IQ tests at the beginning of the year to see how that would correlate with their achievement at the end of the year.
And what I found year after year was that the results I was able to get from the IQ tests had no correlation with end of the year achievement.
The one thing that I did learn from this was that almost all four and five year olds generally had another agenda when scoring an IQ test . Why? Well some of them were not interested in that game at all today! When asked to mark a certain item they decided that one further down the page was more interesting, or they just felt like drawing a picture of a dog . There was all sorts of lateral thinking - but not helpful in scoring a standardized test and no real indication of their later ability to learn or contribute.
Lateral thinking
Your child may not be cooperative or fit in the normal mold. It does not mean that he is not bright or normal. It is not at all unusual for all preschoolers, maybe particularly the bright ones. You will find this syndrome when you are trying to do the program, maybe every day. Try to channel it - let your child direct proceedings, or happily switch to writing ‘”dog” or whatever instead of ”cat” when he wants to be contrary- let him direct his own learning as much as possible.
What if my child can read when he goes to school?
I can say from personal experience, that the teacher may not even notice! And I wouldn’t point this out to the teacher if this is the case.
Giving your child’s teacher helpful advice
Please consider very carefully whether you ever point out to a teacher anything that could be considered criticizing his or her professional competence! For example if you consider the books she gives your child are too simple - even if you KNOW you are right! Just be very much aware that the teacher young or old, under her very confidant exterior is probably afraid of parents and afraid of her lack of knowledge. Because of this she will be very defensive when a parent tells her what she considers is how to do her job. She may take no notice of your very helpful suggestions and may resent them greatly. This may not worry you, but she may transfer this resentment to your child - so DO be careful!
If your child has started reading at home, continue from where you are at unless the school takes it up where your child is. The work at school even if it is “old hat” will still be good for consolidation and revision, and will develop a real sense of mastery and your child will quickly be allocated to the most advanced group. And because of individual differences some children will move away ahead of the others anyhow.
My first daughter’s teacher anxiously confessed that she didn’t really think she had taught Lindy anything. But in her Prep year Lindy had gained much in confidence, social learning and responsibility on which she was able to concentrate her energies because she did not have to worry about mastering the basic skills. Fortunately, Lindy became a compulsive reader from a very early age and when this really happens, not only is learning easy but, like a real addict, the young reader becomes expert at acquiring more of the same to keep her going, whether by pestering her mother to take her to the library, borrowing from her friends and relations or reading anything within her reach such as newspapers and encyclopedias.
My second daughter’s very alert teacher recognized her ability to read within her first week at school, and conscientiously tried to cater to her, but I don’t think it really made that much difference. Her teachers considered whether she should be promoted to the next grade, but I do not think that this is the aim of early teaching and should only be considered for children who cannot be catered for at all within their age group.
Children may be expected to have some reading skills in prep
My daughter tells me that these days some schools expect a child to come to school with some reading skills, to be able to write their name etc. and in some of the various states this is taught at various stages of preschool before a child goes to big school. Certainly there is a much greater preparedness for formal learning than we saw many years ago.
What if your child is uncooperative?
HOW DO YOU GET COOPERATION FROM A RELUCTANT FIVE YEAR OLD?
THE ANSWER - POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT! IT WORKS!
For those of you who have trouble getting your children to cooperate, can I pass on to you what I learned while doing lectures in psychology and also teaching a grade of four and a half to five year olds.
At my lectures I learned all about negative and positive reinforcement and what Skinner (a famous psychologist) had found out from studies with his rats, followed up by other people’s studies with other animals and human beings.
Basically these studies all showed that positive reinforcement (that is rewards) was MUCH MORE VALUABLE THAN NEGATIVE (that is punishment) in changing a rat’s or a human’s behavior, much faster, more efficient, more reliable.
Now I think we all know this deep down, but as parents and teachers many of us tend to use negative comments as reinforcement at least as much as positive.
Anyhow between lectures I decided I would try to use only positive reinforcement with my grade of five year olds - I don’t mean providing physical or tangible rewards but only praise and approval, and cut our ALL the punishments, threats and growling sessions, to see if it worked. And can I tell you IT DID!
It was fantastic! I believe five year olds respond better than any other age group of children - but so long as I would continue to praise and reward them I never needed to growl or punish at all. But the thing I found out was that I couldn’t stand it - I just had to blow my top sometimes even if they were perfect, as I didn’t always feel like only telling them know good they were.
However, can I reiterate, it does work with both groups of children and one individual child. Sometimes you have to search for the first thing to praise or reward, but they come more frequently once you start. The sad thing is that we as parents don’t use it as much as we could.
If I would go into an unruly class in my school I could spend several minutes and much energy saying “Sit down over there” “Stop talking over there” “Sit up straight” “Come out to me” before everyone was really cooperating - but if I would quietly say “I really appreciate the way Tom is behaving” selecting the one child not misbehaving, I will immediately find another child to praise, and within seconds and without any stress have a cooperative class.
SO IF YOUR CHILD IS HARD TO HANDLE, TRY REWARDING HIS GOOD BEHAVIOR AND IGNORING HIS NEGATIVE BEHAVIOR, AND IF YOU CAN KEEP IT UP, I GUARANTEE IT WILL WORK.
HOW TO REWARD?
I believe that in all but the most difficult cases this can be through your own praise and approval and appreciation. However sometimes you may have to build this up with more tangible rewards.
One of our mums was telling us about training dogs at our last discussion of this topic, and said that with dogs you start with biscuits and then finally just a “Good boy” is enough reward.
Obtaining cooperation - some tips
NEVER make a demand that is not able to be obeyed!! This seems self evident - but what do you do if a demand is not complied with? “We are not going out until you pick up every toy on the floor in your bedroom!” Do you really intend to stay home for the next three weeks? So you give in and each time your ultimation has less and less effect. Much better require that all the toys in the corner are picked up or enough to fill the toy box - what are you going to do with the others anyway?!
Following on from this - in this program be careful to tread the line between providing something new and challenging, and asking your child to do something that is REALLY TOO HARD for them. The reaction will be “ I don’t want to play this game any more” or maybe a tantrum.