Love my child – make him strong
Samuel came back from his first Berries class of the year with one sticker. At Berries, the children have to read a chapter of a ‘little book’ and the children receive one to three stickers depending on how well they read. For last year Samuel received a range of one to three stickers.
When he came back with only one sticker at the start of this year, I wanted to cry. Samuel works very hard every week to be able to read the Berries ‘little book’. He doesn’t know every word for every week’s story but for this week, I am confident that he knows his characters. However, he reads very slowly because he needs time to recall and say the words. I suppose he had read too slowly and so the teacher either thought he did not know, or felt that it was not acceptable and gave him only one sticker.
![[049051] - downloaded](http://www.loveourchildrennow.sg/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/049051-downloaded.jpg)
Samuel at four months!
Samuel starting speaking late. It was only at age 2, that he managed to call me ‘mama’ consistently. While he enjoys music, he could not sing the lyrics of songs. Even now, at age 5+ (6 in August) he does not pick up song lyrics naturally (For example he sings ‘This is the day that the Lord has made…*mumble mumble mumble*’ though this is a song we have been singing for 2 years and at one point in time, on a weekly basis).
He was one of the reasons I stopped work. I suspected that he had a speech delay. I started teaching him at home 1.5 years back. It was very difficult at first because he refused to comply. But I made progress and although I started with getting him to write, I switched to purely teaching him to read instead. He did not have sufficient attention span and energy to do both and I felt that reading was more important.
He has a low phonological awareness (he could not identify rhymes till he was 5, and even now, has difficulty sounding words with more than one syllable, like ‘seven’), and poor short-term memory for letters and sounds. This means that within 5 seconds of learning to say a word, he forgets. I suspect that he mainly has poor memory for sound (acoustic memory), which is enough to hinder him. Edmund says that he is like a brain trapped, with feelings and thoughts he cannot articulate.
This morning I was teaching him to say ‘Where are the balloons that you bought?’, and he simply could not get it right. After about 10 tries, he managed to do it, but I know that he will need several episodes of ’10 tries’ to get it consistently right. (Two weeks ago, he took about 5 teaching repetitions to be able to say ‘Benjamin’). He is unable to hold the sounds in his brain long enough for him to repeat after them.
He started Berries in January last year. It was distressing because he could not even repeat after me when I said ‘喵喵喵，这是小猫’. In January last year, he still could not say the 26-letter sounds despite being taught phonics for 2 years at his nursery and Kindergarten with enrichment at Zoophonics.
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| Samuel’s creation, during of our ‘lesson’ |
Over the months, I stretched him more and more, and now I can do up to 1.5 hours of ‘work’ with him each time, during which I teach him to recognise chinese characters, blend english words (we just started 4 letters word) and maths (counting, odd/even numbers, and additions/subtraction, which is about 6 months behind time).
Every lesson is a stretch for him. He has to put in a tremendous amount of effort to learn, especially to read. Often he reads with a frown on his face, due to the effort. It is unnerving seeing how much effort a five-year old has to make to simply produce a sound (I would tell him to relax, and use my fingers to try to smoothen his face). He often cries and refuses to start the lesson or finish all that I had planned for him to do. I became increasingly creative, engaging the help of soft-toys, lego little-men, and stationary to get him to learn.
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| Samuel at his Kindergarten. With our favourite Mrs Kwek. |
I really like Samuel’s kindergarten teacher, Mrs Kwek at Zion Bishan Kindergarten. She is incredibly nurturing and has a great love for Samuel. Each time I get to talk to her about how Samuel is doing in the Kindergarten, she will tell me that Samuel is putting in a lot of effort and he has greatly improved. Her favourite sentence is :”Don’t look at what he cannot do. Look at where he came from”.
I am immensely proud of Samuel. I want to tell his Berries teacher, that Samuel knows his work, and that came with hours of hard, painful work for him. I want to ask her – whether she can give Samuel more time to read, so he can prove to her that he can read. She might be understanding and agree. She might say that she has no time, or that the children are expected to read faster, and ‘maybe, you can teach him more at home’.
It does not matter very much how she will react, because I know what the rest of the world will expect from Samuel when he grows up.
However, it is not my job to grieve over how much harder my child has to work compared to other children just to achieve the same result, nor how discouraged he might get if he constantly gets poor assessments compared to his peers.
It is my job to make my child strong. So instead of crying when he came back with only one sticker, I simply said to him:”It’s ok, we will try harder for the next lesson.” Love, as I said, is not enough. ~ Elisa.
what a lovely, lovely kindergarten teacher. Samuel is also very blessed to have you as his mum. Take heart! children blossom when we least expect it.
Thanks. Indeed, the kindergarten teacher is lovely. I have never met anyone quite like her. I am thankful for Samuel. He opened my eyes to the plight of many children like him.
Loved this post. Trials often makes us stronger. it is amazing that we can journey with our children when they are younger so they they can live life with tenacity. It is a blessing to have a teacher so nurturing, she is rare. I empathize with you on his ‘lag’, but may I ask by whose time-table is he expected to do his learnings?
kids do need time to mature & various kids do it various ways. I hope he is spending loads of time doing his favourite thing as well as free play because kids do learn alot and gain confidence from the things they love and those lifeskills can be transferred to other areas of academics when called for.
Sometimes, the system rewards performance and not the effort and the young child may not understand the difference. I think he deserves some more stars from you, for giving his best, and if you can find, get those that is gold and shines.
Thanks for your comments, Sharon. We have much more in common than the Indonesian trips and our son’s name 🙂
Honestly, I expected him to be able to keep up with learning what is being taught in school. (And his kindergarten is already not very advanced. I chose it for that reason). I expected him to be able to remember whatever I teach him. Maybe I had it too easy with my elder two. I always thought that children would naturally learn, remember, recall and be able to demonstrate their knowledge. I am much wiser now.
My timetable is set by the fact that at age 7, he is expected to start formal schooling, and once on that train, he is expected to carry onto PSLE. Of course, that is the best case scenario. How I work is having a mixture of reality and hope 🙂
He does play, the only problem is that he prefers to play with his brothers, who have limited time to play with him. As I am typing this, he is watching his brother plant dandelion seeds. It certain beats “work with mum”.
In terms of rewards, my take is this – to gain a reward, a minimum amount of effort is needed. (To learn, one needs to be stretched. And the fact is, it is difficult to know what is one’s “best”). Only people who are really close to the child will know how much effort is too little, or enough, for that child. I do not reward every effort. I encourage and appreciate every effort, but I set benchmarks for the amount of “work” done before say, a sticker is given. After some time, I don’t even reward the effort, beyond praise. This is because he gets the reward via performance in school – doing well in Berries, in his spelling, getting his stars from his teachers. I tell him – See, you can do it. Because you worked so hard.
Of course, this is something that I do only at a later stage, when his efforts are starting to bear fruits. In the early stage, I agree, that I had to reward him quite a lot because he is so far from achieving, that he does not see the meaning behind the hard work.
Having said that, this is a timely reminder for me, to continue to appreciate and reward. Thanks Sharon.
Ha.. I’ve never known about the Berries stickers concept. So that explains. My boy usually gets one sticker too but he has no problem reading the text at home so maybe I should cheekily ask the teacher about it. 😛 But.. sigh… I’ve been avoiding my boy’s teacher these days because she kept bugging me about his handwriting which in effect is quite non-existent. I’m still wondering if I should continue with an enrichment centre that doesn’t provide for developmental differences in children.
Give your boy more time to develop and grow. Our current education system uses a, in my opinion, “pushed down curriculum”, in that kids at age 4 (or before they even turn 4) are expected to read and write. Instead of given young children the opportunity to play, explore and discover the world with age appropriate activities, they’re taught phonics, given worksheets, spelling tests and homework. Quite a couple of child psychologists have expressed concern about how we are “miseducating” our children these days.
*pat pat* Give yourself and your boy more time… He might not be developmentally ready for certain styles of learning. My boy’s motor skills development’s very slow and his Berries teacher has been talking to me about it since the beginning of this year (he wasn’t even 4 yet). She’s concerned because of the Berries kindergarten curriculum next year where a lot of writing would be required. But I don’t want to fit my boy in an artificial timeline set for the “vast majority” and I decide that I will not push him to write. He’s very motivated to do his Berries writing “homework” so I obliged and worked with him but other than that, it’s just a lot of scribbling, painting, treading and anything that’s fun.
I can fully understand your concerns about P1 preparation. A lot of my good friends get pretty stressed up about entering primary school and of course we all want our kids to be adequately prepared for an increasing stressful system. But we do have a choice about joining the system. While I agree that homeschooling’s not for everyone, have you considered that option and if it might be a more enjoyable journey for you and your boy?
Maybe we should catch up one of these days. Reading so much about your journey through your blog… 🙂
Hi Elaine. When my first two boys were attending Berries, I too did not know about the stickers.. I think I am much more involved with Samuel’s development now 🙂
I am grateful for Berries, and the “rigid” Singapore system in some ways. If not for these societal expectations, Samuel will not be at his current level of achievement. One day I will write a post on this, not sure if I am able to express the idea here now, yet 🙂 The thoughts are still forming in my mind. Also, I might be wrong, so I am holding back my views on that front first.
For Berries, if he is not feeling the pressure himself, then let him be. Tell the teacher that you don’t want him to feel pressured. Samuel was happy last year going to Berries, this year he was much more stressed and often refused to go. So I had to talk to the teacher a few times, and she promised not to “stress” him. I personally think Berries system is good – the homework is actually very manageable.
I toyed with the idea of Homeschooling, but I will not do it. Mainly because I feel a need to walk through with Samuel on this, like the typical Singaporean. I want to learn the lessons that can be learnt, and find the solutions for children like him. Whether it is someting that needs to change on the parents’ side, or the Government’s side, or society as a whole, I want to be in the thick of it, so I can make a positive contribution in the change process.
Actually the only reason for him remaining in Berries is the fact that my boy’s still enjoying himself and enjoying the company of friends but I personally am starting to see the difference in our educational philosophies. I spoke to the teacher about my boy’s motor development and my educational philosophy as a parent but it didn’t seem to sink in.
I strongly believe in allowing our children develop at their own pace, even if there’s a need to push, it should be at an appropriate age. Which is precisely the case for “mis-education”, kids being pushed into doing things/ learning things not appropriate for their age/ development. I personally feel that given the chance to grow at their own pace, kids will find it a lot easier to pick up academic skills when they’re developmentally ready, minus unnecessary stresses, which I find lacking in Singapore’s education system. I always respect the Finnish education system and it has proved that children who’s taught phonics and reading only at 7 are not doing any worse than kids in other educational systems. I think it takes a very visionary and bold Government to go against the tide.
I respect your decision to brave through the education system with your child. Jia You! 🙂 Btw, what does Samuel enjoy reading?
Yes, it is difficult to change people’s expectations. If your boy seemed to be fine, maybe the teacher is ok in the class. Samuel actually has a “preferred” teacher, which is his last year’s teacher. I tried unsuccessfully to change him to her class (the classes are all very full). So sometimes when he refuses to go for his normal class, I will put him in the ex-teacher’s class as a replacement class. Berries is accommodating that way. (At least that is my experience with the Bishan branch).
I agree with a lot of what you said. Which is why I am not sure what I really think about the issue now yet. I read an article about how reading early is actually bad for the children, and I read a book which says that early reading does not necessarily mean higher intelligence. You are right in letting the child develop at his own pace. I believe in that too – I wrote about it under “Planting and waiting”, also labeled under “Samuel”. And actually, I do know of children who do not read well by P1, and they catch up very fast within a few months (when they are suddenly developmentally ready I suppose), so in a sense, it is not hopeless for them, it is just that parents (myself included) tend to get anxious if they are not ready by 6 (since we know of many who can read so well by 3, right?) The home environment is the most important actually.
Go look at tamarind’s blog, if you have not. She has an excellent system for teaching your children to read, both Chiense and English, and it is done in a fun and non-stressful way.
I feel that this battle cannot be fought from the Government’s angle, because Government will always cater mainly to the majority. It has to be done by the parents. We need enough like-minded parents, over the years, to show the Government that we are right, that we know how to do it, and we show the Government how to do it, and actually step up to do it on behalf of the Government. Because often, it is not the system that stresses the child – it is the peers, and that is much more difficult to change, and I think that that has much more impact on the child than the system.
Samuel likes any book that makes him laugh. So I will look for weird stories like one in which an old lady had a boa constrictor as a pet, mice who played with shapes and made three gigantic mouse, which scared away the cat. Exaggerated, funny stories 🙂