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I love teaching young children phonics at our Learning Centre, watching young minds absorb all the information you give them. But one question I get from parents is......... 'Should I be teaching them at home and how do I do it?'
The simple answer to this is, yes....but not in a formal way.
Children learn best when they are having fun, so make it fun. Everything is a learning opportunity to a young mind.
The more we give to children the more they learn and give back to us. If we just sit on an electronic device all day long, this is what children will learn to do, yes shock horror, they learn by watching us. Don't get me wrong electronic devices can be great learning tools, but a young mind can be easily satisfied without this.
Looking out a window when on the bus or in a car, talking about what you can see, asking them to find things that are a certain colour or begin with a certain letter sound. This is how children learn. You can play the same game at home with their toys finding colours or shapes. Playing games like this while out waiting for the bus can also make our children more aware of our surroundings as one parent said to us:
"With the English Program, I got lots of ideas on improving my daughter Emma's English. I can use the activities anytime and anywhere, even when we are waiting for the bus. Emma loves the game I SPY most, and she learns to pay attention to all of her surroundings."
All these things help children with their learning. The more they are spoken to and played with the faster they learn, and the more beneficial tutorial classes can be for your child.
A week is a long time for a young child, which means if they attend one English tutorial class a week and have no interaction in English in between their learning will be very slow. But if you play games and interact with your child in English for just 10 or 15 minutes a day their progress will be much quicker. This does not just apply for English but for anything they are learning.
Learning through play is not just letting your child play with toys and run around, although of course children do need to do this as it has many benefits like building communication skills, developing social skills, enhancing fine and gross motor skills.
What I am talking about is children learning in a fun and interactive way. If we put fun into learning children see it as a game and then they do not even realise they are learning, this makes for happier children and much less stressed parents.
The new Learning Program I have written, is 24 easy to understand units, that gives you, the parent, the tools needed to help your children learn in a fun interactive way. This program can be yours and delivered direct to your phone. Sign up now for our next release of this program.
Now you are sitting there asking yourselves, What is this program? How can it help me? and the biggest one of all....Does it work? My answer to this is yes it does work, if you use the methods explained. An example of this is: with a child who recently returned to class, before the summer he was not speaking much English, his mum enrolled on our Program and followed the units while he was not at class. When he returned to class he was not only speaking in full sentences, but he could also blend phonic sounds to read simple words ......to say I was blown away was an understatement. Read more about our learning program here.
Have you ever thought that Play is children's work - remember if your child is having fun they are learning.