I knew perfectly well that Noah would be excellently supported academically when we put him in to private school. We want the absolute best we can get for him. I hated that I had to absolutely bust my ass to get anywhere with little to no support from the school; I also hated the fact that rules in my school seemed to have become rather lax. Added to having worked in numerous schools as a peripatetic teacher and whilst working for my PGCE, my eyes were very much opened to systems of education.
Ok, calm the fuck down, I’m not slating every teacher ever to have worked in public/state/whatever-the-fuck-it-is-these-days schools, but I am saying the ones I saw? Left me very, very cold and twitchy.
So yeah, we’re just trying to give our boys the absolute best education we can.
However. I ask the schools for support, help and understanding. Of course! And we get that, we get that a lot.
What I DON’T ask for, is pushy learning and target high-fiving. Especially not for a 3 year old.
Noah came home this week with a “Sounds and Key-words” case; in it were 3 tiny cards with the letters s, t and a, and a “diary” for us (parents) to fill in when he’s done some reading. I’m also reliably informed by D that there’s a “pack” which I need to read through, and also a CD to listen to.
I’ll just say it again – he’s 3 years old.
Now, OBVIOUSLY I want to help and encourage Noah as best as I possibly can. He has bedtime stories every night, where he watches and listens completely engrossed. He then has a book in his bed to fall asleep with, and will flick through it when he awakens in the morning. He has a mini library in his room, as does Isaac, and they share another bookcase rammed with books in our lounge. If I’m honest? Between them? It’s possible they have more books than D and I put together.
I worked through the letters with Noah for about 2 minutes. It was all I dared to do. About 30 minutes later, I did it again, for 2 minutes (he knew ssssss, so we incorporated “apple” and “tiger” for his other letters). This is how it ended.
Noah: Mommy, you’ve given me too much words because my head is aching.
MBM: Ok, we’ll stop now.
Nuff said.
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A CD to listen to? My daughter was playing with sand at that age!
So was I!! Though in all fairness, it's the parents who have to use the DVD with the kids. I looked at it. I got bored. SO bored.
I've always taken the approach that my children can do as little or as much homework as they want. I don't push it. We do lots at home already, reading, drawing, writing which is their choice. If they were struggling with anything I would be more pushy. At times when the 5 year old was in reception we missed a week and I made it clear to the teacher that we'd been busy with other stuff to do it. The teacher was fine with that.
Luckily they are quite happy to do what is necessary and now the 7 year old is in year 3 her homework is getting a bit more interesting.
And that's EXACTLY what I'm aiming for. Life has to be more fun (for a 3 year old) than being sat down and shown some very dull tiny flash cards (and a very yawnable dvd…)
I'm really interested I this and if you don't mind, I'm going to write a blog post in reply, because it ties in well with our first week of school and one I've been meaning to write for a while anyway.
FWIW, I think the obvious conclusion of 9 years of home ed (resulting in reading children despite begnign neglect
) and the literacy levels in schools that are published frequently, is that school methods harm the reading process of many, many children.
No child needs to be reading, or even trying to read, at 3, IMNSHO!
It's annoying that I can't actually spell today though