It's no secret that there's more than one way to teach children how to do things... and of course I'm not a teacher, so I'm not going to pretend I know what the 'right' way to teach is... I prefer to look for the fun way, the crafty way. Like helping my eldest daughter get the idea of spelling by making ransom letters out of old magazines with her!
Mimi is four and a half, and in Australia, that means she's gearing up to start kindergarten at the beginning of the next calender year. Her preschool is starting to introduce 'school-readiness' programmes to prepare her. Many of the key skills involve social aspects, such as anti-bullying, sharing, patience, resilience, respect and so on. Hygiene, self-help (not the sort parents are seeking), independence, and even safe-scissor-use fall under the heading of 'readiness'. Common sense goes a long way here to get preschoolers prepare for 'big school'.
Then there's the alphabet; reading it and writing it. This is where parents start to get a bit wobbly at the knees, red of cheek and loud of voice. Of course it's important. Of course I want my daughters to succeed. Of course I don't want them to get left behind. But I'm trained to be an Architect not a teacher, so I'm putting my home-time energies into inspiring them to be curious, express themselves, stretch their imaginations, and introduce them to the idea of the alphabet and putting letters together in fun ways.
I cut letters (and pictures) out of old magazines while watching the television the night before. Mimi's first poster was a bit of a free-for-all, the main objective was to try to get the letters the right way up. The second one I helped her to find some letters and then together we started to spell out the names of people we knew. Little Lotti meanwhile was happy to make a 'family' (mum, dad, two girls and a dog (interesting since we have none - guess that's a hint-hint to me!)) and then she tucked that away and only let me photograph her crazy-collage.
Learning is a marathon not a sprint... and it should be fun... that's why I'd happily advocate you sacrifice an old magazine and an hour of your time, for the sake of some poster-rific alphabet fun!
