Just yesterday I met with the teacher of my daughter who just resumed kindergarten, I have concerns about how she responds to her teacher in school, after school closed for the day yesterday I talked to her teacher about her performance in class and the teacher's responses was that since she just started class two weeks ago she can really give a comment about her performance and so I have decided to take it upon myself just like I did with my first child who is now in nursery two, though she said one shouldn't compare children's ability, yes I know that so I would be taking some steps to make sure she catches up with others in the class.
One main reason why I feel my daughter is lagging behind is because she didn't start talking in time, to be precise, it was the beginning of this year when she made her first sentence which was like a miracle to everyone, she was always quiet before then.
Here are some things I have been doing that made me question her performance in school, it was by doing this I recovered she was lagging behind.
Before my kids resumed school I got this reading chart that enables them to identify letters and numbers, and I noticed whenever I bring this chart out, my youngest is always eager to see what is on it and because her elder brother has knowledge on it, he reads it out and she repeats after him. My son is quick to catch up to something, especially when he has his full attention on it, so getting this chart it enables me to teach my daughter and even her brother things they don't do in class.
Aside from the books they bring home from school, I made sure to have extra notebooks so that I can give them exercise on it and for my some who knows some words, I dictate some words to him and ask him to write them in the note, sometimes he gets the spellings and sometimes he doesn't, so I give him the correction on the note and ask him to sit in a corner to spell and pronounce the words.
For my two-year-old, I give her a pencil to scribble letters and numbers that I might have taught her to do, this ways she gets familiar with holding a pencil and because she gets distracted easily, I try to do things like make a funny sound of the letter or number she is writing, and this absolutely gets her back and she also says the same thing and continues with what she has got to do.
There is this book called "Queen Primer" that comes in different volumes, I got the volume one for my son when he was in kindergarten, and I plan on using the same method to teach his sister the basics of spelling after she has learnt all her letters, I believe knowing the letters is the first step for someone of her age and standard.
This queen primer is really helpful because I got the volume two last term for him and, it really has improved his spelling and reading abilities, last week I went to their school bookshop and got him a big comprehension book, the book contains a lot of comprehension passages for his age and I see that whenever he is with the book he always finds new words and he asks for the pronunciation, sometimes I ask him to use his sounds to spell it out or pronounce it and when he needs help I give it to him.
My daughter is my main concern and not that I would abandon teaching her brother, No!, I would try to make an equal attention on both of them and with God's help and along side their school teacher's effort.
I have been doing this and I believe I can help them become good readers before the end of the school session.
This post is my entry to the motherhood weekly prompt
Thanks for reading
All images used here are mine
first image designed on canva
Designed on canva
