The dream of every parent to see their children improving in every aspect of human growth. It is especially a burden for them to know that their children are lacking behind in the school. And they are willing to do anything to help the children become better or even step up above their contemporaries. That was my aunt’s experience with her child. Her little boy has been having hard times in school with handwriting, He is in primary three, but how he got there I use to imaging because nobody could read his handwriting.
Of course, knowing how to write readable words is one of the major parts of literacy. So this has actually became a worrisome issue for my Aunty. She was sharing with me, that she wander why the school cannot help that poor boy improve rather than failing him always. But I told her something, I said, “perhaps they might have tried their best,” she started yelling, “I’ve been paying them for it! Again I told her to calm herself down, I said to her, “you know the school your little boy is attending has so many children, and they cannot abandon other children just to attend to your child who is having a special case. Even though it is good for every school to make provision for such special cases anyways.
I told my aunty that I could help the son improve in his handwriting. The teachers at school might have given up but I know that if I spend enough time with him, he will improve. I was so sure about it. The confidence lies in my passion to see things go well.
I started teaching my little cousin how to write well. For one week I did not see any improvement, so I devised a means I was sure the school did not pay attention to. I am not saying the school is bad, but I know they have a syllable that doesn’t allow them to keep teaching only one topic for a very long time.
You know what consistency does to the human brain; it helps you to recall something at times even when you are not fully conscious. I know my little cousin have been doing tracing of shapes in school but for a whole week, I was there guiding him to trace the alphabet from A-Z on a daily basis. I know it seems somehow for one to spend hours doing one thing every day for one week, but then I had understood it was the only way to help that boy improve.
It was after the second week that I start engaging him with letters combination of two, three and four letter words. From there I noticed that he was becoming better, but he is always distracted when he sees other children playing around. What I did to conquer that distraction is to always call all the other children around to join him and learn how to write.
Then I also put them on competition; anybody that writes well, will go with a prize. Of course I know some of these children can write pretty better than my cousin but am using this tactics to challenge him to improve.
I got to understand that my little cousin easy get scared a lot; he doesn’t like to be shouted at. That might have also contributed to his slow learning in school. I create an enabling atmosphere for him to learn freely. I was not relating with him as a hard uncle, it is more like a friendly moment anytime I’m with him.
After a heavy time spent with that boy, I am proud to announce that he is doing just fine right now. He has improved tremendously and the mother is very happy that her little boy can now write readable words. We all are hoping that he keeps getting better as he continue to learn.
sometimes what the children with special case as my cousin needs is spending more time with them, guiding them to do the specific thing they are lacking in, consistently**** creating an enabling atmosphere for them to interacts freely with you. Get a prize for them whenever they do well and tell them you’ll give them more if they do better. These and of course many more can boost their enthusiasm and help build their capacity to learn things fast.
