...)Then she explained to me that since Caleb's on a half day program, he's lagging behind his peers who are all in full day school. They spend their time in the afternoon writing Chinese characters so they're way ahead of him, like by 2 books. Plus, he doesn't write that fast and tends to draw the strokes instead of write them so he doesn't get that many Chinese characters completed during class time. Then she added that if he doesn't catch up with the rest now, when he gets to K1 next year, he'll have greater difficulty catching up with his peers.
Well, I had 2 reactions. One is... You got to be kidding me! He's not even 4 yet and she's talking about him lagging behind in school! Hello, I didn't even learn how to read and write till I went primary 1 and I think I did a pretty decent job academically.
Then reality hit and I thought, ok, poor kid. This is the Singapore education system that we're talking about here. Highly driven and competitive. And I guess times have changed. During my time, kids don't start school like at 18months or 2 yrs old. Some of my peers when to nursery but many started school only at K1. And I guess it's true, if all his peers already know how to read and write like at 4 years old, by the time they get to primary 1, they'll probably be a lot more proficient than him. And that may give him additional pressure to catch up with the rest or perhaps discourage him or affect his confidence. Well, from my observation of my son, he needs constant motivation and needs to know that he is doing well, otherwise his tendency is to give up altogether so... I have succumbed to the peer pressure and now I look like one of this Kiasu mothers who make their little toddlers do homework everyday!
Yes, so now, after Caleb wakes up from his afternoon nap, from Mondays to Fridays, he has to finish writing one new character in his book. For each character, he's supposed to write it 21 times. The first day that we brought home the book, he was very enthusiastic and finished writing 2 new characters. Then his enthusiasm started to dwindle and he finished writing only 1 character, and then it was half and then he barely wrote the word 3 times and he started complaing that his hand was tired, it was difficult, blah blah blah....
It reached a stage where I had to escalate to the Escalation Manager, Daddy to step in, and then Daddy rectified the situation and got Caleb to agree that, writing 1 new word a day would be part of his weekday routine. On top of that, Daddy insisted that after Caleb finished writing each character, he has to read it out so that he remembers what he is writing. According to Daddy, that's how Grandma taught him last time.
See, this is a sample of one of Caleb's nicer writings. Each day, after he finishes his writing, I'll test him on the past words that he wrote to refresh his memory. Ha! Call me Kiasu ok, but I don't want my son to waste time writing the characters and not have any idea what he's writing after that.
The night before, Grandpa and Grandma came to babysit and Grandpa sat through with Caleb to do his writing. The word for that day was 牛. The sneaky boy actually told Grandpa that after he finished writing each word, Grandpa had to say out the word, 牛. We only found out about it when we came home and the next day when I tested the boy what word that was, he couldn't remember it.
Anyway, I'm pleased to announce that we have finished writing 1 book at home and now I'm waiting for Caleb's chinese teacher to pass me another for him to write at home. Actually I think it's not too bad that I sit down with him to do his writing coz I can give him one on one attention, revise with him the words, and at least I have an idea what he's learning in school. Whenever I ask him what Chinese word did he write in school, he'll tell me he can't remember. I did have a scary thought when I first sat down with him to do the writing though... so this is what it's going to be like for the next 10 years? Sitting down with my children everyday, supervising and helping them with their homework. Now I'm starting to see what parents mean when they sound like they are the ones taking exams and doing projects when their kids are the ones who's supposed to be going through those.
