My daughter is the first child and grandchild of my family (Both Matthew’s and my side). That being said, there’s no other children I can compare her progress to. What I mean by that is when should she be learning all her numbers, letters, shapes and colors?
Cydney identified her shapes and numbers at 2yrs old, she learned her ABC’s at 3 and she knew her nervous system at 4yrs old with the help of my younger sister completing her college degree (Looking at books for brain dissection helps I guess). But my question has always been, is this where she’s supposed to be? Am I pushing too much, or am I not encouraging her to absorb more? During our first Parent-Teacher conference in Kindergarten, Cydney’s teacher expressed her advance reading skills. I remember her getting up during our meeting to get the bin which has the reading curriculum for their school. She said, “I don’t think you grasp what I’m trying to say? ” “At this quarter, a child would normally be here (Pointing 1/4 of the way through the reading books), Cydney is here… ” She grabbed the second bin and informed us that she’s reading 3rd quarter of the first graders books. WOW, I was amazed…proud and amazed! What did we do to accomplish this?
I remember 2 simple methods we consistently did: 1) Being born 2months early, the doctor informed us to expect learning delays – so don’t be worried. My husband and I didn’t want her to be delayed. We ensured reading at least a single book every night since she was born. You kill two birds with one stone, she was identifying letters and we get some quality time with her after work. 2) Every night during shower time, I used the steam of the hot water on the glass door to spell simple words like big, pig, dig, etc. She loved it, she had fun, and I know both of these methods helped her reading skills. Of course, I also need to give credit to one of the best teacher we know – Grandma! I loved it when she sang tricks for reading silent letters and spelling her name 🙂 So moms and dads, and I struggle with this too, BE CONSISTENT!
Now with Maxima, it’s a bit more complicated. We have to share the time between two children. One’s working on addition & subtraction, while the other is working on identifying numbers. We ensure that we are still consistent. The difference is that we have to use different learning tools to teach both at the same time. These are the materials we plan to use this SPRING, poster boards for games and magnetic numbers and letters (Cydney: Addition & Subtraction; Maxima: Identification). Don’t worry I’m not here to sell you anything, but if you’re wondering where to get them DOLL HOSPITAL has a teacher’s section where you can get learning tools like below:
POWERFUL WOMEN 