Parents, Children and Learning
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When we think of the education of a school-aged child, we are inclined to think about the work that teachers do with their students. However, parents have a vital role in teaching their children even after they enter school: They remain a vital resource for their children in terms of helping them to acquire the skills that they will need to succeed academically. Which skills parents can be most instrumental in helping their children acquire vary from one age to the next, for different development stages of a child's life offer windows into different types of learning. For the parent of a child between five and seven years of age, one of the most important sets of skills that the two can work on together is language and literacy development. This paper examines some of the ways in which parents can help their just-school-aged children acquire important linguistic skills and habits.It should be noted at the beginning of this discussion that while there are certain skills that should be developed during this entire period, there are also differences in how parents should approach working with five-year-olds, six-year-olds, and seven-year-olds. This paper was written with the help of a mother of four children, ages eight months, three years five years and seven years. Below is her assessment of some of the key differences in working with her seven-year-old and five-year-old daughters. Two years' difference doesn't seem like a lot to us because we're adults, and our understandi
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n the age group being discussed here (those five- to seven-year-olds) should best learn how to read, rather (as happens when children are taught to read through applying phonetic principles) learning how to read words by sounding out one letter (or dipthong) at a time) and then connected the sound of one letter to the next and finally synthesizing a collection of sequential sounds to form the specific meaning assigned to a word.
Instead of being taught in isolation, skills are taught through minilessons and conferences, in the context of students' reading, writing, and learning. For example: phonics is taught mainly through discussion and activities deriving from texts the children have read and reread with the teacher, and through writing the sounds they hear in words. Spelling is mainly taught when children are editing their writing, and grammar is mainly taught as the teacher helps children revise and edit what they've written. Skills like using the index of a book are taught when students need to locate information on a topic they want to research, while using the yellow pages of a phone book is taught when children need to locate resources within the community. In short, skills are taught while students are engaged in real-l
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Approximate Word count = 1800
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
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