Last night, I was forced to babysit my younger brothers since my mom and dad when out. I have two brothers for those of you who didn't know, one is 5 while the other is 6. Being the eldest sibling, this entitled me to the fantastic job of helping them with their homework. The oldest of my younger brothers is beginning to read, while the younger one is beginning to learn "memory" words. As I sat and assisted them with their homework, I began to loose patience as the struggled to recognize words or phrases that don't require much thought process for me now. Then, I realized I had to start out somewhere too. In Kindergarten, you learn basic words such as "mom", "dad", "car", and "man"; words that you can quickly recognize. But as you progress to first grade, you begin to study more of the meaning of the words and start associating them with phrases. This made me look back at when I began to start to read. Is this how it really happens? As a child, your given the work in front of you, and if your as anal or competitive as I am, you do it because you want the best grade possible (at least that's how I thought, even at a young age). You don't realize that your developing essential fundamentals that are in fact the building blocks for vocabulary in literature, reading, and writing. You start small gradually adding more and more before it eventually just becomes natural. It's interesting to actually be the spectator rather than the participant this time. It I could do it all over again, I probably wouldn't because it's not something that's easy at that age. Nor would I suggest that ANYONE enter elementary school teaching if they lack patience because the job requires a lot of it. I commend teachers from the K through Third Grade level because it's not easy. I couldn't do it.
A lot of people thinks that there are nothing similar about math and reading, but i beg the differ. In math, you have to pay closer attention because you build on the previous skills, in order to continue on to the next skills. While in reading each lessons are different. But just as you stated above, reading is also a building block for future vocabulary in literature. Later on in life, you have to be able to connect new vocabulary with old ones in order to analyze it.
ReplyDeleteAnother learning factor for children is simply listening. Listening to their parents, family members, and others. Children will hear these people talk and associate words with things that these words are describing.
ReplyDeleteThe patience factor of teaching young kids is something i have had to work on. I work at a after-care program at Parkvbiew Elementary School, where i assist kindergarton through thrid grade children with homework daily. When i first began the job i would be so frustrated with the kids because they couldn't understand simple concepts with which i have no struggle with now, such as 5+2=7. Tehy have trouble with simple sentences, like "The man threw a ball." I completely agree and commend those teahcers that spend eight hours a day or more teaching kids to read and write.
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