Teaching your child to unlearn

Teaching your child to unlearn

Teaching your child to unlearn

While waiting to pick up my son from kindergarten in the late 80s' I have heard teachers teaching the alphabets in the following manner - 'a' 'er' apple; 'b' 'ber' bed, 'c' 'ke' cat and so on. (This was done in a sing-song manner). Now why would not the logical dyslexic child be confused? 'a' 'er' apple and the child is lost his mind shuts off. Here the sound that 'a' represents is 'air' and not 'er'. This is a very serious mistake made by many of the kindergarten and tuition centres.

My advice to parents who send their kids to tuition centres which teach so called phonics is to first check out if they know what these tuition centres are teaching. Please take heed. This is a serious problem especially for dyslexic children. Teaching to unlearn is not an easy task. If they are not taught to unlearn in the early stage they end up not learning anything in school.

By the time they are in primary 2 or 3 they are considered stupid or lazy by their teachers and placed in "D" or "E" class (A' class being the best class and E' class being the worst). These children in class D' and E' are almost completely ignored as they are considered stupid. Soon the dyslexic kid himself begins to believe he is stupid and he goes into a shell when it comes to learning. To hide his 'stupidity' he becomes aggressive and starts misbehaving. They are promoted each year until they are in Form 5 (O level). Go to any school in Malaysia, except for schools like MRSM where the cream of all the students are selected and placed, and you will find a few students in each form who cannot read any English at all.

Einstein's mother and Edison's mother took their sons out of school when they were in primary 4 and taught them. Similarly if someone had intervened during the initial years of the above students they would fare better in school. By not teaching the dyslexic children in a proper way, in the way they ought to be taught, by not intervening at an early age, our schools have probably changed the course of many a genius.

Most of the problems of dyslexic children begin in kindergarten. There should be strict rules to employ only qualified teachers. There should also be proper inspection of kindergartens to ensure teachers know how to teach.

The first thing you as a parent need to do is to ensure that your children are going to kindergarten and tuition centres where phonics is taught correctly. It would be better not to send your dyslexic children to tuition centres at all than to send to one that teaches phonics wrongly. Once they have learned the things wrongly it will be very difficult to unlearn.

If they don't unlearn--->their mind shuts off--->when their mind shuts off they refuse to learn anything new that will continue to not make sense--->when they don't learn their school mates call them stupid (even some of the teachers do)--->when they begin to believe they are stupid they become aggressive and ....

Many parents think that once they have sent their children to kindergarten and later to school their duty is over. No, this mind set must be changed. You have to ensure that you pick a dedicated tuition teacher who really cares about children. Periodically talk with the school teachers as well as the tuition teacher and listen to what they may have to say.

Finding a one to one tuition teacher is rather difficult as not many teachers would want to do this. It does not make money sense. It would make more sense teaching 10 to 40 students in one go rather than teaching one to one. If you cannot find a one to one tuition teacher and if you are not in a position to teach than at least make sure that you bring your child to a tuition teacher who does not teach primary one, two, three... all at the same time. It baffles me as to why parents do not even look into this. There are too many tuition teachers here who teach a mixture of classes. This is not good for children in general especially detrimental to a dyslexic child's self esteem and confidence.

This is especially for teachers who may be reading my blog: Parents have entrusted their children to us and we should take this responsibility seriously. The student's life can be influenced and moulded by us. I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say that the future of the students we teach is in our hands. This reminds me of a saying by Einstein:

"Bear in mind that the wonderful things you learn in your schools are the work of many generations, produced by enthusiastic effort and infinite labour in every country of the world. All this is put into your hands as your inheritance in order that you may receive it, honour it, add to it, and one day faithfully hand it to your children. Thus do we mortals achieve immortality in the permanent things which we create in common."

-Albert Einstein

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