Pre-school education goes beyond building foundational literacy and numerical skills. It is also about developing your child’s love for learning and nurturing his or her social skills.
Find out about common parental concerns in guiding children through pre-school and primary school, as well as how these issues can be addressed.
Mdm Leong Pik San gave some tips for parents to make pre-school education fun for toddlers.
Let children have fun – this was the main message from two veteran educators in the pre-school and primary school sectors at the workshop, “Nurturing the Whole Child from Pre-school to Primary School”. Mdm Leong Pik San, senior specialist for pre-school education at MOE, and Ms Debra Saw, principal of Qifa Primary School, shared their insights on the formal frameworks of pre-school and primary school education, as well as how parents could guide their children at these stages of education.
The session was part of the inaugural Parenting Seminar 2012, which was organised by the new Ministry of Social and Family Development’s Child Development Network (CDN). Over 100 parents attended this event on 27 October 2012, and they also had the opportunity to air their questions and concerns about education for their young children.
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The formative years
Mdm Leong emphasised that pre-school education is about developing a love for learning. While foundational literacy and numerical skills are taught during this period, the educational approach extends beyond such knowledge and includes the development of key social skills.
“Children between the ages of four and six believe that the world revolves around them, but pre-school exposes them to new environments and new people,” explained Mdm Leong. “They socialise intelligently and learn that it’s not just about saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ at the right times, but also about sharing and realising that other people will have different perspectives from them.”
Ms. Debra Saw shared some amusing anecdotes about her primary school students during the talk.
Play is key to such an exploration, and for Mdm Leong, a good mix of free, unstructured play and purposeful play (with a planned environment and learning objectives) does the trick. It is even better when the parents work closely with the pre-school and connect learning at home to the activities done in school.
A piece of advice she gave parents who are trying to teach their young ones how to read was to “not emphasise so much on flashcards and getting them to recognise words”, as this approach only works with some children. She said that foundational literacy truly begins with listening and developing print awareness, that is, the idea that the words in books have meanings. “Take your time in reading to them a lot of books and talking to them so they gradually build up their vocabulary,” Mdm Leong suggested.
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Find out what Ms. Debra Saw said about preparation for primary school on the next page!
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