Teaching young children can be a daunting
task especially if a teacher finds himself/herself in a deprived community
where most of the parents are poor or uneducated. This is because it needs 100%
collaboration between the parents who value and understand education and the teachers
who are motivated and committed to bringing abstract to reality. For these tips
to work well, the stakeholders must be willing to commit resources. The
government should not hide under the statement “teachers are trained to
improvise” to shirk responsibilities.
Mostly, children are trained to recite the
letters of the alphabet without proper identification methodologies. This
hinders children’s ability to read and write as they climb the academic
ladder. I hope that the following tips work.
1. Getting
ready
A pre-school child can learn faster when learning
tasks are arranged coherently and starts from known to unknown and also from
easy to difficult. They learn best with concrete materials. Therefore, make
sure to gather the concrete models of the letters of the alphabet. For
example, the letters of the English alphabet is twenty-six hence if you have
twenty pre-school children in your class, be sure to get twenty different sets
of these concrete models to cater for individual differences.
2. Allow
them to perceive these materials with their sense organs.
Children have their way of perceiving objects; they
see and feel the shapes of the letters. Give them ample time to have contact
with these concrete letters. Play with them individually by arranging the
materials to form lines or circles.
3. Introduce
the concept of alphabets.
As children come into contact with the materials, they
will develop love for particular letters unknowingly. It could be the shape
or the colour of that letter that he appreciates. He will always pick one or two letters
anytime these materials are given to him/her. When you see this sign, it is
time to introduce them to the concept of the alphabet. Start with the letters they
like. Never start in a particular order as it happens in most cases. Give them
the chance to show you what they want to learn and help the to learn at their own pace. It is not
appropriate to write the letters of the alphabet on the board in a particular
order and take the whole class through the recital process. Most of them will
be passive learners and will find it difficult to identify these letters of the
alphabet.
4. Pause,
motivate and continue.
As the child develops the skill of identification, the
teacher/parent must motivate him/her. This will cause him to want to know more. They
will want to let you know that they master the skill of identification for you
to appreciate them for good work done. Smile, clap, praise them give them
gifts sparingly.
Since you have the starting point, you can introduce other
letters randomly until your mission is accomplished. There you have it!
5. Use
songs of the letters of the alphabet to solidify the knowledge gained.
After the children can identify these letters,
introduce them to some of the songs of the letters of the alphabet. A child who goes
through this process will sing the songs with understanding because he/she
knows what he/she is pronouncing in the song. As she sings, she visualizes the
concrete models.
6. Associate
the song to the concrete materials repeatedly.
Let the child pause while singing and show you the
letter she sung using the concrete material. He should associate the concrete models
with the letters in the song. Remember to appreciate the effort of the child to
motivate him/her.
7. Go
abstract
Congratulation! Your child is ready to handle letters
of the alphabet in the abstract. At this point, the work of the teacher becomes
easy. Write the letters on the chalkboard and guide the children to name them
in the order in which they appear. Point to the letters randomly and ask
children to pronounce their names.
8. Test
your effort.
Bring two children of the same level; one should go through
this process and the other should be a non-beneficiary. Write the letters of
the alphabet on the board and ask them to pronounce the names of the letters randomly. Fact! The child who did not benefit from this process will
take a longer time to come out with the answer because he/she will recite in
the brain, pause at where your pointer is pointing and give you the answer.
This can be used by caregivers in the
pre-school and parents. Let’s help our children because they are our future.
There could be other methods that can be applied. Explore and see what works
for your ward.
By:
Bright Damankah
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