Being a teacher had ruthlessly taught me how children function in their classroom. Here is a list of everything I will attempt to teach my own children at home to help them be confident and successful in their classroom.
Words are made up of tiny sounds.
Understanding that every word we speak are just sounds strung together in a specific order is a mind blowing concept for my young students. It's an obvious concept as adults but it's a idea that is crucial to understand when learning how to read and spell long-term. Playing games like Code Word, I SPY, and scavenger hunts are great ways to introduce and practice the phonemic skills.
Our alphabet is a secret code.
Every word we speak is simply made up of tiny sounds blended together. When we combine /c/ /a/ /t/ in that order we are saying the word "cat" and we are referring to the cute fuzzy animals that knock everything off counters but we dearly love as pets. But sometimes we would rather text our friend instead of calling, or restaurants give us menus so they don't have to tell customers every single thing on their menu (which would take hours to order). Someone a long time ago created our alphabet symbols as a secret code that represents the sounds we say in words. When we learn what each symbol (letter) represents we can crack any code and write our own!
Switch out saying "you are so smart" fo
r "I am so proud of you for working hard".
We all see the word "smart" as something to be idolized, and it is wonderful to be smart don't get me wrong. But when being "smart" is celebrated more than "working hard" young children tend to give up or melt down when they cannot do something the first time they try. Regardless of how advanced a student is when they enter school, they will be taught new skills that they won't master the first time-that's just school (and life). In my experience, the children who are comfortable practicing new skills
because they see "working hard" as a desirable trait have more confidence and are always the hype man for the whole class.
We don't all lose our front teeth at the same time.
Our brains and bodies develop at different speeds (as all parents know). I've observed young children get so discouraged just watching a classmate master something faster than they do they will do anything to not have to try it themselves. This connects back to celebrating "hard work" instead of being "smart". We don't control how quickly our brains develop but giving up does impact how fast we could have mastered a skill. The children that understand our brains learn at different speeds are the first to jump in and help a classmate in a non judgmental way, and they are always the student that has a buddy to work with.
Parts of a book.
If you are already reading to your child at home then you have the opportunity to slip in parts of the book they will be expected to know before first grade.
Here are some of the simple vocabulary I will introduce and practice at home with my children;
Where the front and back cover is.
Where the title page is.
What an author and illustrator do.
Difference between a word and a sentence.
The pictures match the words on the page.
Who the characters are.
What the setting is.
Sorting by similarities and differences.
I'm certain as humans we naturally group objects and people by their similarities and differences but I think you would be shocked to find out how many children who enter the classroom need to be taught the vocabulary words for it. It's beneficial for students to understand what it means when things have both similarities and differences for example; the letter Ss and Cc both have curvy lines but Ss has two curvy lines and Cc only has one. Comparing is a skill students practice daily in all subjects; teaching children phrases like, "they both have", "this one is_____ but this one is______" are helpful tools for students to express their thinking.
A teacher will spend about 1,000+ hours with their students every school year. Teachers see students on their good days, on mornings when they wake up on the wrong side of the bed, when they are grumpy because they didn't eat enough breakfast, and when they secretly stayed up past their bed time and desperately need a nap. Young children simply do not have the brain development that allow them to be successful every single day in the classroom (depending on what is going on in their world)...and that's ok! Despite spending over a thousand hours with a student, a teacher needs the parents help to reinforce what their child is learning.
