There is a story in the UK Independent today (15 April 2012) saying Nick Clegg, UK deputy prime minister, plans to hire 65000 nursery workers to prepare children from poor backgrounds, as young as two for success at school.
The much respected Frank Field mp produced a report a year or so ago which found that for many life choice are largely decided by age five. This is not really an original finding. The Jesuits said
Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man.
I find Nick Clegg’s proposal disturbing as it condones parents devolving care of their children. It seems we’re getting closer and closer to Brave New World all the time.
Also he seems to have missed the point that parents’ interest and involvement has a huge influence over their child’s development.
It is my belief that many parent’s drastically underestimate the effect they have on their children’s development. Largely this is because everyone, me included, tends to overlook things that are part of their everyday life. It’s sometimes called “The Elusive Obvious”.
I wrote Seven Little Mistakes to point out some of the reasons I believe some parents do not help their children as much as they could. You can download Seven Little Mistakes for free in exchange for leaving your name and email.
And if you don’t want to register your details, I’ll tell you the some of these mistakes here and now.
Not appreciating how huge a contribution they make to their children’s development is one of these reasons. Sometimes it needs an example of when things go badly wrong to highlight parent’s contribution.
www.danisstory.org tells the story of Danni, who became known as ‘The Girl In The Window’.
Danielle Crockett was found in Florida 2005. She had been kept locked in a room for the first 7 years of her life, deprived of all human interaction. When found Danielle weighed just 46 pounds. She was locked in a room surrounded by a pile of diapers about 4 foot high. Danielle’s mother was quoted as saying
Ahhm doin the best
ahh kannn.
Danielle could not speak when found and as far I know still can’t.
So if your children can speak you’ve done something right.
In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell describes how children from better off families tend to do better than children from poorer families. This difference was attributed to the better off parents being more involved in their children’s lives. It was not that they tutored their children, but just they took more of an active interest in how their children were progressing.
The parents in poorer families didn’t intend to affect their children but they made two assumptions
- Learning was something that happened in schools.
- They couldn’t or shouldn’t help.
So there you have it, all you have to do is take an active interest in your child’s learning.
Or to put it even more simply take an active interest in your child.
Here I have written more about Outliers a truly wonderful book which I urge you to read.
Malcolm based this part of the Outliers on the work of Annette Lareau which is described in her book Unequal Childhoods. There is a review of Annette’s work and on wikipedia.
While taking an active interest in your child will boost their development, I believe with just a small amount of time you can do much more.
How much is small?
Five to ten minutes a day three to five times a week. This may not seem like much but in UK at primary school (up to 11) children are at school for about 6 hours, take off 1 hour for lunch and that’s a maximum of 5 hours or 300 minutes. In practice there will be less learning time than this because of assembly, PE etc. But let’s assume 300 minutes a day and 20 pupils in a class. Were a teacher to divide their time equally between all 20 pupils then that is only 15 minutes each.
When I was at primary school there were 30+ children in each year and one teacher taught 2 years at the same time (i.e. a single teacher was teaching 60+ children). Everyday was started with 5 minutes of tables drill when he (and the teachers were largely he in those days). Would point to different people and fire off questions such as
Even if a question was answered every 10 seconds that was only 6 a minute, 30 in 5 minutes. So not every one answered a question every day. Yet those that didn’t answer, were in the room and heard the questions and answers so something sunk in.
I told this story recently to a current primary school teacher and she replied
Yes I know, it’s child abuse isn’t it
Oh dear.
So my question to you is are you prepared to spend 5 minutes a day, a few days a week helping your children learn tables? Especially as an increasing number of children leaving primary school without knowing the times tables.
Children learn to speak from hearing their parents and others around them talk. Suppose you never spoke to your child. How well do you think they would learn to speak?
I have written a book Starting Arithmetic which describes how I helped my children with arithmetic at primary school level. As some people are only interested in Tables I have made the Times Tables chapters available separately.
Even better I have put a summary of the Times Tables chapters on the Starting Arithmetic blog where you can read it for free.
- Learning times tables
- Tips for helping your children practice learning times tables
- Free times tables worksheets
More important than maths, arithmetic or tables is helping your children learn to read. All this takes is to sit with them and listen to them read aloud for a few minutes at a time on a regular basis.
With both reading and tables all it takes is the willingness to start and then keep going.
In doing this you will show your children that they can learn, and by breaking learning into regular small sessions you are showing them that learning doesn’t have to be that hard. All it takes is the willingness to keep going and success comes in the end. Once they learn they can succeed you will probably find that’s all the motivation they need – success is its own reward.
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