Parenting Trouble?

Question

My son is now 3 abbout to turn 4 and is his first year of preschool. All the other kids in his class know thier letters and what they look like. MY son knows how to sing his ABC's but everytime I try to get him to practice his letters he seems so uninterested and doesnt coroperate. I say 'what letter is this' and he just pushing them away.I am worried How can i get him to learn without me trying so hard?

Answer 1

So many answers, huh?  No worries.  Number one, your son is a boy and it is a well known fact that boys avoid these type of situations.  In my years of experience with educating children ages 2-7, I find that boys usually get to business closer to the age of five or six.  Some come about sooner, others later.  Not a big deal!  Your only 4 once.  Why make it a hassle and struggle to keep pushing things he is not ready for?  It is much more enjoyable to play and bond right now.  Social skills are extremely important as well.  Make that your focus and just keep introducing numbers and letters in play.  You'll see, he will come around!

Answer 2

There was a car in the middle of the hill where a auto shop was sitting at the top.  The car was broken down and the wife said to the husband, "get out and push."  The husband got out and made it a little ways up the hill.  Getting tired, he gave up and the car rolled down the hill until the wife realized and slammed on the brakes, but not until after the car passed where it was before.

The man, after a break, pushed again.  He didn't get as far as he did the last time before he gave up and the car rolled....this time FARTHER than it was before.  This went on and on.  Finally, the man got tired of pushing and just let the car go.  The wife got tired of hitting the breaks and just let the car go.  What ended up happening is the car ended up in the parking lot of a better auto shop at the bottom of the hill.

The more you push, the worse you'll end up.  The more you let nature take its course, the more results you'll see.

I attended a Montessori talk by Martha McDermott.  This lady is incredible.  If you ever run into her, you'll know right away how great she is.  She was talking about how children learn and she had a great analogy.  She had 2 plant pots.  She said, "I put the same seeds in these pot plants.  This first one, I'm going to take and dig it up and continually check it to see if it's OK.  I'll put the seed under a microscope, under specialized light outisde of its soil, and give it all sorts of chemicals to see what helps it grow.  The second one, I'm going to water it, put it in sunlight, and make sure its basic needs are taken care of.  Which one is going to grow faster?"

The 2nd one will obviously grow more readily, but why?  The answer she was going for was more of a Montessori lesson:  It had to do with creating a great environment ideal for the growth of the seed.  I think something else applies as well:  The more we just dig up the plant to see how much progress it made, the less progress we will see.  Same thing with worrying about testing our children on what they know.  The more we test them, the less progress we will see.

Give him just the space and time to grow.  Play "I spy" with sounds as much as he seems interested...then let it go.  Stop comparing him to other children, but if you must, compare him in terms of "these are the areas I can help him with...and these are the areas he really kicks a** compared to the other children."  Don't think of him as superior or inferior...as that may cause you to look at other children wrong.  Look at him as someone with wonderful talents that you love about him and that other children have other talents, but this is YOUR child that you love because "_____, _____, and __________."  Suddenly, you'll realize that recognizing letters is the least important thing in the world.

I'm sure you know a lot of this already.  I'm just reminding you :)

Nobody graduated from college not knowing their letters, so you can relax in the big scheme of things.  This isn't a sign of a learning problem.  It's not even a sign that he is slow.  It's just a sign that he's not ready to learn them at the moment, or...as your message also suggests....he's not interested in proving what he knows and testing what he doesn't know.  Just let it happen.  He'll do fine :)

Matt

Answer 3

give him time.

some kids learn like going up a hill, gradually and at a consistent pace.

Other kids learn like going up stairs, they seem to lag behind then all of sudden they catch up - sometimes even getting ahead.

Just make letters fun and part of your daily routine.  When you go to the grocery store say "I'm looking for the box of cereal that starts with a "T" can you help me find the cereal with a "T" " and that type of thing.  Anytime you can make it fun will help him to learn to think of learning as fun, not "work."

And many kids start K not knowing letters and end the year reading on a 1st grade level.

Answer 4

Singing the song has very little to do with visual letter recognition.  I'd start by removing the letters he can identify from the set and working only on unfamiliar ones, one at a time, until he can name them all.

With the pushing, either let him handle the letters or sit where he can't reach you.  Pushing you is a control issue and that needs to stop fast.  It is not productive to learning.

Answer 5

get something that he is interested in (for example: a sport, car or animals) then cooperate the ABC's with that certain thing. He will enjoy it and learn.

Answer 6

Literacy and numeracy are highly valued skills in western societies and subsequently introduced at a very early age; too early for some children. Direct instruction before 6 years can have longterm consequences for the child's self esteem and attitude to learning in formal educative environments. At the core of early education is the philosophy that it is the child who determines his/her own learning, actually the child leads the practitioner, both the content and pace of learning. The environment should be shaped to work with the child not the other way around. Actions speak louder then words: show him the value associated with these skills by reading to him, play with letters to produce funny sounds. Let him enjoy the shared meaning you both gain through spending time together. Picture books builds confidence: point and discuss. Introduce funny books or a topic that he's interested in. Above all don't push, children don't like disappointing the parents. Sing the abc's with him!

Answer 7

he's still very young - lots of children will do things for their teachers that they won't do for their parents.  Home is where they are most comfortable and know they can push it away because he wants to do something else.  He will get his letters  - don't stress.  It needs to be done in a fun way and not a "let's sit down and learn your letters" - it just doesn't work that way for kids.  give him some time - he'll be fine.

Answer 8

That's just not where his brain is. I'm sure he is wanting to be more hands on.

  You could see that first, he's well exercised. Then try with reading books and puzzles and or magnets.  Have him hand you the correct letter.  Make it a fun bonding time.

Answer 9

try making it in to a game, like match or bingo or even go fish. also try doing it at different times of the day. if you are doing it right when you get home he might to to wound up.

Answer 10

I agree with the others...he'll learn when he is ready to and pushing usually causes a problem.  Now this does not mean to stop completely with all letter recognition activities. :-)  It just means...instead of pushing him to tell you the letters...you state what they are and trace them with your finger.  Take the cereal box in the morning and check out those big letters on it.  Remember observation is participation at this age.  You are going out to Burger King or McDonalds...point out the letters and the sounds.

I bet he likes cars.  I've been known to add alphabet stickers on to cars and have the children drive the car while saying the sound the letter makes like /bbbbb/.  It's more fun to turn blocks into that letter or make a masking tape letter "track".

Check out Reader Rabbit's Alphabet Race DVD...sound and letter recognition.

Just work alphabet sounds/letter names into your daily life.  He'll come around.

Just a side note... ALL THE OTHER KIDS?  Really?  That's unusual.  Maybe there are a few others that don't know them well either...He still has another year of preschool before he goes to Kindergarten.  I know that my son, knowing all the letter names and sounds and long and short vowel (he's reading) is in the minority in his preschool class.  In the preschool classrooms I've taught in, most children didn't know all their letters in the first year of preschool :-)  That was more like the end of the second year of preschool.  I've seen many an evaluation that states the goal is for the children to know 10 letters (upper or lower case) and specifically the letters in their name.  :-)  

:-)  Have fun with it and don't stress out too much.  :-)

Answer 11

That's really young to know letters.  I wouldn't worry about it.  They "get it" when they're interested, otherwise I wouldn't push it.  My son will be going to kindergarten in Sept. and he knows how to write his name and read/spell a little bit.  When he was 4 he didn't know 90% of what he knows now.