e-mail
Before my youngest came to me, I noticed on the phone that he said, “Huh?” a lot. I asked his foster parents if he had had his speech and hearing checked. They stated they had, but it had been awhile, and he was pretty squiggly through the whole thing being 2 or 3 at the time. They had him checked out again, and sure enough, he had a chronic sinus condition, while not oozing green so as to clue folks in, was significant enough to make his hearing incredibly difficult. All this at an age where his speech was still developing, thus, his speech was often unclear.
From what I understand, he had been to Head Start as well as some sort of after-care situation. However, when he came to us, he could barely hold one of the jumbo sized pencils made for pre-schoolers. He certainly wasn’t at the level most of his four-year-old peers were: he couldn’t recognize letters of the alphabet or basic numbers on sight, and he could not count even to 10. Further, he could not even write his three-letter nickname. His speech was peppered with, “I’m dumb,” “I can’t…” and the like. It was heartbreaking.
Now he can write the eight-letter hyphenated formal version of his name. He can recognize pretty much all the shapes, can count confidently to 10 and a little beyond, and is working his way through alphabet recognition. His speech is clear, and his vocabulary has sky-rocketed
Part of this is due to the fact that we homeschool, and I can spend a lot of one-on-one time with him. But here are some other things that helped him gain confidence:
Praise: Offer genuine, sincere praise for the effort, even if the result is less than perfect, it’s the effort that matters.
Realistic goals: We didn’t expect him to learn to count to twenty right away. In fact, we just went over 1 though 5, over and over again. Then, we went to 10. Baby steps. And we rewarded each one.
Incentives: Yes, I believe in the power of stickers. Fun, full-colored stickers are someohow equated in a child’s mind with “good job!” Thus, my kids work harder to get them.
Catch them doing well: When you see them coloring inside the lines, tell them! “You really did a great job of staying inside the lines!” “I like the way you said, ‘Please” when you asked for more.” Not only do you offer praise when it isn’t expected, you reinforce learning, by labeling words, shapes, manners or whatever it is.
My son loves “doing school.” He wants to work for hours on end, sometimes. Even on weekends or holidays, he’ll ask to “do school.” He gets so excited when he masters new skills. And, now, instead of, “I’m dumb” he loves to say, “I’m a genius boy!”
That’s great! You might want to get him
the Leapfrog letters and numbers DVDs too.
These actually taught my son to read. Sometimes you’ve got to be careful with the praise too. My youngest son has a math
“gift” and he knows it and on the rare occasion when he can’t catch on to something quickly, he gets very mad at himself. I’ve had to tell him that no one is a genious at everything, we all have one or two gifts.
That’s why I mention genuine, sincere (and very specific) praise…and catching them when they are in the middle of doing something right. You’re praising *that* specific thing, at *that* specific time…
It’s good that your son enjoys Math. My oldest does, too, and I’m glad, because it was *very* hard for me as someone with ADD.
M.