Ting Ting Development @ 3 years 6 months

It's been quite a while I updated my gal development progress. At 3 years 6 months, she is now an independent toddler who likes to do things by herself!

1) Brush Teeth & Toilet Trained Independently
The first thing she will do every morning when she wakes up is to go to the toilet and brush teeth by herself. She can now also use the adult toilet bowl to do her business without my help.

The good thing about her is, she doesn't like to use the kids toilet bowl seat cover and prefer using the normal adult one. So it is actually easier for me :) She even asked me not to peep on her when she is using the toilet!

2) Write Letters A to Z
She can now write letters A to Z by herself by tracing the dotted lines! But without the dotted lines, she can only write those more simple letters. With more practice, I believe she be able to write the letters by herself without the dotted lines aid.


3) Count Numbers 1-100
She is able to recognise and count 1-100 with some help. I believe in time to come, she will be able to count the numbers more fluently by herself!

4) Phonics
She is able to pronounce the first sound of the letters but some of the pronunciation is not so clear.  I am contemplating to enroll her to "I Can Read" program which is near to my house. I felt that learning phonics is important as this will help her to speak clearly and learn how to pronounce challenging words in future by knowing sound blending.

I had brought her to the ICR assessment and the teacher recommended her to start at the TCS (Thinking Creative Skill) level even though usually its more for 4 yrs and above. Even though it is not cheap but I signed up the course for her anymore. I shall write a separate review on ICR.

5) Mandarin
Speaking Mandarin is a challenge for her. Even though I tried to speak to her in Mandarin, but she would reply back in English. Teaching Chinese is quite challenging as hanyu pinyin is not easy to learn and for the child to comprehend. There are also not many teaching materials for hanyu pinyin for the toddler age.

So what I did was to try reading Chinese books to her as well. She can read and pronounce some of the words, but not very clear. I have signed her up to Beijing Language School. Shall provide a separate review too.

6) Questions
She likes to ask a lot of questions, literally in Chinese "打破砂锅问到底“. Some of her questions are funny yet challenging which I think is a good thing for her learning process.

7) Sight Words
She can now sight some simple words even though not too well verse yet. This is something I like to work on.

Overall, I am happy with her development and I observed compared to the children in her age group, she is slightly advanced. This is what her playgroup teacher told me too. Some may felt that I signed her up too many enrichment courses, however, these are something she enjoyed and match her learning needs. I can see that she look forward to attend her enrichment classes and kept asking for it. 

As I am working now and spend lesser time to do home classroom activities with her, these enrichment classes make up the void and further enrich her learnings in areas which are not my forte. 

Joseph Schooling and some thoughts

Everyone in Singapore is rejoiced over the winning of the first ever olympic gold medal by Joseph Schooling. As I read through his growing up story and how his parents went all out to groom their only son to pursue his passion and interest, this triggers some thoughts in me as a parent.

Some thoughts which I have in my mind are: 

1) If Joseph's parents choose to stay in Singapore for their son to go through the Singapore education system instead of going to the US, will Joseph be able to win the gold medal today? 

2) What had Singapore government done all these years to groom our local talents?

3) What do the US system have which S'pore lacks to be able to nurture talents consistently? 

Today, Joseph's gold medal and glory belongs to Joseph's parents and not the S'pore government. It is because his parents saw the sparks in their son since young age and believe in their son's talents and potential to do more. 

The sad thing is our S'pore government was not involved in this process to groom Joseph. All these while, they only focus on bringing foreign talents into the ping pong game and paid millions to reward them. After winning that one and only silver award, that silver medalist immediately go back to her home country to raise her family over there instead of settling down in S'pore.

It is this 'short cut' mentality which the government believes in bringing foreign talents to 'fix things' and neglected grooming our local talents that is now limiting S'pore progress and development. 

The existing S'pore educational system is too focus on raising people to be employee to fit certain jobs instead of developing people based on their unique strengths. 

In addition, the conformity mindset of majority parents' perception of what constitute a good career for their children plays a part in shaping their children too. 

In this system and culture, it is difficult for a child who is gifted to unleash his/her potential. The reason why Joseph is successful is due to the parents willingness to pursue a less travelled path for their child to develop his strength and passion. It is this willingness which propel them to seek the best conducive environment which can develop their child's gift. Sadly, it is a fact that S'pore does not have this system and environment. If Joseph's parents choose to stay in S'pore, Joseph will most likely conform to the system and be mediocre. 

On this thought, as a parent, it somehow hit upon me that the S'pore system and environment are inadequate to nurture talented children. Imagine Einstein would become a mediocre student if he was born here. His talents would never be discovered and contributed to the world. 

This prompted me of the need to seriously consider the options I have to raise up my child which will uncover the gem in her.