What I wish I knew before my children entered primary school

Developing a positive learning attitude will give kids a long-term advantage

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could be: lunch, bath, then homework or storybooks, followed by play.

When my eldest child, now 19, was about to enter Primary 1, I enthusiastically bought him a Chinese assessment book after I heard how much his preschool classmate had enjoyed working on it.

We barely made it through the first few pages before he questioned me repeatedly why he had to do it. I gave up on making him do the extra work when I realised what an uphill task it was.

When my elder daughter, now 16, entered Primary 1, I had learnt my lesson and did not get her any assessment books. But I wondered if I should have done more when she did not get full marks for spelling.

Even though I do not send my three children for academic enrichment classes, I thought it was important that they were well-prepared for the academic rigour of primary school.

I did not realise then that spelling words perfectly or being able to recognise and write Chinese characters at age seven, was only a small part of a child’s learning journey.

In fact, after years of covering education and parenting, and interviewing educators and researchers, I wish I knew then what I know now.

I learnt that academic success, in the long term, has little to do with how well a child spells or writes Chinese characters as a preschooler.

Instead of drilling a child on ABCs, I would focus on developing habits of learning or learning dispositions. This can be simply explained as positive attitudes to learning, like curiosity and persistence, which would benefit a child more in the long run.

In fact, teachers say that getting children to do pen and paper work at a young age might be counterproductive and negatively impact their interest in learning.