Reading - An important Life skill

 

One of the most important Life skill that can be developed from early years is – READING !

Reading can begin from an early age of 6 months. Initially make the child sit in your lap and read the book as though you both are reading it together. As the child sees colorful pictures, he will develop the interest to sit and listen to you. Here, his visual skills are developing. 

As the child grows, his attention span increases and is able to sit in one place for some time. 

Read to the child:

1. Show him the cover of the book – Before reading the book, show the cover of the book to the child and ask him questions about it. This is a great way to engage his interest.

2. Keep him focused – Young children get easily distracted. Start asking questions about characters in the book or ask him to predict what will happen next? This will test their interest and enhance predictive skills.

3. Assess his new skills – As you are reading along, a new word comes up, ask him to guess the meaning of it. You also need to repeatedly ask questions. This enhances language and thinking skills.

4. Make it simple for him – While reading the story, breakdown big / complex sentences for him to understand it better.

5. Use Voice modulation – The characters in a story can be differentiated using different voices for each character. This helps the child to picturize the story. When the story comes alive, he will be thrilled to listen to it. 

6. Ask for their response and reaction – Once the story is completed, ask the child what did he enjoy the most about the story? What is that he did not like in the story? If given a chance, what would he change in the story? This helps is building their confidence level and increases the oral fluency.

7. Different languages - Using a language that you are comfortable in, is a good way to start reading stories and Nursery Rhymes to the child. Being bilingual helps the child with understanding and recognizing syllables, phonics and letters.

It is absolutely normal if the child does not sit through the read aloud but you continue to read as he is listening unintentionally. Here, his listening skills are dominant.

Reading stories with the child is beneficial for the adults too. The special time you spend reading together helps to build your relationship with the child.

Build a relationship with your child

 

There is no relationship as beautiful as a parent – child as it gives us a second chance to be a child and grow into a different adult. As my little one (who is no more little) is growing up to be an independent individual, there are few things I have learnt as a parent (& I am still learning from him).

Let this divine relationship be full of love and understanding. One of the golden rules of Parenting is to always show your child the kind of person you want him to be. This is done by modelling the role. 

• Responsible – Accepting your mistake even as an adult, helps him to understand that it is ok to make mistakes but it is best to mend it at the earliest.
• Trust – Encourage him to try and learn from different situations as it will give him confidence to fight his own battles. This has helped him build trust and faith in himself too.
• Time – Time and undivided attention when he comes to you is of utmost importance. Listen to him completely and then react. Overreacting to situation and later regretting should be an avoidable situation.
• Respect – Teach him by example. Let him learn that everyone has their own self-respect, opinion and personal space. Respect is a 2-way street, if you want to get it then you got to give it.
• Rules – Yes, Rules are important to set a routine but be flexible enough to change as per the situation. Certain rules were ok when I was a child but now, they do not hold any purpose. So, it’s better to have rules which are win – win for both.
• Failure – There could be times where he is struggling to complete his assignment or task. Let him figure it out on his own (at least in the beginning). Do not rush to help him out. Let him understand “Failure is not the opposite of success but part of it”.
• Equality – It is very important that we treat the growing off springs equal. Encourage their opinions while planning a holiday, a meal, a visit to a restaurant or anything that involves.

A     Always remember :  

    "Respect is earned, honesty is appreciated, trust is gained and Loyalty is returned".

 

Correlation

Learn while you travel

Learning is always fun especially when it is while you are travelling. Travelling teaches many valuable things which we can apply in our work too. Below mentioned are few skills which I feel correlate at work and while you travel -

• Keep calm : Delayed flights / trains; least preferred hotel rooms, always-complaining passenger and so on teaches you how to keep cool and enjoy the trip. Being adaptable to situations and circumstances also helps in managing stress.
•  Time management:
  This is one of the most important skills that we learn especially while travelling with children. Advance research on the places to visit and their working / opening hours could help in saving lot of time.                                                                                         
  
• Visualization: When travelling with different groups of people, we learn how each individual thinks or feels about a place thus broadening our thinking too.
  
• Planning: Imagine, it’s your toddler’s lunch time and you are in the middle of a boat ride where there is no food available. Timely planning could have avoided this situation where the toddler could have been fed before getting onto the ride.
  
• Communication: It is very important to communicate in the right manner keeping in mind different cultures have different ways to interpret things. Always be a good listener to be able to communicate better while travelling.
  
• Appreciation : As we travel, we also learn about different cultures of different countries. We enjoy listening to and discovering their history. Appreciating the same will enable us to adapt to different cultures easily.
  
•  Make friends:
  Making friends with strangers while on travel helps in understanding their culture better by learning their language, tasting their local food and so on. It is so amazing to discover how every individual from every culture is so unique and different.
  
• Curiousness: The inquisitiveness to know about a place helps to improve our knowledge and enhances the cognitive skills too.
  
• Be adventurist: It is good to experiment new ideas and experience things out of the comfort zone.

No matter where and how you travel, you are always learning something useful. Similarly, whatever work/ job you do, learning from mistakes & developing new skills takes place on a regular basis.