Friday 24 April 2009

Genius in 28 Steps-Fundamental Skills (1)


Sorry for the delay in reviewing this book. Apart from moving house and holidays and just lazying myself, I need to sit and concentrate to write the review to do justice for this book. And the Fundamental Skills chapters (chapters 13-19) are Fundamental (no other word to describe it).

There are 6 fundamental skills:

1. Focus
2. Comprehension & Listening
3. Speaking
4. Reading
5. Writing
6. Independence

In this part 1 review of fundamental Skills I will only touch on the first 3. It is because I would like to focus on Focus (!) and in part 2 I want to concentrate on Reading. Personally I think these 2 elements are most important.

ALL these skills should be second nature to your child, but please don't rush him ok, after all you are giving him a tool of life.

FOCUS

Increasing your child's attention span is a gradual process.

What are the author's suggestions?

First, the child must be interested in the activity. You have to attract his attention and it has to be something enjoyable.

When he is attracted, to maintain his focus you must minimize the number of distractions in his environment. Just by doing these 2 things (enjoy the activity and minimize distractions) consistently will encourage him to focus longer.

Then you need to teach him one important value- PATIENCE (sabar weh sabarrr). You must make sure that your child does not experience instant gratification in everything he does. Teach him to wait, say he will only go to his fav section in the supermarket after you finish your shopping.

Another suggestion is to give him a simple task (with minimal time to complete) and then to give him a small reward, then gradually increase the task (time and complexity) and give him bigger reward. So he will learn to focus longer to get bigger reward. I think a jigsaw puzzle can do this trick. First you introduce him to the 12-piece ones then to 24, 60, 100. And colouring pictures too.

Some things can be harmful to your child's focusing ability. One is TV cartoons and another is a toy that has too many features (flashing lights, sounds, or other gimmicks). TV cartoons are typically short and rapidly changing, and having too many extravagant toys will make your job harder in the future to convince him that books are interesting. These 2 things should only be in moderation.

COMPREHENSION & LISTENING

This start as soon as your baby is born. So TALK to your baby. All the time and not just baby talk. The quicker he develops his language skills, the quicker he can learn other things. And you must be expressive (your tone, actions should indicate your message).

SPEAKING

This is so that your child can express himself clearly, and will allow him to ask questions to satisfy his curiosity. Again, TALK to your child often, use wide variety of words and for older child, get into more discussions with him especially about the things surrounding him (TV programme, journeys, trips etc)

3 comments:

hartini said...

alahai bus, lama betul aku nak tunggu book review ko. hehe. thank you tau for the book review. weh, aku dah buat IUI. Sakit tu... so skang harap2 memses delayed, so bule aku buat UPT..hehe. kalu dpt twin pun best... hihi..

Mamaboyz said...

ooo tini, nanti aku tolong doa supaya berjaya ok..dah dapat master belum?

hartini said...

blumla... anytime next week kuar result...