As someone had already said, reading is important.
1. Find out what interest your daughter has.
2. Get some books that is slightly below the level that she is
capable of.
3. Do not dictate what she reads by putting your interest before
her's
4. Ask her to set a realistic target on the books she's reading,
ie, number of pages, or chapters per day/week.
5. Periodically, you will need to check if she understands the
story, you may need to know the story.
6. Ask her for her opinion on what she thinks the story is
going.
7. Note that these books may not even be novels, they may be
comics, or non-fiction.
8. There are books in Popular bookstores that has very very short
compositions by Singapore students, even at P3 level, you may start
with this.
Going back to the cause of the problem, the fact that she may not
have adequate guidance during the formative years can be the issue,
but because we cannot turn back time, you will need to make up for
the lost years of neglect quickly. By this I do not mean making her
sit beside you all the time. I mean taking an interest in her likes
or dislikes, opinions, thoughts, and personality. This will build
up the child's confidence. Encourage lots of communications, by
that, I mean try to do the things she likes to do, but this require
commitment on your part.
Handwriting is basically practice. The more you write, the better
it becomes.
Tuition can be good, but it is not the solve-all. In fact,
personally, I discourage tuition because it can be financial burden
as well as a major drainage of time.
To me the trick of good parenting is to become a mentor for the
child, walking WITH the child initially and gradually giving more
responsibility for the child to walk on his own.
I am a father of two boys who has never had any tuition. They are
NOT top boys in a top school. Rather they are motivated boys in an
OK school, doing at above average within their school. That's all I
ask for.
