haha.. someone else beat me to this comment! was gonna mention
that in this thread ><;;
this thread really is very interesting =) it made me reflect on my
learning experience in school as a child...
i think the parents bonding part is very true... my mom was a
Secondary school A maths teacher... throughout my childhood, she
was the one who always helped me with my maths... although at 20
years old now, i still count with my fingers sometimes =p for the 9
timestable.. i will always always use my fingers.. you know that
trick right? when it is 2x9.. you hide your left hand 4th finger,
then it's 18. when it's 3x9.. you hide your left hand's middle
finger, then it's 27, etc etc... dont know if this is a popular
trick... if you dont understand, i'll take some photos to explain
=)
as for english.. when I was in pre-primary, i actually failed those
"peter and jane" things - -;;;;; (are they still used in
schools...) but now, im actually pursuing an english degree at my
university - -;;;;; sometimes, it's funny how it works... i loved
to read junk when i was a teenager though.. (my mom hated those
sweet valley and babysitter club books)... but i think they
actually helped, cuz i really enjoyed reading them...
for him, mmmm... he is just pri3... i dont really know children's
books that well... but i might actually suggest comics for a start?
i know some parents might oppose this.. but it's also an art.. it's
communicative, there is a plot, it might actually help him
understand sentence structures, it helps build imagination (readers
actually have to fill in the blanks for a lot of stuff in
comics).... you can try to start him on a project of cutting and
pasting calvin & hobbes comic from the sunday times into a
notebook... (if i remember correctly, the comic strip from each
week actually flow... might have changed now.. it has been ages
since i saw a sunday times since im overseas now) maybe at the end
of every month, his homework is to summarize the plot (i.e.
composition writing). or he can choose to change something
different in what happens in the comic... (draw out and give the
characters new dialogue) or reflect what he liked or disliked about
the comic..
another idea is watching TV!!! lol~~~ ok, i know you see him just
twice a week... cant really parent him like your child or
something.. but just throwing this out since i thought of it...
mmm.. well, i think for watching TV... the best is to watch
something with subtitles.. i remember i often learnt a lot of
english words when watching channel 8 dramas because of the
subtitles =p my younger sister, she is crazy about cartoons.. by
watching her dvd cartoons in different languages.. she actually
picked up some japanese as well as cantonese..... lol
anyways~~~ good luck!
