Delight Learning

"A child can take his dreams and go anywhere ... if you allow him."
KB had us read him his favourite "The Big Truck book, The Big train Book and The Big rescue book" All 3 books in one compilation. Caution for those of us thinking of buying such a book! Reading time takes forever! So our bedtime reading is limited to only 1 other book because reading time takes 30mins and it does not sound anything like a bed time book already. (sometimes he goes into dramatization and his full load of questions.)

Educators say we should not overload information at toddler's age because they should be focusing on skills set that will lay the foundation for latter academic pursuits. There are yet some educators who will pursue, at length, flashcards methodologies that cited the capabilities of young childrens'/babies rapid eye movement and keen minds soak up various information. I was impressed surely with very young kids being able to recite a list of composers, types of cars, "tang shi" etc. But came to realised that unless a child enjoys and take delight in doing so, it is at best only head knowledge and a very spectacular performance.

Every child delights in something. Most boys like transportations. And they will push the toy truck, or fire engine. They will park it beside their bed. They bring the buses to the interchange. They stack chairs to make stairs to their buses, or seats for the passengers. They build a carpark with our furnitures. Some days they are bus drivers, other days they are pilots or firefighters, ,or construction workers. What I do with KB, if we spot an excavator, we will stand and watch all the work the excavator is doing.

Today, I see my son, nearly three, naming construction vehicles of kinds. He does not do route memorisation, nor does anyone pushes that information to him. He probes, he asks, he observes, then he proceeded to name them, part by part, one vehicle after another. His eyes are bright, his speaks clearly and quickly. The boy has taken his dream and taken flight.