Building Parent School Partnerships
In August 2019 a Brisbane newspaper article reported that toddlers are now being taken to tutors to help them get ready for school. As a primary school principal, I was horrified to read this article and learn that parents are now taking their children to learn concepts that they believe will set them up for starting school with a degree of confidence.
The article quoted Dr Michael Carr-Gregg who did raise his concerns that parents are setting children up for a life of stress if they do not achieve a degree of mastery in some of the concepts that they’re learning before they get to school. Will the children feel like they are failing if they don’t grasp a concept? as opposed to just enjoying the experience that an early childhood centre should provide them.
Parents in the article did report that their children love the experiences and came away laughing and smiling, looking forward to the next experience. I’m delighted to read that the providers of such toddler tutoring are providing a service that the children are in fact enjoying. However, if the parents are using the services as a way to accelerate their child’s learning and as a way to set their child up for greater success at primary school, then I think they are risking doing a disservice to their children. Young children should be spending a significant amount of time playing and will learn a significant number of skills that will support them in their formal learning journey when they do reach school. There is no doubt some of the concepts learnt at this toddler tutoring process may set the children up to have greater knowledge than if they didn’t attend such sessions. However, the children will be learning many engaging and exciting interesting aspects of life through their natural development and play and through having exposure to good experiences such as reading books, such as experiencing the outdoor world, such as engaging with their peers, taking turns and sharing, learning colours and shapes through natural engagement with the world around them, and with their parents.
There are so many opportunities for learning through engaging in the world around them, in their “natural habitat”. Both indoors and outdoors there are countless stimulus that foster learning. Early literacy and numeracy concepts can all be found in most environments that children live and play and ‘work’ within in their early formative years. It does take an observant adult to recognise the opportunities available to young children to learn foundational concepts. And as children engage with their world around them, the caring adults need to be ready to answer questions, ask questions and wait for the children to answer. And waiting is hard for adults, especially when we lead busy lives (and know the answers to many questions we are the young children.
Parents, carers and educators of young children should look for opportunities that exist in the stimulus of most environments. Shapes, colours, words, concepts such as over, under, in front and behind, high, low; up, down; hot, col; bigger, smaller; light, heavy; forwards, backwards – can all be found both indoors and outdoors. Allowing the children to ask questions about their world and encouraging their answers will build their language base and their confidence. Allowing them to explore their world in a physical way is also key. Running, walking, hopping, skipping, catching, crossing their mid-line (the imaginary line down their middle), identifying their dominant hand – are all important skills that can be developed in a child’s natural environment.
Of course, this does suggest and mean that parents need to be involved in their child’s formative years and their development. It begs the question as to why parents would feel the need to send their young children to toddler tutoring if in fact they are providing rich life experiences for their children before they start kindy or prep or school. The majority of children are well prepared for starting school if their day care centres and their early childhood education centres provide rich learning experiences and if their parents are actively engaged in the learning journey. It needs to go hand-in-hand – parents and teachers working together.
Some schools provide a school readiness program which help the parents understand the foundational requirements that young children need so that they can experience success at school and so that the parents can be involved in their child’s educational journey. In the months leading up to the child starting school, the parents can practise skill sets, giving them an exposure to experiences that will set them up for success when they start school. Children do not, I repeat, do not need to go to toddler tutoring to set them up for success in school. What they do need is high quality early child education programs and actively engaged, interested parents, that can provide them with rich life experiences which will give him the foundational skills so they are ready to start school.
