After attending a month's class at Heguru, I'm reflecting if this program is good for Valerie. Comparing the weekends before we started the class, she used to be at home just walking around, playing toys and lots and lots of TV!! Mainly because, turning on the TV is the best babysitter around so that both of us have time to do our own things. It was after a few months that I started to feel bad. I felt Valerie is at the stage of learning and we are not doing much except giving her a few toys to keep her quiet while we catch up on our downloaded shows. Or turning on channel 613 for her while we get our chores done.
And at that time, we have also stopped reading her books from Dr Seuss and one-picture books because she was no longer interested. We tried buying her some other story books but she would just take a look at the book and run away.
So what are the changes in Valerie after the classes? I find that she loves flashcards a lot. Initially I have no idea what I'm supposed to flash or how fast I should flash them. So I made a few flash cards that are most relevant to her eg. apple, flower, bear. Her favourite words. When I started flashing the word and then the picture flash card, she would smile and repeat after me. (she can only say words that start with 'b' or 'm' at this moment).
After that I progress to making more and more flash cards on the powerpoint. Hehe.. E-flash is a lot more convenient for me, save on printing, buying the flash cards, cutting and sticking them. I'm not sure if there is difference in effects with manual flash though. One thing I notice, I need to flash the cards really fast in order to capture her attention. If I do it slow, she will lose interest and walk away. Another thing is, when I started, Valerie does not pay attention to it, but I just keep flashing regardless of where she is in the room, after a while she comes back, sit down and look at the flash cards. Slowly she starts to love them.
Then I started the dot cards, after a while, she will try to say 1 - 10 after me as I flash the cards. And it's very funny, those she can't say, she will replace with what she can. So I will hear 'mama, mimi, momo.. etc.. ' and then I will hear 'eighch, nan, dan' (8, 9, 10).
Ivan doesn't believe she will remember anything from the sessions. But occassionally, I couldn't help but to test her (I know it's a no-no to test babies) with 2 picture cards and ask her which one is 'grapes', or which one is 'elephant' and she will always point to the right one. But I have not seen much success with words yet. As for dots, she can point to the right one when she's willing to participate, otherwise she will just ignore you or pick the wrong one and play other things. I now flash about 110 objects to her at one go, about 0.5 - 1 sec per card.
I've also bought the Level 1 non-i-Pen series from Popular. I have to say these are the best for Valerie. Each page has a 1-2 liner of narration story with colourful illustrations. So it's short enough to capture her attention. Now she has 5 of these books. And she wants them all read to her before going to sleep. Those that she likes, sometimes she wants to be read twice, or more. I have to put a stop to her requesting me to repeat so many times (it's tiring). Her favourite now is 'The Flying Tortoise' (used to be Red Riding Hood). I don't know why she likes it so much, but this will always be the first book she picks. Ivan tries to hide the book last, but she will always manage to find it and give it to us as the first book to read and we will giggle.
Overall, I'm pretty happy to have started sending her to Heguru, although a lot of people will conclude instantly that only kiasu parents want to send their kids to school at this young age, trying to make genius out of them. But it's clearly not. I start to understand now why some parents will squeeze out the extra budget to send their kids this early to school. Because they are at this stage of wanting to learn so much, and we as parents should not deprive them. I was surprised when I started the flash cards to see how much she craves to learn. Now every night, when I say 'flash card' she will run quickly to me and sit down to watch. When it's done, she will (without fail) cry every night, wanting more. And I'm not making those flash cards fast enough.
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