learning ability Archives

Unlocking the Potential of Enrichment Classes on Young Minds

May 1, 2023By illac_admin

Parents constantly strive to give their children the best possible opportunities to succeed. Many recognise that well-rounded education is a critical factor in their child’s development, and investing in enrichment classes is an excellent way to supplement their school education.

This training provides children with additional learning opportunities outside their regular school curriculum. These classes cater to various interests, including academic subjects, creative arts, sports, and more.

These classes offer numerous benefits to your child’s overall development, helping them cultivate essential life skills, increase self-confidence, and foster a love for learning.

In this post, we will delve into the numerous advantages of enrolling your child in such programs, highlighting their essential role in nurturing well-rounded, confident, and successful individuals.

Enrichment Classes Cultivate Essential Life Skills

One of its main benefits is the opportunity for children to develop essential life skills that will serve them well into adulthood. Here are some life skills that can be nurtured through these programs:

Time Management

Enrolling in this class requires children to balance their schedules, as they must allocate time for school, homework, extracurricular activities, and family time. It teaches them the importance of prioritising tasks, setting goals, and managing their time effectively.

Social Skills

Enrichment programs allow children to interact with peers who share similar interests. This social environment encourages them to develop communication, teamwork, and problem-solving skills, as they collaborate on projects, discuss ideas, and engage in group activities.

Adaptability

By exposing children to various learning experiences, enrichment classes help them become more adaptable and open to new experiences. They learn to embrace challenges, adapt to new environments, and develop resilience in the face of obstacles.

Enhancing Academic Performance

Enrichment programs often focus on specific academic subjects, allowing children to delve deeper into areas of interest or improve their performance in subjects they may find challenging. These classes offer personalised instruction tailored to the child’s learning style and pace.

This individualised approach can lead to increased understanding, improved academic performance, and, ultimately, tremendous success in school. Furthermore, these classes can help children develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills by encouraging them to think outside the box, analyse complex situations, and apply innovative knowledge.

Boosting Self-Confidence

Participating in enrichment classes can significantly impact a child’s self-confidence. Children gain a sense of accomplishment and self-assurance by mastering new skills and overcoming challenges. This confidence can spill over into other aspects of their lives, including academic performance, social interactions, and willingness to take on new challenges.

In addition, these classes can help children discover their passions, leading to a stronger sense of identity and purpose. When children are passionate about an activity, they are more likely to invest time and effort into improving their skills, further boosting their self-confidence.

Fostering a Love for Learning

Enrichment programs allow children to explore new subjects and engage in hands-on learning experiences outside of a traditional classroom setting. It can spark an interest in learning as children discover topics that captivate and inspire them.

Moreover, its interactive nature encourages children to participate in their learning actively. This sense of ownership and engagement can instil a life-long love for learning, setting them up for continued success throughout their academic and professional careers.

Conclusion

Investing in enrichment classes is wise for parents who want to provide their children with the tools and opportunities to succeed in life. These classes offer numerous benefits, including developing essential life skills, enhanced academic performance, increased self-confidence, and a love for learning.

By nurturing well-rounded individuals passionate about education, these programs are a powerful means of unlocking the full potential of young minds.

Are you looking for a fun and engaging way to help your child learn and grow? Look no further than ILLAC! Our innovative learning platform offers a wide range of courses and enrichment classes in Singapore.

With our expertly crafted curriculum and interactive lessons, your child can develop critical skills and knowledge in a fun and engaging way. Sign up for ILLAC today and watch your child’s love of learning soar!

Don’t Fall for “Assessments” Done on Your Child

January 5, 2017By Clarice Lim

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Most of us won’t mind having our children assessed once in a while just to know where they stand relative to other kids. However, don’t buy it totally, especially if it is done at an enrichment center.

The most recent case I’ve heard was an assessment done on a 4 year old boy. Parents wanted him to work on some Mathematics skills and chanced upon this St****** enrichment program. After some 20min of assessment, one of the conclusions given to the parents was that their son did not understand the concept of Place Values.

Place Values?? Seriously? Did they seriously expect a 4 year old to understand Place Value? What is the value of that assessment? To identify prodigies in Maths? What’s the reason for a 4 year old to understand Place Value anyway? So that they can add 3 digits by 2 digits? Come on! He’s only 4!

So the next thing they said to the parent was, “He needs to pick up the skills and our program can help him.” Well, I’m sure the child can learn if he was taught but does he really need it at 4??

Assessments are great for an educator to find out which level of learning is most suitable for the child, but when assessments are used as marketing gimmicks, alarm bells should be rung and the parents should simply walk away from such underhanded stunts to pull in more customers.

Unfortunately, that is not the only center that pulls such stunts to ‘scare’ parents into signing their children up. Many centers out there do that. This also explains why every time I mention “assessment” to parents, they give me a fearful look and start saying that their child does not know how to read yet or that their child is not able to even add. This is really sad because if you are looking for a center to outsource what you can’t teach at home or gain access to in school, you shouldn’t need to feel like your child is inferior in any ways!

A good “assessment” should, therefore, target the learning ability of the child, discover what the child can potentially achieve and learn and not what the child already knows. If the test is about what the child already knows, then the smarter kids will simply be placed into a class with older kids and a slightly slowly kid be placed into a class with younger kids. Neither of the situation would be an optimal learning environment for the poor child. Besides, a kid who has higher prior knowledge may simply have been privileged enough to be exposed to more content from schools or home, but it does not mean he/she is ready for even more abstract concepts. Likewise, a kid with lower prior knowledge may simply be deprived from exposure but it does not mean he/she cannot be exposed to more abstract concepts.

Assessment of the child’s learning ability is a much better tool to advise the parents on what is suitable for the child and which level of learning is more appropriate.

The next time you go shopping around for enrichment programs for your kid, don’t fall for “assessments” that tests content knowledge. If they did present the shortfall of your child to you, be sure to ask, when would that knowledge be necessary in a child’s learning journey.

Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Why not teach reading?

July 12, 2016By Clarice Lim

This has to be one of the most common questions asked to me. The answer is quite simple.

Research has shown that children who acquire reading skills at an early age did not have an added advantage in reading comprehension later in life. In fact, those who were late readers (e.g. those who started reading fluently at 7 or later), when compared to early readers who started reading at 4 or earlier, caught up and matched the reading abilities of their earlier-reading counterparts within a few years.

Some studies had even shown that late readers develop much better comprehension than early readers due to the focus on development in other areas;

“Because later starters at reading are still learning through play, language, and interactions with adults, their long-term learning is not disadvantaged. Instead, these activities prepare the soil well for later development of reading.” – Dr Sebastian Suggate, 2009.

However, we cannot ignore the fact that our education system expects the students to be able to read by the time they reach Primary 1. Most schools still practise examinations every 3 months although they use words like “mini-quiz” and “review test” instead of the stress-associated terms like “SA1 Examinations” or “CA2 Test”. What’s worse is that parents are given the feedback during Parents-Teacher Meeting that their child is not performing, can’t read, can’t write etc. These all add to the stress that parents face, thus leading to them seeking help for their children to be able to read at an earlier stage.

Moreover, being able to read later in life doesn’t result in any disadvantage but focusing too much on reading when your child is still not ready will, on the flipside, turn them off from learning altogether.

This is precisely why I had focused my early childhood enrichment programs on enhancing the learning ability (ie. working memory, mental flexibility and inhibitory control), while infusing elements of phonemic awareness into the program as a secondary teaching objective rather than the primary. It is more important to gear the children with a heightened learning ability while developing their reading skills than forcing them to pick up an advanced skill and neglect their general learning ability, thus resulting in a delayed development.

To conclude, do not fret if your child is still not reading, carry on the stimulation of the mind and the training of the general learning ability to ensure that when they are ready to read, they can fly with the newly acquired skill.

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