HELLO FROM A TURKISH MOTHER

[neriman]

Hi everybody,
I am an englishly  teacher from Turkey,and  really so new to this website.
Although I am an active member of a website in my country, this one is morely related with teaching where the other one is related with parenting.I am sure I will benefit a lot.

I am th mother of two children ,a son 5.5 year old and a daughter 10.5 months old. I was very much interested in teaching little chidren while raising up my son, however was not informed about teching reading or maths,etc. I just read about very basic teaching principles, but  have been reading and singing  him since the day he was born. We used to play interesting games such as cycling round the  house and visiting different cities in our country.Until last year (my secon pregnancy evrything was really good),he  was able to name all simple shapes before the age of 2, able to say difficult words when he was 14 months ,able to form sentences before 1.5 years, able to say some poems by heart before 1.5 years,etc...until last year; because I had a difficult pregnancy period ,so he was really  very badly affected and he started to have speaking problems....of course we are in contact with the doctor, but my problem is I can hardly ever spend time with him because of the baby, and that means problems will get worse not better...I hope I can get started to teaching to both of them. Sometimes I really feel hopeless..

[akalori]

Neriman,

Hi and welcome. I also have 2 kids - 28 month old girl and a 6 yr old boy.  My son has a learning disability so I can relate to your concerns.  This forum has helped me feel more optimistic. Children have an amazing potential to learn (even older ones).  My son is only willing to do a small amount of extra academics a few times per week and yet he is catching up to his peers.  I felt helpless before I found this site.  Then my young daughter began identifying some words by sight.  It convinced me that I had underestimated my kids' learning potential (including my older son).  I felt rejuvenated and began working with my son with more purpose and self-confidence.  My son is catching up with his peers at an excelerated rate.  Previously he had been falling further behind and I felt inadequately trained to teach him.  Now I believe that I am his best teacher.  It may take some time but I think he will catch up eventually.  Being older, I do get some resistance from him, so we only do academics a few times per week.  But even just that small consistent effort makes a great difference.  So have faith, your son has the potential to excel.

Lori

[neriman]

hi lori

thank you so much for your reply and very soory for replying so late.
your letter made me really very happy,and now I feel a bit better,yet we have to get started  .
I do have faith in my son, but he has been resisting  to do some painting  or any kind of activity for 2-3 months.
he is a very clever boy ,but sometimes really too clever
one more problem is his school fobia which we have been talking about with the doctor, so I dont want to force him to do activities. I am afraid of caus  him to lose his enthusiasm of learnin. ı dont know  wether I should insist on learning

[akalori]

Neriman,

My son is resistant too.  He would much rather play.  My little daughter thinks learning is playtime so she asks to practice reading.  With my son, I use a reward system - when he gets 10 stars on his learning chart I take him shopping for a prize.  To be fair, my daughter gets a prize too because she always works on reading more than him.  He has to read with me, do his phonics program, addition, or subtraction to earn a star.  I select the activity based on what I think he needs to learn.  I always have the reward chart on the refrigerator even when it is completely blank with no stars.  Sometimes we even tape a picture of a special toy he wants to his reward chart for extra motivation.  Whenever he asks me to buy a toy (within reason) I tell him to earn it by getting all 10 stars.  We are on his summer break from school, but school starts on thursday here.  It is more difficult once he has homework because I don't give stars for assigned homework.  He must do his homework then do extra work to get star.  So I expect some resistance because summer was so easy.  I urge my son to do extra work but if he really can't be persuaded then I try the next day.  School has helped him get into the routine of settling down to work.  Has your son started school yet?  What age do they start formal education there?  Here we start at age 5 yrs old, but most parents send their kids to preschool first starting at age 3 or 4 yrs old.  Is he attending school despite the phobia or are you homeschooling?

Take Care, Lori

[Home English Teacher]

Hello to you both,

I am a teacher and I have taught a child with disabilities alongside quote "normal" children.  I think that the most powerful thing that I did was that I never let on to the child that I noticed any difference between her and the others.  I asked her questions that she knew the answer to so that she could get them right which gave me the opportunity to praise her.  Although I could not cure her disability I was staggered to hear from the mother that after two terms with me coming once a week for an hour, she had improved IN ALL SUBJECTS at school and felt more confident.

Can you believe the power of self-esteem and belief in ourselves!

Here is a video of me teaching two young children - this should give you some ideas on how you can teach a language, or even apply these ideas to other subjects so that you make learning more like playtime and less of a chore.

http://www.homeenglishteacher.com

All the best
Shelley

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