A Good Read in a Long Time

I bought this book just today and devoured it like a hungry ghost (pun intended) within a few hours.

I came across this book on kiasuparents forum on a thread titled 'How to motivate my girl'. The author maintains a blog which shares her method and insights on how to teach Chinese to a potato kid. I am greatly inspired by her method. For someone who got distinctions for Chinese from PSLE to A level, I am blind to what a potato kid like Coco doesn't know or see in Chinese. I am not able to suss out weak points to rectify eg. language structures, grammar structure. I couldn't understand why it was so difficult to construct a Chinese sentence since it is a comparatively more fluid and colloquial language than English.

She got her son to memorise model Chinese compositions for a start.

And to a large extent, I agree to the method even though I am a hardcore Chinese reader who believes in reading quickly and widely for the best effect.

I got Coco to emulate the learning process. It was just about the fastest way to get her to see that she had missing links and structural errors in her writing. I really appreciate that.

This book is not really about teaching you to teach.

It is about strategies to get the child to be motivated on his own, and in turn, want to study for his own enjoyment. It sounds unbelievable, right? It's a bit late to try them out on Coco, but I'll try them out on Baby for sure.

However, I realised that there are some strategies that I have used here and there, and sometimes I don't follow them through thinking that they don't work.

The book also emphasises on the need for adults to have self-control when implementing the strategies ie. body language, expression, voice since children are especially sensitive to adults' reactions. It increases my awareness of the need for an adult to be sensitive to the kids.

And she said this: It's the parent's fault when the child is unmotivated.

Oh my goodness! All along, I believe that it is the child's fault since motivation is innate. But she gives examples of how she 'manipulates' her son and daughter to be self-motivated and shows that a motivated child is the work of successful parenting.

The book is a must-read, must-get. It is not out at bookstores yet, so you can only buy it via her blog.

$25 per copy. But it's really worth it! Parents and educators should get it!