|
Parents as the First and Foremost
Teachers
As your child’s kindergarten teacher, I am but one formal
instructor that your child will encounter along life’s many
milestones. You, the parents, are your child’s first and
foremost teachers. You are the constant in their lives.
Enjoy the victories as well as the defeats as you strive to
be relentless. I am thrilled to be a part of your child’s
spirit and am delighted to have him/her in my classroom. I
will be forever grateful for the love and learning I
experience. Thank you for everything you do. Keep up the
good work.
Evon McCurley
|
|
Excerpt taken from
www.foreverfamilies.net/xml/articles/parents_first_teachers.aspx
. . . The Family: A Proclamation to the World states that
"parents have a sacred duty to rear their children in love
and righteousness”. Many of today's scholars support this
statement. Family science and child development researchers
everywhere are emphatic that good parenting is vital. From
the earliest preschool years, the way parents teach and rear
their children is critical to their children's development
throughout life.
Mom and Dad, that means that your children's education
doesn't begin when they go off to kindergarten. It begins in
your home--with you as the teachers, even if you are not
living together as husband and wife.
Studies show that the most crucial years of learning take
place before a child is old enough to enter school.
Researchers say that no amount of formal teaching can
compare to the influence of parents, who teach every day by
word and example.
Burton White of Harvard University writes: "The informal
education that the family provides for their children makes
more of an impact on a child's total education than the
formal education system. If a family does its job well, the
professional [teacher] can then provide effective training.
If not, there may be little a professional can do."
As a child's first teachers, you as parents are in a unique
position to influence early learning in a variety of ways.
|
|
Excerpt taken from Mem Fox’s Reading
Magic
. . . Brain research reveals that the early years of life
are more critical to a child’s development than we realized.
Children’s brains are only 25 percent developed at birth.
From that moment, whenever a baby is fed, cuddled, played
with, talked to, sung to, or read to, the other 75 percent
of its brain begins to develop. And the more stimulation the
baby has through its senses of touch, taste, smell, sight,
and hearing, the more rapidly that development will occur.
It’s as if the brain were an excited acrobat learning
fantastic tricks with every new piece of information, with
every scrap of new stimulation. Amazing though it may seem,
the crucial connections that determine how clever, creative,
and imaginative a child will be are already laid down by the
time that child turns one.
|
