Can your kids understand what you are teaching?

I have been a full time Mathematics private tutor for more than 3 years, and I have seen many parents who coach their kids during their free time. This shows how caring the parents are today, which is a very commendable thing. However, do exercise caution that what is taught, the kids can understand. Most primary school kids can get confused very easily.

I recall an incident of a Primary 5 Dyspraxia student, who did not do very well in his term test. He only attempted Section A and half of Section B, leaving the entire Section C blank. Not enough time to complete the paper. The parents got pretty upset and decide to give him a private test to see what went wrong. As expected, history repeats.

The point here is the kid is suffering from slow motor skill illness. This illness not only hinder the kid from writing fast, but also slowing his ability to pick up new knowledge. I still remember seeing the following question, and what the parents wrote.

Question: 4 million is 1.2m more than 28 hundred thousands.

I immediately know the answer “1.2m” is not written by my student due to the handwriting. Before jumping to conclusion, I asked my student if he understand what was written. Specifically, I asked what is “m”. He shook his head. The kid will not understand “m” represent million in here.

The question above may look simple and easy for adults, and “1.2m” is intuitive to be understood that it means 1.2 million. However, to a primary school kid, this may not be true. If you are wondering why my student did not clarify with the parents, I can tell you the most kids are afraid to ask their parents especially when they can tell that the parents are in a bad mood. They will rather nod their head and hope the parents move on to the next question, praying to end the “coaching” session faster.

Do not get me wrong that I am advocating that parents should not teach their kids. On the contrary, I think the parents should teach their kids whenever they have the time. I am just cautioning parents to teach with a patience heart, put yourself in the kids’ shoe to teach, and align with what is being taught in your kids’ school. Do not teach what was taught to us in our school days. It may no longer be taught that way anymore.