Reflections

“Stop, consolidate and reform!”

Those were the self-talk words that had been ringing in my ears ever since my mind went blank as a sheet of paper. So what actually went wrong? I would attribute it to “FEAR” so intense that it wiped out my good senses, knocked me off balance and uprooted my philosophy and approach in life… fortunately, only momentarily. Still, what went wrong actually?

I suppose it all began when our “dearly beloved” pediatrician briefly assessed Sophie at 15 months (during her MMR jab) and crudely concluded that she was “slow” in language development (speech) because she could not identify or name her facial components (eyes, ears and nose etc).

We became a little concerned and started actively “teaching” Sophie words. One thing led to another… before long, we were all obsessed with “increasing” Sophie’s repertoire of nouns and concepts. And the more and harder we tried to teach and elicit words from her, the more frustrated we all (including Sophie) became, especially when Sophie did not want to utter anything coherent or meaningful. So, I called for a time-out...

Our intention for Sophie has always been for her to learn through play and exploration. We hope she can be an independent learner, driven by her own curiosity and motivated by the satisfaction derived from the problem-solving process. We also want Sophie to lead a passionate and meaningful life without compromising those of others.

For instance, we do not want her read books; we want her to love books. That means she would take care with all books and appreciate each and every aspect of the books. It also means that she must understand and respect the varied styles and opinions of authors and illustrators. Of course, Sophie had other ideas in mind… She did not even sit on my lap or cuddle with me in bed as I read to her. I had to confine her to the cot bed so that I could finish reading a book to her. It does not help when EVERYONE claims their children love to cuddle with them as they read in bed TOGETHER… My Sophie is not like everyone else’s children.

Out of desperation and physical exhaustion one day, I tried confining Sophie and myself in her playroom for a couple of hours. I just let her roam and play with whatever that was in the room while I laid on her mattress and rest. I noticed that after playing with all her toys (strewn everywhere), she turned her attention to the books on the shelf. She must have been tired from all that playing because she just sat down on the floor, took out a book and started “reading” it.

Of course, that lasted a minute or two. Then she was up and about, dashing around again. She then handed me a book from the shelf and lingered around me for a while before running off again. So I put the book back and to my surprise, she picked out the same book again and handed it to me. That was all the cues I ever needed. I grabbed her and deposited her on my lap and read it to her. Of course, she slipped away and landed on the floor. However, she continued sitting there while I finished reading the book to her. It helped that it was a lift-a-flap book and she loved it.

The next day, I cleared away almost all the toys from the room. Sophie spent an hour and a half exploring her books. The following day, I ignored her and started reading her books. Sophie could not stand being ignored, so she picked out books she liked and “forced” me to read to her. Occasionally, I would succeed in making her sit through the story on my lap. Someone advised me to limit the books available to her to minimize distraction and display the books (front and cover facing) so that she would be enticed visually. Worked like magic! Today, she made me read 7 books in a row and each time she picked out a book, she would come and sit on my lap quite automatically.

Reading to her is great, but I noticed that Sophie does not like to “repeat after” me. So, I cannot just say, “nose” and expect her to repeat and associate it to the organ. She just does not learn that way. Papa had to use Elmo and his big orange nose to get Sophie’s attention in learning and arouse her interest in the organ. It took Papa a while and a swollen nose (she MUST squeeze his nose before she utters the word) before Sophie finally identify the “nose” correctly and accurately.

Also, instead of saying the word “lion”, Sophie says “roar” whenever she hears “lion” or sees the picture of a lion in her storybook. The same goes for the word “cow” and “sheep”, she will say, “moo” and “miemie” respectively. My only consolation is that she really knows those words she manages to utter voluntarily. For instance, she can consistently identify “cat” regardless its form (photo, abstract representation or real life animal). And we have captured a few utterances from her that sound suspiciously like Teochew, Hainanese and Mandarin.

Obviously, my Sophie does not respond well to direct coaching. Direct coaching is not at all “fun” for her, so she is not interested. She responds better if we make learning a game, with music, body movements and sound effects. We also need to let her “figure” things out on her own or she will lose interest quickly. It is amazing how easily she can make the connections between a paper craft birds, plush bird, bird drawings (done by different artists using ink, crayons and paint) and real birds. I think this is only possible because we expose her to a “variety” of birds. Then again, it was the craftwork that really got her interested and eager to make the utterance.

Flashcards do not help her much either although she enjoys looking at the pictures. They cannot help her neurons create the necessary connections (lack concrete meaning to the words) so she cannot grasp the concepts. However, she likes to point and tell me what she knows in the flashcards AFTER she has learnt the words. For example, her all time favourite word “ball”. Consistently also, she picks up the “bread” (picture) and pretends to feed it to me as I read to her the sentence, “I like to eat bread”. Either she knows the word “bread” and what you do with it or she knows the meaning of “eat”. And the fact that she feeds me rather than eat it herself… Maybe she understands the sentence as well?

I do not know what is in Sophie’s mind. But a taxi-driver told me that she was just confused because she has been exposed to many languages and once she could decipher them, she would be talking non-stop. A salesman said my approach (my way of teaching Sophie) is labour intensive, time consuming and probably lacking in measurable results. But if that is how Sophie learns best, then I should do it. He also told me that I could never “do the wrong thing” with her unless I “give up” on her and “outsource” instead. Positive guy… he thinks my situation is “challenging” and “interesting”.

So, that was what I have been doing for the past week – observing and adjusting to cater to Sophie’s learning needs. Although I let Sophie do art and craft prior to this, I felt the burden of making each activity an integrated lesson for her. I had also stopped playing with her and replaced it with “what’s this?” and “what’s that?” lately. I doubt she benefitted much from my desperate attempts. Sophie just wants to play and learn at her own pace. I must be careful not to push for performance-based learning if I want her to experience the joy of acquiring knowledge and skill mastery. So, I have finally regrouped and I would revert to the original plan… with some modifications here and there.

All for my Sophie, who says, “uh-oh” when she falls or drops a toy, “bye-bye” when she goes to bed and “mmmmmmmmmmuack” to wake her papa up in the morning.