Ryan's Home Tuition Going Well

Ryan has been having home tuition for 2 weeks now. His tuition teacher previously his 5 year old class teacher has been very diligent in coming to coach my boy. Hardworking lady who said that she is trying to earn more besides her permanent job as a kindy teacher. This is the 3rd week already. Last week, Ryan had an intensive one since she was available - Mon to Thurs, 2 hours each. It started off with 1 and half hours per lesson but since she has to teach both Chinese and Malay, the timing was a bit stretched. Perhaps she was also trying to be a bit more hardworking while benefiting my boy, we have agreed on 2-hour lessons. Min 2-3 a week depending on her availability until she gets her kindy schedule for 2010. I'm ok with that as Ryan is still on holiday. Earlier, we agreed on RM35 for 1 and half hours and she prorated for me for the 2 hour lessons. I have seen some good in the lessons and I don't want to be too calculative. I rounded it to RM50 for 2 hours and hopefully keep her happier to do a good job in coaching my boy.

In fact when Raymund is ready in half year's time, I intend to get him to join in as well. Nothing is better than personal attention. And now that I have started work, it is difficult for me to allocate time for my kids' studies. And, I'm pretty comfortable with this teacher simply because:

1. No ice breaking - Ryan already knows his class teacher
2. She is a kindy teacher. She knows what and how to teach preschoolers.
3. Most importantly, she knows how to handle young children versus asking university students to give tuition
4. I know her too. So I'm not too worried about having a stranger in the house while I'm at work.

While I left the coaching to her, I did in fact told the teacher what worked for Ryan when I was coaching him before. I told her about his behavior, how Ryan catches on - which is normally the day after. It is quite enlightening. What appeared to be difficult lesson to Ryan on a day - when he was having difficulty remembering, absorbing - became almost like a piece of cake the next day. There was no revision in between. It could be that subconsciously he had already absorbed earlier but was too tired and jumbled up to respond. It was not just a one off occasion but almost always like this. The teacher also realized it recently.

I have arranged this tuition mainly to drill on 2 languages - Chinese and Malay. But because I don't have as much time, I have asked the teacher to slot in some English Phonics reading during some lessons. I have many English Phonics books like the Clifford Fun series, the Big Book series, some short easy to read stories, etc. And to make sure that the Chinese and Malay are more or less structured, I bought quite a few reading books as well as practice workbooks. A good place to get these is from the Popular Bookstore. I've got the Sukukata Malay series from there too. Cheap and relevant - a set of 8 mini books costing about RM5+ each book. The Chinese ones, I went by publication. Sorry I am Chinese illiterate and have no idea what the kids nowadays are supposed to know at kindy level. I got some from Pelangi and so forth. The teacher said that they are good. Phew! I will take some pix another day. Too lazy now :P

To facilitate the learning and adding a bit more spice to it, I prepared colouring pencils, handheld white board and marker (Ryan loves this), exercise books (both square (medium in size) and lined exercise books), cards (for flash cards) etc for them. I told the teacher not to be too strict on homeworks as I don't want Ryan to be stressed up. Moreover, his 6 year old kindy class will come with quite a load of homeworks, I was told. When kindy reopens, I have asked the teacher to go through his kindy books and lessons to help him reinforce his learnings as well as to help him with his homework. I'm so glad that at least that part is settled. Hope it works out well. I'll have to coach my kids still - but wait till I get fully adjusted to my time. I intend to advance my son in Maths and English... and then there is Raymund who will start school now.