A good read

Mummies out there struggling with spelling, do hop down to the library and pick up this book entitled "How to help your child with homework." In it, there are chapters on how to help your child with math, spelling, phonics, reading & comprehension and lots more. Each chapter contains Q&A and useful tips/solutions on how to cope with the child's homework as a parent- cum-homework facilitator. I found the tip on how to give spelling rather useful and applicable. It says to split the spelling list into three parts and revise each part separately. For instance, if spelling falls on Friday, it'll be good to start with the first 3 words on Mon, another 3 words on Tue, the last 3 on Wed and for Thursday to just give the full list of words (assuming it's a list of 9 words) and then revise only words that the child still has difficulty spelling. Sounds easy? It also recommends parents to motivate the child through praises and compliments to boost their self-esteem, then they'll be more willing to persevere and spelling will become a more enjoyable activity to both the child and parent (and less of a torturing task for the parent).

Considering that ours is a bilingual society, that means we have to give 2 types of spelling weekly- English and Chinese/Han Yu Pin Yin. So mummies, work out a roster to spread out pre-spelling activities and in between make sure you are generous with compliments and praises when the child gets her words correct, just like how teachers paste loads of star stickers and winnie pooh stickers onto the workbooks for perfect answers. Extrinsic motivation (compliments, stickers, a treat etc) will thus lead to intrinsic motivation.