Last night, I had my first P1 2018 class. The children were fun loving and I had a great time with them. At the same time, I felt really grateful to Anna and Florence, our lower-primary teachers for the regular classes.
I have stopped teaching lower primary classes for a couple of years and have relied on Florence and Anna, two experienced former school teachers, to helm the P1-3 classes. Yesterday’s lesson reminded me how important they are to Study Room.
Some people may have the misconception that P1 kids are easier to teach compared with older students.
Do you know how much responsibility it is to guide P1 kids?
1. The students start off from a clean slate. It’s not easy to teach someone from scratch.
2. Precisely because they start from scratch, the teacher is crucial in making sure they get the fundamentals right- the grammar rules should be emphasized and the Maths logic explained carefully. This way, the children will have an easier time with the subjects when they are older.
In yesterday’s one-off free P1 class, I merely introduced them to personal pronouns and verbs such as “is” and “are”. In our regular class, Florence even has to guide the seven-year olds in writing composition, often spoon-feeding them before training them to write independently. In the Maths segment, I taught them additions for 1-10 and number bonds. Besides the fun games to get them to understand the Maths concept, Anna has to ensure the students understand word problems. It is not an easy task.
Hence, I came out of a two-hour class more thankful than ever to my two fabulous teachers.
Kudos to them.