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WORKING WITH PRE-SCHOOLERS

10th August 2015

June Nganga

Working with a young one is a wonderful experience filled with many adventures. You are able to explore your creative side all while having fun teaching the little one. It is also very rewarding to witness their progress.

Below are some helpful tips from Apollo tutor, June Nganga, about working with young children.

During the first lesson, introduce the class rules and ask the student to explain the importance of the specific rules—scaffold as needed.
Establish a clear routine: it helps them feel in control, relieves stress through knowing what to expect, and also aids with lessening behavior problems.
Encourage independence—scaffold as needed.
Use manipulatives and try to include activities related to your child’s interests when possible.
Integrate children’s story books into the lessons: I found that this helped my student understand the importance of the lesson and see its life applications. Include stretches/light exercises in the lessons.
Children LOVE stickers at this age, so it very beneficial to utilize them. I established an average amount of stickers for each lesson—3 stickers. I took away stickers when he violated the rules, and rewarded him with extra stickers for pro-social behaviors or tackling a challenging task with a positive attitude. This was also a good way for the parent to determine the child’s behavior depending on how many stickers he had at the end of the lesson.
Crafts are fun ways to work on fine motor skills and can serve as a great content review when you find ways to connect them to your lessons (e.g. In our Seasons Lesson, we made a seasons cube from paper and colored it.)
Communicate frequently with the parent and establish a good relationship Remember your student’s age and realize that you might have to teach him/her things both academic and outside academic that you do not anticipate. For example, I had to teach my student how to hold a pencil, how to hold and use scissors, how to use an eraser, how to take out the straw for his juice box among other things.
The local library and school library are good resources to help you find children’s books and teaching resources. Apollo Tutoring was also excellent at getting you the resources you need.