Pre-school centre spells out its method

I REFER to Monday's letter by Ms Lindy Ong, on the name change from NTUC Childcare to My First Skool and her concerns on our approach to preschool education ('NTUC shouldn't encourage mis-spelling'). I would like to clarify and elaborate on My First Skool's early childhood education approach.

In My First Skool, we avoid over-emphasis on absolute correctness, mechanics and memorisation when teaching young children to write. A quality preschool education, to us, ignites a young child's love for learning. It builds an all-compassing foundation for a child's intellectual, emotional, physical and character development, and goes beyond correcting errors.

Studies show that children commonly invent spellings for words by using what they know about letters, sounds and spelling patterns to spell words as well as they can. As Mr Charles Read, an acclaimed linguist, puts it, 'learning to spell is not a matter of memorising words, but a developmental process that culminates in a much greater understanding of English spelling than simple relationships between speech sounds and their graphic representations'.

Hence, we accept children's invented spelling to help them to express their ideas confidently. It is a progress towards standard spelling. They will spell incorrectly in their learning process, but they must not be fearful of making mistakes. Of course, our teachers will help them learn to spell.

In learning to spell correctly, tapping visual memory through seeing and using words is more effective than getting young children to memorise unrelated lists of words and rules. Therefore, our inhouse curriculum provides opportunities for purposeful writing, especially in five- and six-year- olds, such as writing messages, signs, letters and stories.

Our print-rich environment models the spelling of common sight words such as 'go', 'they', 'like'. Children are encouraged and guided by teachers to go to the classroom's word board to check the spelling if they need to. Language games also promote young children's awareness of word families, phonics and spelling.

Through frequent writing experiences, children transit to the next stage where they learn to recognise common patterns and structures in words and begin to use those patterns in their writing.

Confident and happy children are better prepared to embrace what life brings.

My First Skool aims to nurture young children holistically though our balanced curriculum. We invite Ms Ong, as well as interested individuals, to contact My First Skool directly. Our early childhood education experts are happy to share more on our curriculum and teaching methods.

Ho Yin Fong (Ms)
Deputy CEO, NTUC First Campus