How this child had, initiated, his own, learning processes, by getting immersed into what interested him the most in his surrounding environment, and his parents and adult counterparts, are, encouraging to his making his own, discoveries of the world around him too! Translated…
At first, we’d not, taught Hsiang to recognize the characters intentionally.
As he was born, from when mom’s maternity leave was up, in the daytime, he was cared for by his maternal grandparents, picked up early in the morn, returned in the evenings, wherever his grandparents took him, that, is where he’d, gone.
At age three, I’d, suddenly discovered, that he not only started recognizing the roads we were on, and he could start to, recognize the characters too.
Turned on, in the baby car seat, don’t know when, he was, zoomed in to the GPS screen. Followed the guidance of the GPS, his grandparents would, point to the road signs for him to recognize. On the car, he’d, told us which road was coming up, turn right here, turn left there, and he got it all, correct too.
His dad saw how he had a knack for this, he’d given him an old map, turned to the city of Kaohsiung for him, and pointed out the roads he’d taken times before.
And whenever he had the time he’d, gotten on the floor, onto that old map, to find the roads.
As I’d found him interested by the roads and the characters, I’d started, making him the flash cards, and had, written down the questions he’d asked too, and played with him the game of, word recognition, the picking of the cards, the guessing game, the matching game. And, as we played with the playing cards, I’d, taught him to count, and tried to teach him the times tables using the mix and match of the cards.
After he’d learned his numbers, he’d started becoming interested in the dates, and we’d, handed him a calendar, he’d, flipped the pages until they were all worn. He’d understood the concepts of the months, the days, and the year now, and gotten the hang of today, tomorrow, and yesterday too.
At around five, he’d gotten into, “drawing up the characters”. His aunt gave him a sketch book, he’d used his favorite marker, and drew the characters of his, favorite roads. We’d called his behavior, drawing the characters, because he was, actually, copying the characters. I downloaded the strokes program of the Department of Education on my iPad, it became, useful to him! He’d no longer bugged us on how to write this or that, he’d used the phonetic spelling to find the characters himself, then, copied the strokes of the word. And surely, it’s best, we’d, handed him a fishing rod, instead of, just, giving him, the fish.
illustration from UDN.com
His sketchbook wasn’t filled with the drawing, but the Chinese characters of the names of the roads, then, the English names of the road too, as he’d shown what he’d drawn to me, I’d had to, phonetic spell it out, to know what road he was drawing out. Whenever he had the time, he’d, started, drawing the names of the roads down, and soon enough, he’d, filled up, that second, sketchbook too.
Of course, there were times that we were, bothered too, as we go out, he’d had us gone according to what he’d drawn, and if he didn’t he would throw a tantrum, to the point of, crying so loudly, and we’d had to, negotiate with him, ahead of times.
He’d wanted to track down from Zhongwha First Road all way to the Fifth, wanted to go all the way from Gangshan S. Road to Gangshan N. Road, or, to head down a path he’d, never ventured down before, and if time allowed, we’d still, taken him, the long way, to find his way.
The child’s absorbance is like a sponge, and so, from the GPS, we’d, only, guided him along, and, he’d, made all those, sparks himself.
And so, this, is the enormous ability of a child to learn, he’d come across things that interested him, and initiated his own, learning processes, and, this child will fare really well, if he carries on learning things that interested him like this, seeking it out, whenever he encountered them in his life.
Life, the Obstacle Course 