Still Tired...

Kasser was still tired. When I went for his lesson on Thursday morning, he still looked like he didn't have enough sleep. From what I knew, he went to bed around 10.30pm, and his mother would wake him at around 7.30am in order to be ready for my lesson at 8.30am.

However, despite having his own room, he still insisted on sleeping in the same room as his sister, who that night, wanted to read and so switched on her light... which meant that he couldn't go to sleep, and ended up sleeping late. He apparently doesn't like sleeping alone or in the dark. If he's in his own room, he sleeps with a night light on. All night. Sigh.

How to improve at this rate? When a dyslexic child comes to class tired, his learning is impeded by his tiredness because his tired brain needs to work extra hard to process what we are trying to input into his brain - a task that is difficult even when there is enough rest. But this child is indulged to the point of being spoilt. His parents have extreme parenting styles. One scolds and chides and derides and belittles, the other smothers and pampers and waits on him hand and foot. There needs to be a balance, and both parents need to learn to modify their parenting styles abit. One needs to learn to encourage and build up with words, the other needs to learn to let go and encourage independence - afterall, the child will be 8 soon.

So we moved on to the new phonograms. That day's lesson was particularly hard, because it involved learning two sounds that Singaporean children, brought up with Singlish, are very unfamiliar with... the "th" sound in "thing" and "this"... Many many Singaporean children say "some-ting" and "dis"... they are very unfamiliar with the "th" sounds simply because it is not a sound that is found in any of the mother tongue languages... namely Mandarin, Malay or Tamil. So because the parents are often unable to accurately pronounce this sound themselves, the children grow up not hearing it, and not being made to say their words right... thus, you hear children here saying "someting", "tink! use your brain!", "I have 4 fingers and a tumb" as well as "de bus", "dey are naughty", "dis is my one" and the one that I cannot stand, "mudder, brudder, fudder"... oh gosh!

It was easy to see that he was really really exhausted and giving up by the end of the session. So much so I skipped dictation and stopped, because I knew he could not process very much more. He was guessing wildly, and not stopping to think or sound properly anymore... Sigh.

So perhaps I should not have belaboured the proper pronunciation quite as much... perhaps I should have taught the two sounds in two separate lessons... but I seriously think the child needs to have better discipline instilled in him - and not by shouting or tearing him down, but by encouragement and motivation, as well as consequences that fit his actions (or lack thereof). It's going to be tough bumping him up if he continues like that.