What constitutes a strong academic foundation, and does it mean the same thing for students across all levels? More importantly, how does one go about building such a foundation? The short answer is through skills and dispositions, but these require a disciplined and structured approach to apply in the optimal fashion. The Learning Lab breaks down the process into five parts to help set you and your child on your way.
1. Start the process early
Starting when your child is younger gives more time for good habits to form, and for the benefits of these habits to be reaped. Skills such as leadership and speaking well, and dispositions such as a spirit of inquiry, also have to be nurtured and developed over a longer period of time, as opposed to content required for examinations that can be picked up much more quickly. Parents should look to play an active role to encourage and foster good habits that contribute to the acquisition of key skills.
Parents of preschool children, for example, should monitor progress in English literacy and numeracy closely, as these are the fundamental building blocks that your child will need to understand what is being taught at subsequent levels.
2. Different academic stages require a different approach
But starting early isn’t just about beginning at the earliest possible age. After all, there’s only so much you can do to prepare your child for JC life when he or she is six years old. Instead, think of building up your child’s education as a continuous and ongoing process. You may have built a solid foundation to begin with, but at different stages you, your child, and your child’s teachers will have to work together to make adjustments as new needs and challenges arise.
For instance, foundational exam skills such as time management and staying calm while under pressure are always good to have but become progressively more important as your child moves up the education ladder towards major milestones such as the PSLE and the O-Levels. There are further nuances as well to cultivating a reading habit in your child: the recommended reading list for a Primary 1 student looks very different to that of a JC1 student, who could benefit from reading non-fiction or the news for general knowledge instead of solely for enjoyment.
3. Nurture a growth mindset
Perhaps the most important disposition that you will want to build into your child’s academic foundations is the growth mindset. This is because those who view learning as a continuous process of improvement put themselves in a better position to succeed in the long run than those who pigeonhole themselves early according to fixed ideas of intelligence, talent or disposition. Your behaviour and guidance are crucial for shaping your child’s mindset.
For example, decades of research have shown that praising your child for effort in addition to results makes him or her likelier to embrace harder challenges in the future. Click here for a more in-depth look on how you can nurture a growth mindset in your child.
4. Practice and apply
The strength of your child’s academic foundations is forged through practice and application. To reinforce the acquisition of good habits and critical skills, you should consider exposing your child to a variety of situations that put these to the test. This can be as simple as encouraging your child to explore his or her areas of interest in a deeper and more comprehensive fashion, for example. The key lies in doing so on a regular basis.
5. Provide a supportive home environment
Lastly, always remember that a supportive and loving home environment not only underpins everything else that goes into building a strong academic foundation for your child but is what your child will appreciate most from you. A part of academic performance comes down to a child’s mental state, and a supportive home environment can make a crucial difference in motivating children to do their best while being unafraid of failure.
Establishing the Solid Bedrock for Your Child’s Education
Building a strong academic foundation is a long-term process that requires commitment from both you and your child. At The Learning Lab, we believe building strong academic fundamentals goes deeper than content mastery and is about acquiring the right skills and dispositions towards learning. We structure our curriculum in a holistic fashion that places equal emphasis on our students’ quantitative and qualitative development.