Dear Parents

During next week’s Parent Teacher Conferences, your teacher will talk to you about your child’s progress and their learning behavior (can they focus, follow instructions, work independently and transition from one activity to another and are they motivated to learn). These skills help a child learn in school and in life, if you have these Executive Function skills, the academic parts of school can be taught.

For ICS Kindergarten, we don’t just fill the children full of facts or rote learn. We do not give the children lots of instructions to follow every time we do something, instead we guide the children through the process of learning. For new activities we teach the individual steps and guide the children through with clear instructions. The next time, we will ask the children to remember what they did and recall the steps (helps to develop working memory and thinking skills). After that, we guide the children as needed, often asking guiding questions such as “What do we do first?” “What do we do next?”. Learning is a process, it is learning to do the various steps – task initiation, organization and problem solving are developing and at the same time developing impulse control to resist the urge to go play when others are completing an activity or avoid being distracted by friends. By this time of year, the children know the routines and know the expectations for the classroom and other areas in the campus.  The main question now is a child able to follow those routines and transition between activities? Has your child’s impulse control developed enough to help them transition?  Your teacher will have insights into how your child learns in the classroom and where they are still developing.

To help your child develop their thinking skills, you may want to start asking questions rather than just telling. Here are some ideas.

We ask a lot of What? Where? How? Why? Type questions

What have we been learning about? (Recall previous knowledge)

What is it / What did you draw? (Linking existing knowledge to a new object or something your child has created)

What should we do first / next?  (Remembering and processing instructions of more than one step)  

Where do we put …? Where are the …? (Remembering place and location of items, remembering routines, also develops mathematical language of positional words, e.g. next to, above, on)

Where should you be? (Observing others to encourage a child to problem solve if they are not in the correct place, or are not following routines?)

All these questions can prompt or guide a child to think about what they are doing. Maybe a child is still developing self-control and needs encouragement to refocus when distracted. Maybe a child is still developing flexibility and needs to hear it is OK to not get their first choice of a toy or a friend to play with. With adult guidance this child can learn to adapt their own choices and understand their own feelings.

Many parents ask, so if my child doesn’t listen or needs to develop self-control, what can I do to help? Here are some ideas about developing Self-Control: 

Games and Activities that build executive functioning (Center on the Developing Child: Harvard University, n.d.)

Activities for Ages 3-5    

Simple Ways to Help Young Kids Develop Self-Control (Edutopia. George Lucas Educational Foundation)

Help Your Preschooler Gain Self-Control (National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC))

For more information of executive functioning you can visit Harvard University: Center on the Developing Child website 

We are here to help, please do ask if you would like help or advice. We will also have parenting books available to borrow at the Parent Teacher Conferences.