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On Saturday (19 June) at the Annual Montessori conference in London Gary Wilson, author of several books on boys’ achievement in education delivered a top-notch presentation to an appreciative audience. Gary has many years of experience as a teacher, LEA school improvement officer, free-lance consultant, author and speaker. His books include: Breaking Through The Barrier for Boys’ Achievement, How to Help Your Boy Succeed and Getting it Right for Girls and Boys.
I thought his talk was fabulous and his ideas deserve to be more widely known by parents and early years teachers. If you have a young son, why don’t you try out one or two of Gary’s ideas? If that whets your appetite you can always read one of his books or attend a talk to find out more.
1) Play together;
This is not so much play with jigsaws or games, but pretend play, where you get in role as another character (Superhero?). The play may be sparked by a book or a film, or by your son’s own ideas. The more fun you have as you use different voices, the more your son will enjoy it!
2) Talk about your actions;
As you go about your daily activities, talk about what you are doing. This helps him to absorb words almost effortlessly and to understand that they are important (NB A child’s vocabulary at the age of three is the biggest predictor of reading success at the age of ten).
3) Enjoy rhymes and songs together;
The English language has such a rich literature for children. For boys especially Barbar the Elephant stories, Thomas the Tank Engine, the works of Kipling and Lewis Carroll are fun and interesting.
4) Talk about the things you see around you;
As you notice things around you, inside, outside, in the car, on your way to the supermarket, talk about them to share your interest. Use the specific words that describe what you see, it might be a Frisian cow or a combine harvester, a Porsche Boxter, or a John Deere tractor.
5) Look your son in the eyes;
By making eye contact as you speak, you show him that you are listening and paying attention to him, and valuing him as a person. It will make him feel good about talking and increase his confidence.
6) Model correct language;
It’s normal for children to make over-generalisation ‘mistakes’ like “I putted it away.” That just goes to show he’s working things out and unconsciously making up rules. Being corrected doesn’t feel good. Hearing “I put it away” many times from others will make him discover the correct past tense for ‘put’ for himself, a much more powerful way of learning!
7) Read to your child;
An obvious but important tip. You can make this even more enjoyable for your child by showing you enjoy it, for instance by ‘getting into role,’ using different voices for different characters, or using singsong.
Of course these tips are equally useful for girls, but boys in the UK seem to lag behind girls, at least in government tests, so I hope you enjoy these activities and help your child at the same time, especially if you’re a dad!
Great tips! I’m not close to having kids but am already nervous about the intricacies of raising them, and these are great tips to keep in mind.
Great tips – And as a Mom of a teenage boy who did all of these things, I can attest that it does help/work.
I am thinking more along the lines of the first point, I suppose. When we think how boys typically play we think rough and tumble. Can we add to this and describe the most healthy way to rough-house?
Hi Spence,
Thank you for the question!
I’ve done a little bit of research for you and found a great blog post from Kevin Klein. Kevin is a dad who teaches and writes and his wife Leah maintains a small private mental health practice. Kevin wrote an article for Babyzone.com called ‘Why Boys Need Rough and Tumble Play. He quotes a comment from another boys’ expert, Steve Biddulph, author of ‘Raising Boys; Why Boys are Different.’
Steve says that play-fighting gives boys a socially acceptable form of physical touch and closeness and that it provides dads with a powerful way of teaching their sons the physical control they will need later as boyfriends, partners and fathers. That makes a lot of sense to me.
Here’s the link to the full blog post for you. It’s a three-page article and the most relevant part is right at the end on page 3: http://www.babyzone.com/toddler_preschooler_fun/play/article/boys-need-rough-tumble-play-pg3
Hope you enjoy reading the post:)
I’m glad you agree, read the article and frankly prefer your writing style to Kevin Klein’s. I realize some people need to feel they need to site various data and studies but sometimes good ole common sense makes the point better. Sometimes our overly politically correct society does too much to demasculinize boys by insist their play resemble more of what girls do. Without play fighting and rough housing we run the risk of raising an entire generation of boys with wimpy characteristics. When women find themselves wondering why most men become sissies to adapt/survive, we can see a lot of it is what the accepted child-raising methods of the times demand.