Life on the Spot! Life and Leisure in Doha, Qatar

The traditional definition of literacy is considered to be the ability to read and write, or the ability to use language to read, write, listen, and speak. In modern contexts, the word refers to reading and writing at a level adequate for communication, or at a level that lets one understand and communicate ideas in a literate society, so as to take part in that society.  Using this definition from Wikipedia, my daughter Xianelle is definitely on her road to literacy and a rather tough one.

Ever since she started to speak, communication has rarely been a problem.  At 1 year old she could already communicate with us.  Although she still lacked the words then, it had not been a difficult task to understand her.  Before she turned 2, she had already learned more words and had more understanding of them.  And now that she’s 4, she has completely turned into a chatterbox!  Most of the time, we would beg for her to take a break from talking. 

Little did I know that my daughter already has the 2 important conditions for literacy, speaking and listening, two years ago.  Now she’s embarking into a really big ship called “education” that will be the key to becoming a completely literate person.

Xianelle now can write and is learning to read.  As a parent, it is very fulfilling to see your child able to write her name, have mastery of the alphabet and start reading words from a book or from billboards and buildings while you’re on the road.  It makes you smile to hear your child spell words.  But this is just half of the story; the other half which involves teaching your child to write and read is sometimes not too pleasant. 

It is not pleasant when we, parents forget that our children are not us, when we fail to remember that as children we were also like them when we were just starting to learn to read and write, maybe even worse.  It gets to our nerves when our children don’t pay enough attention to us when we try hard to tutor them.  I know that a lot of parents especially mothers can empathize with me.

Well nothing is perfect, we make mistakes by being too hard on children and pressuring our kids to learn things at the pace that we expect them to. Children on the other hand are sometimes too young to be so concerned about their learning, more so their education.  But I guess when we have the realization that as adults we should have more patience and understanding of our children.  We should try to find ways to make the learning process a little more enjoyable and fun for our children; to be more empathic of our children’s plight.  The sooner we, as parents bear in mind that we had been this road before, the more receptive our children will be.  More receptiveness will then lead to more learning in the process.  We must never forget that this road that was once ours, is tough and at times can be rough.