By the age of 5, most
children in America will have been given some kind of intelligence test,
whether it is for private school admissions, gifted and talented qualification,
or public school placement in slow, average, and accelerated learning groups.
These tests cover the 7-abilities educators believe children must have
to thrive in the classroom.
Language – Receptive language is your child’s capacity to
tune in to and understand the language she hears (and later reads) all
day. Expressive language is her ability to use words orally (and
later in writing) to express ideas and feelings in a clear, organized
manner. Language pervades any class a student takes in school. She
must be able to listen, pay attention, and comprehend lessons being
taught. She needs to answer the teacher’s questions and follow her
instructions. Tips: To build this skill, read picture books to
your child as often as you can, asking her questions or expanding upon things
that capture her interest. It’s also important to converse with her about
everything and anything all the time. Children raised in high-language
households have IQs scores that are 38-points higher than kids brought up in
low language homes.
Knowledge/comprehension is your child’s understanding of information, social
standards of behavior, and common sense that children his age usually understand.
To flourish in kindergarten, a child should know colors, shapes, seasons,
fruit, farm animals – all the basic kinds of information kids are exposed to
through picture books, preschool, and life itself. He should understand
manners and have the sense to get along in the world as a
5-year-old. It takes time and a parent’s active involvement to
acquire all this. Tips: Nothing beats real experiences like going
to the doctor, visiting a beach, baking cookies, or taking a trip to the
grocery store for acquiring knowledge. Concept books such as Richard
Scarry’s Best First Book Ever cover all the basics kids are expected to
know by kindergarten.
Memory is your child’s ability to retrieve information learned recently or in the past. More memory is needed for school success than is required for any other career. In school, kids must remember spelling, vocabulary, rules of grammar, multiplication tables, history, and procedures for solving math problems. They must remember relevant facts and lessons learned in the past for new assignments and tests. Tips: To remember things better, kids must be able to take something long they hear or read and shrink it to a manageable size. After you read a book to your child, ask her to tell you the story back in her own words. Make patterns using Fruit Loops or colored beads, cover them up, and see if your child can recreate them. Chunking: 7+-2, chunk information together. For example, your child remembering to spell his name (MA-SON).
Mathematics is your child’s ability to work with simple
computational skills and to do the thinking needed for higher order math work
(patterning, sequencing, ordering, classifying, and comparing). From the
time your child starts school, math operations will be one of his most
important subjects. Higher order math work is the foundation for the
critical thinking and problem solving challenges your child will face as he
advances in school. Tips: Always build math into conversations you
have with your child. “Dinner will be ready in five minutes.” “Do
you want a whole cookie or a half a cookie?” Make a habit of counting
everything – from your child’s toes to the number of days until your
vacation. Let your child help you sort dark and light clothes when you do
laundry. Post a chart of your child’s schedule so he can see the
sequences of his own life. Put his stuffed animals in order of size from
smallest to largest. Compare cheese pizza to pepperoni pizza or Sponge Bob to Arthur.
Spatial Reasoning is your child’s ability to reason and solve problems using
pictures, images, diagrams, shapes – anything but words. When your child
starts school, she’ll need to draw and recognize shapes in order to write and
recognize letters and numbers. She needs to be able to work within page
margins, start writing from left to write, and space letters
appropriately. When she learns long division, she’ll have to be able to
line up numbers to solve the problems. Tips: Working with puzzles
and blocks is a great way to strengthen spatial skills. Look for visual
challenges in Highlights Magazine, which always features hidden pictures
inside other pictures, or read a Where’s Waldo book and let your child
find Waldo.
Cognitive Skills are all the brain functions that make it possible for kids
to think, reason, and solve problems. As your child advances in school,
he’ll need to compare and contrast objects and ideas, make predictions based on
patterns he has seen before, think conceptually when writing reports.
He’ll constantly be faced with new problems to solve or experiments to
complete. Tips: You can help him become a thinker and problem solver
at home. When the ball rolls behind the console, ask him to come up with
ways to retrieve it. When he can’t get dressed in time for school, ask
him to think of ideas for getting ready faster. Pose thought provoking
questions like, “What do you think would happen if a child were
president?’ Give him a voice in making choices so he’ll become
comfortable with decision-making. Finally, one of the best ways to build
cognitive skills is to stand back and let your child play.
Fine-Motor skills are
your child’s ability to control his hands and fingers. He needs these for
activities like cutting and folding paper, tying shoelaces, typing on the
computer, writing and coloring. Studies have shown that 60-70% of
children’s schoolwork requires fine-motor skills. Tips: Working
with Play-Doh, drawing with crayons, and cutting shapes are wonderful ways to
build fine-motor skills. Line up an assortment of coins, all heads
up. See how many your child can turn over in thirty seconds. With
more than one child, make it a race.
Beginner Blocks Pre-K, Kindergarten and Testing tutoring reviews each domain and places great emphasis on improving all 7 abilities!
