Tuesday, March 05, 2019

Teaching English and mathematics to a six year old

My six year old son has learnt reading and writing which opened up a lot of opportunities. While thinking about how I could be more useful to him, I decided to try Duolingo for English teaching and Khan Academy for mathematics. Everyday at 18:30, I sit down with him and he first does Duolingo for 15 minutes, and then Khan Academy for another 15 minutes, for a total of half an hour a day. My role is to make sure that he really does the exercises and not play games or watch YouTube. I only help him when he gets stuck and requests my assistance.

Since both Duolingo and Khan Academy have curriculums that progress according to his level, I don't have to think about what to teach when. Khan Academy videos show me how to explain mathematical concepts to a child. Duolingo, besides training his English, also improves his reading and comprehension skills. Using the English version of Khan Academy also supports the language effort (of course, I have to translate math questions that have too many words in them to Turkish). The exercises show him the importance of paying attention to detail before jumping to conclusions, i.e. conscientiousness. Doing something every day is helpful in forming the most useful habit in life: persistence. And finally, he got rid of fearing failure and started to treat failure as a learning opportunity.

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