Mui Hoong is an ex-school teacher with more than 20 years of experience and is passionate about how children learn.

Below is the email from Mui Hoong:

One of the toughest and yet greatest blessing is that of being a parent. While we want the best for them sometimes we are not sure if we are going in the right direction. Fully comprehend what you and your wife are going through and thank you for allowing me to share my views, will give you my two-cents worth of thought and the pros and cons of the situation.While preparing your child early for Pri 1 may be good, there is always a risk that his love for learning may be killed as you have said parent's nightmare. Not sure what kind of resistance your child is exhibiting from what I have seen in my pupils so far, those who show good academic peformance earlier need not have the stamina to do as well in later school years, some can even become jaded and learning for them is nothing more than homework.

While I agree that structure is important for learning, your child may not be quite ready for rigorous work yet. Psychologists have found that play is a very important part of learning and a lot of learning can take place and values can be imbued during playing, e.g. social skills of turn taking, motivation to do better through competitions. It allows alot of creativity to develop too.

To answer your question, my opinion is, it may be too much, especially when he is only going five. If the activity is to instil discipline a little dosage per day is fine but you may want to relax a little when it comes to the homework part. Choose what is really necessary. Can the same knowledge be attained through toys and games? It will be good to associate work with something more pleasurable so that he will not be put off by work in future.

As far as language is concerned, from my personal experience, nothing beats nurturing the love for reading. Children who love reading seldom do badly in school. It also helps to nurture the bond between parents and child. Linguistic skills are most important for pre-schoolers and lower primary kids. The other important thing you may want to put in place is his auditory skills. Being able to listen to instruction is very crucial as between preschool and pri 1 there's a big gap in terms of attention given to kids from 1-10 or so to 1-30.

I don'st think I'm in that position to comment on the effectiveness of Morning School (not the actual name of the school) in preparing children for Pri 1, it really depends on your child as well. Asian by nature there are a lot of drilling and considering the amount of time your child is taking lessons each day plus the night's homework, it seems a lot. Like what I have mentioned earlier if what he is doing can be replaced by something more pleasurable but constructive like developing his finer motor skills it might be better. Sometimes what seems elementary to us as adults is essential for kids to build confidence. At the end of the day, the choice of activity should give him confidence and inspire him to want to find out more.

The other thing you may want to consider is what do you really want him to achieve at this young age? My suggestion is since he is at the age where his actual talent may not be truly showing, you may want to expose him to various experiences which you are comfortable with. For instance trying out some non-academic activities like art or even music., go fishing etc, whet his appetite in his curiosity for things around him, this to me is most important. Doing art and craft helps to develop problem-solving skills.

I think by now you would have guess my answer to your last question? Maybe something else for yor consideration after seeing so many kids in my classes, the skills I felt quite lacking are: listening, observing, finer motor skills and logical thought processing. Yes! Even at primary 5 & 6 and some of these are very bright kids. I'm not trying to scare you. So you may want to consider dropping your child from the English and Chinese classes, math to a certain level is still alright but not at the higher level.

Below is the email from the parent seeking Mui Hoong's opinion.

My son is in K1 this year (4 years old going 5). We put him in Morning School (not the actual name of the school) from 11AM to 1PM where he practices Chinese, English & Maths. The teacher to student ratio is 1 to 1. He always has at least 1 homework each for Chinese, English & Maths everyday.

My wife & I all agree that Morning School materials are very well structured & we can see improvement in him. However, the approach is repetitive & based on drilling. My son doesn't like to do the homework in the evening. We usually spent alot of efforts to work through the homework together. We are now harbouring the idea that it may turn off his interest in learning. On the other hand, we think it is a good habit to cultivate in preparation for primary 1.

From 2PM to 5:45PM, my son attends a childcare. The childcare has homework but elementary in comparison and far lesser than Morning School. However, their teaching on phonetics & words blending serves my son well. Character development is not noticeably. My son likes to attend the childcare. We think it is because of the play element in the daily activities.

What is bothering us are the following questions?

Are we giving our son too much preschool education?

How effective is the Morning School programme in handling primary school homework?

If we have to keep one, which one will prepare my son for Primary 1 better?