The role parents play in learning
Mr Oberthur says in his 30 years of experience in the education system, children are starting school with fewer social and life skills than in previous years.
These include: delayed speech development, inability to recognise their written name, little interest in stories and nursery rhymes, attention difficulties, lack of basic directional concepts, eating difficulties, sensory seeking or sensory avoiding behaviours, inability to track movement with their eyes, lack of interest in drawing or colouring-in, inability to hold a pencil, difficulty sitting still, excessive clumsiness, inability or unwillingness to follow instructions, socialisation problems, limited persistence and resilience and fatiguing quickly.
Mr Oberthur identifies three potential causes for the decrease in these social and life skills.
“Children learn through interaction, play and experience and our busy lifestyle doesn’t always allow for parents to be able to engage with their children as they once would have,” he explains.
“Another one is not all daycare centres provide the foundational learning opportunities.
“Some are structured and have goal-driven curriculum which aims to teach social and life skills to children through play, while others don’t have this, and those children can miss out on some of the skills necessary for them to be able to attend to learning at school.
“Finally, the time children spend on screens is a big one.
“The more time they interact with these ‘passive babysitters’, the more it impacts and inhibits their speech and language skills which are the foundation for reading and writing.”
Strategies for school readiness
While parents tend to focus on what age to send their child to school, and the inconsistent school starting age across the country is of no help, Mr Oberthur recommends seeking the advice of their child’s preschool or daycare educator.
“Children need to have age-appropriate skills to cope with the rigours of primary school, and while there are broad statements, like boys mature later than girls, every child is an individual person who should be assessed on where they are at,” he adds.
Mr Oberthur says that there are four areas that can help parents to determine if their child is school-ready.
The first is their independent life skills. Can they dress themselves, go to the toilet independently, or blow their nose?
The second is their communication skills, both their expressive language, for example, can I please go to the toilet? And their receptive language, for example, can they follow instructions?
The third is if they have age-appropriate social skills. For example, taking turns, waiting, listening to instructions and sharing.
Finally, how are their gross and fine motor skills? For example, can they hold a pencil, manipulate blocks, cross their midline, walk, run, jump hop and skip, can they open and close their lunchbox? Do they have core strength to sit on the floor and at a desk with tiring?
“It’s not a case that if they can’t do the above skills, they can’t learn. They will be able to learn,” Mr Oberthur explains.
“But, if they don’t have these skills, then the teacher will have to take time out of teaching the curriculum to teach these life skills that actually can be learnt at home with their parents before the first day.”