The truth is, I am really not a very kiasu mum.

I mean, if I compare myself to my friends who started doing flash cards with their babies from six months onwards and those who sent their kids for enrichment classes from 18 months onwards, I'd probably score a 9 on the heck-care scale of 1 to 10. It might be a potent combination of laziness and nonchalance, but the reality is that I have not done educational activities of any sort with Baby Jayne at home. Some friends gasp in disbelief especially after hearing that she would only start preschool next year when she turns four.

The reactions of the people around me made me a little paranoid, quite frankly. I may not be a kiasu mum, but I sure am easily wavered by opinions. =P So it got me thinking seriously about kicking start some form of education at home, just to get Baby Jayne warmed up to a lifetime of learning.

I read from some websites that three-year-olds typically cannot read yet, but some can recognise their names or perhaps just the first alphabet of their name. So I thought a good way to start is to get her to start recognising ABCs. She can sing the ABC song (sometimes missing some alphabets here & there, but generally alright), but she cannot recognise them yet. Thank God for a friend who passed us her kids' series of ABC booklets - It became a good starting point for me.

The booklets are all very short. There is a booklet for every alphabet, and inside each booklet, there would be colourful pictures of different objects starting with that alphabet. The rest of the pages would be a short story using those words, ending with a short poem or interesting passage on the last page.

I started reading the ABC books to her as bedtime stories - 3 booklets every night. For a while, I would just read through everything and she would repeat after me sometimes. Then recently, I started to get her to recite the alphabets after me, and I would test her again and again to see if she had started to recognise them. At the beginning, she couldn't remember anything! Even if I had said the alphabet 10 seconds ago, she still couldn't remember. Weird thoughts crossed my mind ("Does she have dyslexia??", "Is she even paying attention to me??"), but I kept reminding myself that she's just a three-year-old kid, and it's bedtime for goodness' sake! My own brains stop working when it's bedtime!

Finally one of the nights last week, she managed to recognise two of the alphabets when I pointed it out to her! Looks like this method is working! Slowly but surely, she is beginning to learn something. And I am glad that even though she may not have started school yet, she is picking up knowledge night by night in the bedtime stories.

While I do get concerned about Baby Jayne's learning milestones here and there, I've learnt from Joey's learning journey that there is really nothing to worry about. There was a time I was so worried that Joey couldn't read that I contemplated sending her to expensive reading classes! But within a month, it all turned around for good and she improved leaps & bounds thereafter. Seems like it's true that every child has his or her own timing - We really cannot rush them into something they are not ready for. Eventually, everything will work out fine in its own time. When I get anxious, I remind myself of that and feel a whole lot better right away. :)