Dear Parents,

We are really excited to announce the launch of our school’s website : www.halifaxmontessori.com.sg. Please visit our site and give us your feedback and comments. We are still in the process of making amendments and will regularly update the site to announce up-coming event, upload newsletters and circulars. So please visit the site often. You can also find the 2009 calendar of events on the site. We are planning to add a page featuring “What parents say” so that you can communicate with us through the website as well. We hope our website will provide another avenue of communication between parents and the school, in addition to current ones, for the benefit of our children.

We hope you are ready for the second quarter of the year because we are into full swing of things. The coming months will see you involve in some of the school’s events. This year, we will be having our Mother’s and Father’s Day celebration in school, which are new events and we hope you will like it. Details to follow shortly. Parents and teachers of our BASC children will be gearing up for mid-year exams soon but there is also the one-month school holiday to look forward to thereafter. Our Kindergarten and BASC children will be experiencing the annual night camp in June, promised to be exciting and fun-packed.

Don’t forget our Open House on 18 April, 2009 (Sat), featuring 2 informative and educational seminars for parents. Please bring along your friends who may be interested to know about our school and the Montessori Method.

Thank you for taking time and effort to attend the recent Parents’ Teachers’ Meet. Please take some time to complete our Program & Curriculum Evaluation Form which will help us improve.

Yours sincerely,
Yeo Hwee Fung
Director

Maria Seow
Principal's Message

In this issue, I would like to share with you some pointers on reading with your child at an early age and choosing the right books.

Reading should start, not with the technicalities, but with enjoyment. Books should continuously be adding joyous new dimensions to a child’s life, contributing to his overall development as a person - awakening his mind, feeding his imagination, expanding his horizons, increasing his knowledge, sharpening his awareness and making his life richer and brighter. Following are some points on “How to Raise a Reader”.

Early exposure to books and delay exposure to TV
Planting the seed early is the best way to develop the reading habit. As soon as a baby is interested in his surroundings and can focus his attention on an object for a while, parents can start to introduce books by reading aloud. Start with cloth books, then progress to board and paper books later. Get the child involve in book handling like turning the pages and answering question (e.g. Where is the dog? than guide him to point to the answer) will get them interested and focused. Try to delay exposure to TV as the multi media will likely distract the child.

Accessibility to books and reading materials
The child should have ready access to a good selection of books. Set up a book corner at home where the child can visit whenever he wishes. Pick a selection of his favourite books and place them in a basket or display the books clearly on a book shelf at his eye level. When the child is no longer reading those books, change and rotate the books.

Choose the right books. It should:

• be a book you like since you are going to do the reading.

• at your child’s level or just above. A fine balance must be maintained between choosing books that children can easily understand and those that they will find challenging, both linguistically and conceptually.
  
  
• be his interest level. Built real life experiences into the reading to help reinforce learning, e.g. a trip to the zoo when he is reading animal stories. Help the child comprehend the content of the book by asking questions and explaining new words.
  
  
• the right length. Start with short stories and progress to longer as the child’s attention span lengthens.
  
  
• read aloud well. Reading aloud helps the child see the relationship between the words you say and words on the page. Reading aloud also helps in expanding language competence, listening skills and concentration. Make sure that you read with passion and are expressive.
  
  
• have prints that are readable and that the illustration are attractive. The size of the print is inversely proportional to the child’s age – larger print for the younger child. The illustration should be comprehendible and in relation to the story.

Be a role model, have family reading time
There is no better preparation for reading than a parent reading to or with the child. Children love to imitate the task that adults do every day so if he sees you reading more often than watching TV, he will inculcate that love to pick up a book. Do not combine reading with other activities such as snacking. Children are not ready for multi-tasking yet but need to build their focus and attention span.

Set a family reading time so that all members of the family read alongside each other. It is also not essential for all the books to be children’s book. Many children like to look at adult books of paintings, animals, flowers, cars etc. If you are reading the newspaper, highlight interesting news with positive values to your child. Make going to the library a regular family outing.