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Questions Parents Ask: Very young children all pass through a sometimes irritating phase when they ask 'Why' of everything and everybody. 'Why' Questions parents ask are fundamental to the development of understanding and should be encouraged, but additionally it is important for children to develop their ability to ask other kinds of Questions parents ask too. Scientists do not only ask 'why' Questions parents ask, but also ask investigative Questions parents ask or those Questions parents ask which lead to investigation. When practised, investigative Questions parents ask will promote new explorations and allow investigations. Children's Questions parents ask, however, are frequently not what they seem. Questions parents ask can be categorised and many attempts have been made to do so. Young children sometimes do not ask Questions parents ask in a recognisable form.
In Questions parents ask like these, common sense and good teaching coincide. They can also be fun, for parents as well as children. More than anything else, a good book is something that parents and children can enjoy together. Teachers have undoubted skills and experience that most parents do not have; parents have the advantage of emotional bonds conducive to learning that schools can never provide to quite the same extent. Thus parents' work complements that of teachers - and children receive the benefit of a partnership between what are, after all, the most important adults in their lives.
This method gives immediate contact of an easy and informal kind. Whole conversations can takeplace between parents and teachers who might not recognize each other in the street! Parents' difficulties and Questions parents ask can be sorted out and teachers can jap the wealth of knowledge parents have of their own children; thus the card, constructively used, sustains the dialogue and becomes a means of learning for both sides of the partnership. |
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