Children go to first class to learn to write and read. However, in Vietnam, most children can read and write well before they go to the first class.

Seeking teachers who can teach children to read and write before they enter first class has been the hot topic of parents in Hanoi and HCM City who have children beginning first class this fall. Most parents are bogged down in the ‘wave’ of teaching children before they go to school. And, where there is demand, supply appears: parents receive a lot of information about extra classes which promise to teach children well.

Gearing up

Minh Hoa, a staff of Vincom Group in Hanoi, said that many people have told her to teach her child before he goes to first class or the child will be inferior to his classmates. Hoa finally decided to bring the child to an extra class where he can learn reading and writing.

Nguyen Thi Ngo, a housewife on Lac Trung street in Hanoi, who has to take a taxi motorbike to bring her grandson to extra classes, related that in kindergarten, the child is also taught letters and numbers, but he has to go to extra classes as well as children have to read and write well before going to first class.

“His parents have to pay VND2mil to the tutor, who teaches the child 40 hours over 20 weeks,” she said.

Mai Dong Writing Practice Centre on Truc Khe street in Nam Thanh Cong area in Hanoi provides three shifts of teaching writing a day. The students going to the centre have to pay VND600,000 for 15 periods of learning. Meanwhile, many parents still prefer sending their children to tutors instead of centres.

A teacher who is working for a primary school revealed that she has 3-4 students now and each of them pay VND800,000 a month for eight periods.

In front of Binh Tho Kindergarten in Thu Duc district in HCM City, a woman was seen talking to another woman when they were both waiting to pick up their children from the kindergarten.

The woman related that her daughter will be brought home from the kindergarten, where she will drink milk before going to an extra class at 5.30 pm. The girl will finish the extra class at 6.30 pm and then return home. After dinner, she will have to practice writing.

Parents making things difficult for themselves?

Though the curriculum for 1^st class students has been designed for children who do not know writing and reading, more and more students can read and write before going to school. In many 1^st classes in HCM City, there are only a few students who still cannot read and write.

Arguing about whether to teach children reading and writing before they go to school, Nguyen Minh Quang in Tan Phu district in HCM City said firmly that parents have to do that.

Quang related that last year, when his eldest son was in 1^st class, the teacher said at the parents’ meeting that she was very hard working with 40% of students who still could not read and write.

Minh Thanh, who has a son now learning at NTS Primary School in district 3, related that he regretted not teaching him reading and writing before the son went to school. “My son was shocked in class because he could not read and write like his classmates,” he said.

Meanwhile, teachers say that they themselves are not happy when their students can read and write already. The students sometimes are indifferent to teachers’ words because they know these things already.

Analysts said that normal 1^st class students just need to remember letters and pronounce well. However, normal students have turned out to be abnormal ones, because they are just the minority in their classes, where other students all can read and write already.

VietNamNet/TT