https://www.scmp.com/rss/325225/feed Henrik Hoeg is the Managing Director of the Jadis Blurton Family Development Center and graduated from the University of Edinburgh with an MA in Psychology. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Summer is usually a time for rest and recreation. This year, however, has felt distinctly different. Everyone has been looking ahead, wondering when, or even if, schools would reopen, hoping for a return to normalcy in the new academic year. Parents who can afford it have taken the additional step of hiring tutors and implementing at-home study regimens for their children to try and plug potential academic gaps. There has been a growing discussion among parents of a possible “Covid slide”. This... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education/article/3097398/covid-slide-lockdown-causing-your-childrens-education-fall?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education/article/3097398/covid-slide-lockdown-causing-your-childrens-education-fall?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 14 Aug 2020 08:46:31 +0000 In my time as a literacy specialist there is one recurring parental struggle that I’ve seen more than any other: how can I get my kid to read for pleasure? That simple goal can feel like an uphill battle nowadays when books must compete with increasingly captivating video games, spectacular superhero movies, and expertly marketed toy fads. It seems like the humble print book hardly has a chance, but we know the value of reading, so, let’s get tricky and start scheming. None of the following... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education/article/2159425/how-trick-your-kids-reading?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education/article/2159425/how-trick-your-kids-reading?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 13 Aug 2018 07:00:00 +0000 The summer slide is the widely held and dreaded notion that children will forget significant parts of what they’ve learned in the last school year over the summer break. This is bogus on several different levels, but, as a common misconception with serious implications, it is important to discuss and debunk. The simplest fallacy with the summer slide comes from a misunderstanding about the nature of learning itself. If you memorised the first 20 digits of pi, recited them to me the next day, and... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education/article/2150830/notion-summer-slide-fallacy-perhaps-children-should-have?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education/article/2150830/notion-summer-slide-fallacy-perhaps-children-should-have?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 15 Jun 2018 02:12:51 +0000 The public perception of giftedness is skewed, romanticised, and often just downright incorrect. Some of the commonly held beliefs about giftedness are incorrect and often contradictory. Beliefs shape the way we act, and the policies and institutions we create. We need to change the way we think about and talk about this issue, so we can better support gifted students in our education system. To do that, let’s look at some of the major myths surrounding giftedness: The Social Ineptness... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education/article/2139437/5-myths-giftedness-children?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education/article/2139437/5-myths-giftedness-children?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 30 Mar 2018 02:04:11 +0000 There are few things more certain in education than the best approach to teaching a child how to read: synthetic phonics. The research is thorough and convincing, and the effects are tried and true. Phonics is an approach characterised by teaching the sounds that letters make rather than their names; taking these sounds and constructing words, and using sounds to decode words when reading. It stands in contrast to old-fashioned “look and spell” approaches, where words are learned by visual... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education/article/2132181/phoning-phonics-why-teaching-phonics-shouldnt-stop-after?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education/article/2132181/phoning-phonics-why-teaching-phonics-shouldnt-stop-after?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 06 Feb 2018 03:30:45 +0000 If you measure people’s heights, you find that most are around the average, with very few being extremely tall or short. When plotted on a graph, this distribution of data forms a bell-shaped curve, something which educators and parents in Hong Kong should know all about. That is because most schools in the territory still use the concept of “teaching to the mean”. In essence, they teach at a level best suited to children clustered around the average. This means that those in a classroom who are... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education/article/2124780/differentiated-teaching-way-address-needs-all-students?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education/article/2124780/differentiated-teaching-way-address-needs-all-students?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 19 Dec 2017 01:30:30 +0000