Since my first article about Heguru’s right brain training programme in October in 2015, I’ve received many questions about the program and how it has benefitted my children. Time flies and both my daughters, Lauren and Georgia have been attending Heguru Education classes at OneKM Mall for more than eight months now. Here is the progress they’ve made since day one.

GEORGIA IN TODDLER CLASS

When we started Heguru last year, Georgia was a month shy from turning one. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting any progress from her. After all, she was just a baby and all that I hoped for, was for her to enjoy the activities.

Attention span and confidence

Compared to just three months ago, Georgia’s attention span has improved tremendously. She could now sit through the entire 60 minutes class with minimal fidgeting. To think that she used to get up and ran away halfway through the class! Now, she could even repeat some of the words after her teacher.

Related read: What Goes On In A Heguru Class

Love for books

I’ve always wanted to instil the habit of reading in my kids. Unfortunately, I’m not the most consistent mother when it comes to reading. Can you imagine how happy I was when both Georgia and Lauren pick out books on their own before handing it to me, so that I could read to them?

That’s not all, they are able to stay focus for a prolonged period of time, reading two to three books at one go isn’t an issue at all.

Language capacity

I’m not sure if the second child tends to talk earlier but Georgia totally amazes me with her language capacity. It caught us by surprise when she started speaking in short sentences at 17-month-old. She could understand instructions well too, even complicated ones like, “Go to the room and wake jie jie up” (Yes, I make her do my dirty work for me!)

Compared to her sister who was only babbling at the same age, Georgia has less frustrations and meltdown. That is because she could tell us what she wants and we could attend to her needs immediately. Impressively, Georgia could even understand my questions and answer them accordingly.

LAUREN IN PRESCHOOLER CLASS

Expanded vocabulary

I’m happy to share how much Lauren’s vocabulary has exploded in the past few months. Not only does she remember the words we’ve learnt at Heguru, she is able to apply them in sentences too. It’s been a real treat whenever I hear my chatterbox says words like unwell, experiment and temperature.

Power memory

Having a good memory is probably one of the most noticeable traits I’ve seen in Lauren since we started Heguru programme. She is now able to complete two 24-pieces jigsaw puzzles at the same time, all by herself.

Not only is Lauren great with short term memory exercises, her long term memory is surprisingly good too. We went to a Hi5 show five months ago. Recently, she saw a recording of the same show on YouTube, and said to me, “Mummy, we saw this show, isn’t it? We were there.” She doesn’t say the same about shows she hasn’t been to.

Quick to learn

The thing with having good memory is that it helps with learning. I’m entering bragging territory here by saying my kid really is a quick learner. She’d come home from kindergarten with a new song she’d just learnt and remembers every word.

It also helps with the fact that I only have to tell her something once and she would remember it. I attribute it to the memory training lessons at Heguru for this. For example, we have family members in Australia and Malaysia. I told her once where everyone is – Ethan, Aunty Lynette, Ah Kong and Ah Ma live in Sydney, Australia, while Kung Kung (my dad), Yee yee, Rohan and Mithraa is in Malaysia. One day, after our recent trip to Kuala Lumpur, she was flicking through photos on my phone and told me, while pointing at a photo of us in front of Petronas Tower, “Mummy, this is Malaysia. Rohan and Mithraa lives there.” Link memory works!

Related read: Heguru-Inspired Activities To Boost Your Child’s Brain Development

ESP

I’ve always been sceptical with the ESP activities conducted during Heguru classes. I mean it’s just down to 50/50 chance if a kid can pick the right answer. Well, unless my child is psychic. Lately, Lauren has become picky with eating green vegetables. So naturally I did what a good mum will do and hid all the vegetable underneath the rice or noodles that I’m feeding to her.

I was surprised when she said, “There’s vegetable in the spoon!” I was sure that it wasn’t visible. Okay, maybe she understands her sneaky mother very well. However, how do you explain this? On occasions when we do ESP inspired activity at home, she surprised me with 90% accuracy in picking the right answers! I’m a little spooked out but I guess all those right brain extra-sensory activities really work.

Confidence

Lauren has always been very shy. Since young, she didn’t like strangers and have always been a cautious child. She doesn’t like new, unfamiliar environment and wouldn’t attempt anything unless she knows what she is getting herself in to. The nice word for it is SAFE – she is a safe kid.

Imagine my surprise when she went up to the front of her class on her first day of Kindergarten and introduced herself in a strong, loud voice. I think in a way, those exercises at Heguru which she has to go up in front of the class and pick the right answers helps. The encouragement and praises from teachers at Heguru help built her self-confidence. She is always beaming from ear to ear, looking mighty pleased with herself after a well-done job at Heguru.

Love to learn

This is a big one for me. I believe at this age, it isn’t what the kids already knew but it’s the life-long love for learning that determines how successful they’ll be in life. There have been Friday nights when they refuse to go to bed, all we had to do was say,” Let’s sleep, so you can wake up bright and early for Heguru class” and they guess what? They’d agree to sleep right away! I believe Heguru, being their first ‘schooling’ experience has provided a fun and engaging learning experience which sealed my kids’ love for learning.

If you’d like to find out more about the right brain training for your kids at Heguru, visit the Heguru Education Center website www.hegurueducation.com.sg or call 6346 4646.

Heguru Education Centre has been selected as one of the nominees for The New Age Parents Choice Awards! To cast your vote, head over to The New Age Parents Awards 2019 – Cast Your Votes Now! and stand to win attractive prizes. Voting ends on 15 Sep 2019.

Michelle Hon is a mother of two, writer and founder of The Chill Mom Baby Planner & Maternity Concierge. A certified early childhood educator, she has helped many busy mothers-to-be plan and manage the arrival of their babies. Michelle has been featured on The Asian Entrepreneur and Harper’s Bazaar Kids. Besides being a contributing writer at The New Age Parents, Michelle shares her motherhood tips and experience on her website at www.thechillmom.com

This article was first published in The New Age Parents e-magazine

This is the fourth part of The New Age Parents and Heguru Education series. Stay tuned for the part five in our next issue.

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