Mastery Learning vs Acquisition Learning

The above two terms are used frequently by education experts. They toss them around like they are every-day language leaving the average person, and parents in particular, feeling a bit out of the loop.

Because we are an education support group, Fun-Wey also uses the above terms. In fact, because of the way we develop and deliver our programs, we are able to promise that we can help your child achieve these levels of knowledge.

But what does that mean?

In fact, a promise is no good, if you don’t really understand what you are getting for your hard-earned dollar.
So here’s the scoop, in plain English.

At our Summer Camps, we focus our teaching on Math and English. While we can deliver high quality teaching and learning support for other subjects during the school year, we believe that summer is a time to enjoy learning about the foundational pieces that will give your child a boost come September.

‘Acquisition Learning’ refers to the learning that takes place in a classroom, or in a one-on-one lesson provided by a tutor. The child ‘acquires’ some new learning which he may not have had before. For many children, lessons learned in the classroom are exciting, and fun, and may really pique their interest in a particular subject or topic.

But acquiring new knowledge is not very useful until you ‘master’ it. This is the learning that takes place when your child completes the worksheets that the teacher assigns, or does his homework, or practises his piano chords, or shoots a basket a million times. In other words, mastery does NOT take place in the short-term. It takes many reiterations of the lesson, before he can truly MASTER the learning.

So here’s what we mean when we promise Mastery Learning for your child at our Summer Math Camp:

• Your child will understand how to interpret and solve ‘word ‘ problems;

• He will develop the skills to process mental math quickly;

• All basic operations – adding, subtracting, and times tables, will become almost automatic;

• He will overcome math ‘phobia’; and

• He will experience the joy of ‘getting it right’!

Similarly, here’s what we guarantee when we say that your child attends a ‘Fantastic Paragraph’ camp:

• He will understand and know the basic paragraph rules;

• He will know how to select a helpful graphic organizer;

• His use of appropriate descriptive words will increase;

• He will know the importance of creating a dynamic cover page; and

• He will learn how to add interest and excitement to his writing by way of graphics and pictures.

Fun-Wey has developed these methods over the years by working with students of many different age groups. We focus on making creative writing a fun thing to do – our students love the inspirational pictures, topic sentences and questions we provide to get them started. And then, we just let them go.

And all of this, of course, lays the foundation for essay writing which they will encounter in Grade 6 and beyond. By then, they’ll have the confidence that they can create something magical, fun and interesting, something we call ‘ The Fantastic Paragraph’.

If these are skills you believe your child could or should ‘master’, call Fun-Wey to register your child now for our Summer Camps, or to set up a complimentary assessment for one of our exceptional tutors.

Til next time,