Any parents of gifted children here ?

[angel64]

shylyn:

angel64:

Now my elder one is going K1 next yr, I have decided to pull him out and put him to those PCF program which is preparing them more towards classroom teaching with a bigger teacher to children ratio. Initially, I am quite relunctant to do it as he really loves the current school he is attending now. Made a lot friends there. But come to a point, I have to face reality. Eventually he is going to attend a MOE governed school not those international school. That's the reason why I decided to pull him out.
Fortunately, I managed to speak to some of his school friends parent. They are doing the same as well.

Hi Angel64
Wow..I can imagine your hands full with your two active boys.

I guess my case will be similar to yours in time to come as my boy is currently in Montessori cc..thus encourage more free play rather than classroom style teaching. Eventually, he will be gg to govn sch when he is in P1..just hope he will be sensible & cooperate with the teacher then. Of cos, I dun encourage him to blindly follow rules & regulations (which majority of the Singaporeans does due to our upbringings). Currently, he wants to do things his way & he has his own ideas & opinion even at such a tender age.

angel64:

[As for enrichment, I am still sending him to Berries Chinese, English Speech and drama. and a English program at Lorna Whiston coming up next yr and a music lesson as well. Many of my friends, colleagues told me English language is very important. Some how the mathematics question are more towards understanding the sentence than numbers.

I am not sure if I have overloaded my child. I see some parents still can load their kids with Kumon, martial arts, swimming lesson, etc.. Feel very taxing for the child.

I guess, most imptly, is whether the kid enjoy the enrichment programme. No point signing them up for any programme if they dislike it. Of cos, we as parents, want the best for our kids.
English language is definitely impt but to me, I find that we hv to balance English with Mother tongue, in this case, Mandarin. My boy’s English is good but not his Mandarin as he seldom speak Mandarin. Trying to find ways to let him speak more..usually I’ll speak in English follow by a Mandarin translation.

My time are always tied up by them.. esp this age gap, a 2 & 4 yr old. This is the busiest period I suppose. With strongest sibling rivalry, they fight for their toys, seats or their books endlessly.

As I mentioned, my approach is start early with motor skills, then later on, gradually move toward academically. Lets see how my boy react when school starts next Friday. Me and my hubb have been reading to him since young and now kind of routinised that when his younger bro sleeps, he will do some homework. I will teach him some maths, english and he will do some worksheets.

How old are your boys now ??

It is really not easy to take care of boys, super energetic. And elder one is going thru the WHY stage.. with endless questions.

[en107rn.01056yahoo.01056com.01056sg]

sleepy wrote [quote]I think not much diffence since every primary school is following the same MOE syllabus. [/quote]
Just my thoughts but I do have two kids studying in different schools. School does follow MOE syllabus but how the kids are taught, teaching phase, level of difficulty & material given to the students are basically different.

I remember asking Chamonix a question that since her boy is advance, what will happen in P1 (can't find the post but the question is somewhere along that line)? Hee... I like her answer as it helps to answer my own issues too.

My boy has requested for a change of school. The first time he asked was when he was in kindergarten, can't wait for primary school. Now that he is in primary school, he asks to have his school change again. His reason being he wants the school to touch on science, general knowledge, drama, for the teacher to teach faster & piano lesson. I just throw back the problem to him, giving reality of primary school life. Got him to think & let him revert on the possible solutions. He comes up with only one possible solution but I have asked him to think if there are any other possible solutions. So, he is still thinking.

Angel64 wrote [quote] Once academic yrs start, they will be too tied down by schoolwork, cca , [/quote]Not too worry too much. If the kid is advance, homework, school work is a breeze. DS finishes his homework in school. But if the teacher gave homework right before the bells ring, it can be done at home quickly. School revision, is done very quickly too so there is plenty of time for other activities or free play.

[tamarind]

shylyn:

When did u realize that your girl is intellectually more advanced than the rest of the kids her age? Is her attention span been gd since she was young?

shylyn,
I also don't always have time to post here

When my girl was around 15 months old, I started to teach her the alphabet, simply by pointing to the letter on the books and magazine covers around the house. I did not even have the time to teach her everyday. A few weeks later, my father-in-law told me she could recognize the letters on the drinks vending machine downstairs. He was very amazed that she could recognize the letters regardless of the sequence, or even when the letters were sideways. Then I realized that she could recognize all the letters and number at that age. At that time I was not amazed, because she was my first child, and I have no other children to compare with.

I never flash cards to her, and never sent her to any shichida class. In fact from birth to 3 years old, I spent very little time teaching her, I did not even teach her to read before she was 3 years old. She has excellent memory, and she is able to understand concepts effortlessly. I cannot remember whether she has a good attention span since young, I only spent a few minutes teaching her each time, and that is all she needs. But whenever she is in class, she always pays attention to the teacher. Unlike other children who likes to run around and play, she prefers to sit at one corner and observe quietly.

When I started to teach my younger boy to read, then I realize the big gap between my 2 kids. I consider my boy to be slightly above average compared to other kids. Compared to his sister, he needs many more repetitions to learn, and I need a lot more patience to teach him.

I only teach my kids to read after they are 3 years old. Before that, I believe that developing motor skills is most important. When my girl was 3 years old, she attended the Little Gym at Forum for one year. We developed her fine motor skills at home, with activities like picking up real red beans, and cutting real cabbage leaves using butter knifes, etc. Now she has excellent writing and drawing skills. She enjoys writing words with letters that are less than 2mm tall, and she draws with elaborate and tiny details. A few days ago, when I asked her to choose a toy, she told me that she does not need toys anymore. She wants arts and crafts materials so that she can create interesting things

[tamarind]

EN:

sleepy wrote [quote]I think not much diffence since every primary school is following the same MOE syllabus.

Just my thoughts but I do have two kids studying in different schools. School does follow MOE syllabus but how the kids are taught, teaching phase, level of difficulty & material given to the students are basically different.

I remember asking Chamonix a question that since her boy is advance, what will happen in P1 (can't find the post but the question is somewhere along that line)? Hee... I like her answer as it helps to answer my own issues too.

My boy has requested for a change of school. The first time he asked was when he was in kindergarten, can't wait for primary school. Now that he is in primary school, he asks to have his school change again. His reason being he wants the school to touch on science, general knowledge, drama, for the teacher to teach faster & piano lesson. I just throw back the problem to him, giving reality of primary school life. Got him to think & let him revert on the possible solutions. He comes up with only one possible solution but I have asked him to think if there are any other possible solutions. So, he is still thinking.
[/quote]
I knew a mommy who has a daughter in Taonan primary school. Her daughter scored 96 marks in english, and according to the mommy, that is not considered a high achiever, because many other students in her class did equally well or better.

In the top schools, there is so much more competition. It is up to us, whether we want to subject our kids to this type of competition.

In my case, I am a lazy mommy. I am very happy if my kids can score more than 90 marks already. So I choose to send them to a neighbourhood school.

I am more concerned about my kids' future career. If they spend most of their youth studying, they will probably find a job at big organizations, drawing a salary every month. I prefer my kids to have the spirit of entrepreneurs, work for themselves, and pay themselves To be entrepreneurs, they need to know much more than studying from books.

[en107rn.01056yahoo.01056com.01056sg]

Tamarind wrote [quote]I knew a mommy who has a daughter in Taonan primary school. Her daughter scored 96 marks in english, and according to the mommy, that is not considered a high achiever, because many other students in her class did equally well or better.


In the top schools, there is so much more competition. It is up to us, whether we want to subject our kids to this type of competition.

In my case, I am a lazy mommy. I am very happy if my kids can score more than 90 marks already. So I choose to send them to a neighbourhood school. [/quote]For my case, it's not about getting high mark, it's about getting him to like/love school. If getting high marks are my concern, I would be doing cramming & teaching early which I did not.

He wants to change school because in his own words \"touch on science, general knowledge, drama, for the teacher to teach faster & piano lesson\". And the new school must have chess so that he can continue \"learning\". I adopts Chamonix reply to my own situation & told my son the facts of primary school life.

For advance girl, they will simply hide their advance development & will try to blend in with the environment but for boys, most of them will act out.

[tamarind]

EN:

For my case, it's not about getting high mark, it's about getting him to like/love school. If getting high marks are my concern, I would be doing cramming & teaching early which I did not.

He wants to change school because in his own words \"touch on science, general knowledge, drama, for the teacher to teach faster & piano lesson\". And the new school must have chess so that he can continue \"learning\". I adopts Chamonix reply to my own situation & told my son the facts of primary school life.

For advance girl, they will simply hide their advance development & will try to blend in with the environment but for boys, most of them will act out.

EN,
I understand that you are not concern about getting high marks. But what if you found a school that fits your son's requirements, but that school happens to be one of the top schools in which there is a lot of competition to do well academically ?

For example, a school where the best class is for students who score 95 - 100. Those who score 90 - 95 are considered not good enough. Those who score 80 - 90 \"seriously need help\". Personally I think that such an environment have bad effects on a child's self esteem.

[en107rn.01056yahoo.01056com.01056sg]

Tamarind, my ds favourite session in school besides chess, is MT which he struggles but it’s something that he strives to learn & happy with what he is learning. So bad marks in MT does not affect his self esteem. It’s the phase of not learning anything is the one that makes him feels empty.

[tamarind]

EN:

Tamarind, my ds favourite session in school besides chess, is MT which he struggles but it's something that he strives to learn & happy with what he is learning. So bad marks in MT does not affect his self esteem. It's the phase of not learning anything is the one that makes him feels empty.

I think your son is very matured to not let the bad marks affect his self esteem. Pardon my ignorance, what is MT ?

I guess besides self esteem, we have to be reasonable as to what is really good enough. Is 85 to 90 marks really not good enough nowadays ? I am also not sure, because my kids are not in primary school yet.

[ChiefKiasu]

tamarind:

...Pardon my ignorance, what is MT ?


I guess besides self esteem, we have to be reasonable as to what is really good enough. Is 85 to 90 marks really not good enough nowadays ? I am also not sure, because my kids are not in primary school yet.

MT = Mother Tongue
Above 85 = Band 1.

Good enough? Depends entirely on parents' expectations. However, it is noteworthy that getting Band 1 in all subjects no longer guarantee you a place in the top secondary schools these days.

[wiimum]

It also depends on the school. Getting a band one in neighbourhood school is likely to be easier than getting a band one is a "branded" school. But as parents I think we need a realistic idea of what our own child can achieve and then set(or help the childset) a realistic target.