My child is blur and careless

[Estéema]

At P3, u might want to guide her with her studies personally as some kids don’t always do well at tuition centres being so young & need mummy or daddy’s guidance to gain confidence & acquire love for reading, learning & studying. In going thro this journey, then I’ll know her attention span, motivation level, likes/dislikes, quirks if any when engaged in studies, etc. You’ll then know when, what & how to cajole her to excel in all her undertakings, in a manner tuition centre do not hv the privilege to know or how/what makes her tick.

[cherrygal]

Estéema:

At P3, u might want to guide her with her studies personally as some kids don't always do well at tuition centres being so young & need mummy or daddy's guidance to gain confidence & acquire love for reading, learning & studying. In going thro this journey, then I'll know her attention span, motivation level, likes/dislikes, quirks if any when engaged in studies, etc. You'll then know when, what & how to cajole her to excel in all her undertakings, in a manner tuition centre do not hv the privilege to know or how/what makes her tick.

Thanks Esteema for your sharing. I agree with you re the importance of personal guidance.

Bluegal, my kid is also blur and careless whose grades are like roller coaster. Imagine the teacher wrote \"WEAK\" on my kid's revision paper...

I had no choice but to sit next to the kid and talk through the topics just before SA1...It was really stressful and saw a lot of blood spewed (mine of course ) but it was worth the effort.

Confidence building is the key. Once a week tuition / enrichment classes can't really help prepare for major exams unless the kid is very self-driven.

[sharonkhoo]

Carelessness can result from many different things. You need to narrow down to the root cause(s) - not knowing how to check, too lazy to check, a don’t-care attitude, not knowing the work in the first place, etc. It could be a physical issue - inability to pay attention, inability to copy, poor motor skills/handwriting etc. Enrichment is intended to boost knowledge and probably doesn’t address carelessness. Identify the causes, then look for a solution.

[bluegal6]

Thanks both for the advise, yes I really freak out looking at the results… now everyday i did revision with her… but before this we do check her homework every night… i also get her do past years paper but just don’t know why she can make the most simplest mistakes…

she might be tired. But if i withdraw all her enrichment, i fear she’ll fail the papers…
hopefully the daily revision will see improvement in SA2.

[sharonkhoo]

bluegal6:

Thanks both for the advise, yes I really freak out looking at the results.... now everyday i did revision with her... but before this we do check her homework every night... i also get her do past years paper but just don’t know why she can make the most simplest mistakes.....

she might be tired. But if i withdraw all her enrichment, i fear she’ll fail the papers.... hopefully the daily revision will see improvement in SA2.

I've highlighted the things which I think may be some of the causes of her carelessness, though there may be others. If you always check her work, then she won't have built up a habit of checking her own work. I have never checked my kids' homework, and when queried by teachers, told them that I liked big red crosses on the mistakes - my kids learned to check their own work partly because they didn't like to see the crosses. Make her responsible for checking her ownn work, or doing the corrections. The double whammy of teachers' displeasure and having to take more time to do corrections is a great motivator to be more careful. Of course, if you find that she doesn't know how to check, you should teach her some methods based on what you see as her most common errors.

Fatigue makes people careless, even adults, and kids have much less stamina. If you think that your daughter understands the work but is careless, then maybe the enrichment classes aren't necessary? Or at least cut some so she gets more rest. If you are going to add more revision on top of what she's already doing, she will be even more tired.

I also have some reservations about additional revision as a cure for carelessness. If she doesn't learn how NOT to be careless and how to check for mistakes, just doing more and more will reinforce her careless mistakes rather than correct them.

[sky minecrafter]

Hello bluegal, I'd agree with slmkhoo & fellow forummers... Determine the root cause before a viable solution can be developed for each scenario.


An illustration, when my P1 does a MA problem sum, she'd excitedly decipher the question mentally then writes down a MA equation, which could turn out to be wrong. If the question says there are a total of 11, & you need to take away 5, the answer has to be 11-5=Answer. She tends to do something like 11-6=5 & wonder why that MA equation is marked wrong. What I then did for her is to make her circle the numbers 11 & 5 in the question, telling her that she needs to focus on what is given. She has since understood & there is no more such \"blur\"ness. Annotating questions (a no doubt troublesome skill) can help decrease careless mistakes.

[bluegal6]

Hello, I just saw slmkhoo earlier reply. I do see she has two major problems which slmkhoo had pointed out, too lazy to check and a don’t-care attitude.

[zac's mum]

bluegal6:

Hello, I just saw slmkhoo earlier reply. I do see she has two major problems which slmkhoo had pointed out, too lazy to check and a don't-care attitude.

For such a case (if you have already verified she *does* have the skills and knowhow to check), you may need to incentivize, dangle a carrot.

My boy also had the couldn’t be bothered to check. Just wanted to rush thru everything and refused to check. I knew that if he checked, he could spot his mistakes easily & score perfect score for maths. So I dangled a carrot. If you check carefully and get full marks, I will...(fill in the blanks with whatever reward she really wants) I dangled smaller carrots for the mock tests in the assessment books, and a bigger carrot for the actual exam. Voila, his stubborness in refusing to check became stubborness in checking every detail.

[sharonkhoo]

bluegal6:

Hello, I just saw slmkhoo earlier reply. I do see she has two major problems which slmkhoo had pointed out, too lazy to check and a don't-care attitude.

Attitude problems won't be helped by more classes or revision. Sometimes, a child will work better if they are given less to do. If they are tired, they may just want to get it done as fast as possible. When my kids were young, I used to set them the minimum amount of work for revision, telling them that if they proved they knew what they were doing, and checked properly, they could stop. If they made mistakes, they would have to redo till they got them right. Eg. I gave my younger daughter 6 maths problem sums each day to do in the weeks before PSLE, and her maths revision usually took her under 45 mins a day (unless the school piled on the work - that, I couldn't help).

But first find out if she knows HOW to check - many kids don't know how to, and just start at the beginning, repeating the same mistake again if they made one in the first place. As sky_m said earlier, they need to check against the original question, and also should know how to check backwards (for Maths) and look out for their own most common errors (for all subjects).