Former I Can Read teacher AMA

[ICRInsider]

@baobao88

Hi! Sorry for the late reply.

Regarding the MOE syllabus it is purely marketing. Parents want it. In fairness when these centres put their syllabus together they absolutely do refer back to the MOE syllabus itself, but it is one of several sources they draw from and frankly put it is very, very diluted.

The ICR reading content is very very good for actually getting your kid to read. If you have a kid in n2, k1, k2 I absolutely recommend their pre-reading 2 and 3 and reading programs - though I don’t think you necessarily need the full reading programme depending on your kid. However their primary is… bad. They’ve made improvements, but I don’t rate it well as all. If you put your kid into the reading programme I would recommend you take them out before they hit the primary 1 program. Their pre-primary programme is kind of a placeholder for advanced kids who aren’t actually p1 yet to get your fees, BUT I actually kind of think the programme is accidentally pretty good if you have a teacher who is interested in their work.

I can’t speak directly to Learninglab, but I know that Lcentral has a reputation for heavily burned out teachers - so keep that in mind.

No, it’s not true for English tuition centres like I Can Read. They don’t have the stats to prove this and I can tell you for a fact their rates are nowhere near that good. HOWEVER - some of the more selective specialised ones for older kids do.

No, and yes. It’s a complete roll of the dice - some teachers will go the extra mile, some will coast through with no effort. I don’t know if this is PC or not but in my experience Filipino teachers at these establishments are usually excellent.

Almost none of the big chain stores can boast top scholars - most of them are westerners on a short contracts, people trying to break into the international school system or MOE teachers who burned out of MOE’s toxic work place.

[baobao88]

Hi ICRinsider,
thank you so much for your reply, really appreciate your time to write back.
Your comments provide valuable insight.

[baobao88]

hihi,

you wrote they do refer back to the MOE syllabus itself, but it is one of several sources they draw , just very curious, what other sources?
aka which “theme” / school of thought" ? or whatever you can reveal ?

[ICRInsider]

@baobao88

Hi,

You tend to see the core of the syllabus being a proprietary technique - for ICR this would be their specific approach to phonics - mixed with an undercurrent of MoE awareness (drawn from ex-MoE teachers and publicly available information) and then bulked out by fairly generic teaching methods found amongst IELTs teachers and taught in western teaching courses.

[Globalcode]

@ICRInsider

Hi my kid is now k1. As she has joined ICR since 2.5 yo, she has already cleared all 3 prereading levels and going to be promoted to reading class next month which I heard is a 1 year course.
After that I heard that there is ICR academy which is for pri 1 onwards.

Would like to check with you if she finishes the reading class and turns k2 next year, there will be a year gap until icr academy would commence? Is she on the right track, or should I suspend her until she is k2 for reading course so that she can transit smoothly to ICR academy in the following year.

Thank you for your kind advice!

[ICRInsider]

@Globalcode

Hi, ICR has something called a pre-reading course which is actually pretty good - it’s not a very popular course and availability is pretty scant as a result but I actually think it is one of the times that ICR really hits a home run in taking a fun and creative approach to learning. However - if you’re focused on more intensive academic stuff it probably isn’t for you and you should likely suspend. Honestly - every teacher I met there loved teaching it though.

[ICRInsider]

@Globalcode apologies, I meant to say pre-primary* not pre-reading

[baobao88]

@ICRInsider
hihi, sorry to trouble you again, not sure if you can share any insights to Oodles Learning (as i randomly found out that they are under I can read) - aka even share same office. (eg West Coast plaza)

are you aware of their teacher standard, course syllabus, any comments? feedback?

or should I find other specialize Math enrichment school instead.

Thanks

[ICRInsider]

@baobao88 hi, I’m not able to offer much insight into Oodles - they merged during the last few months of my time at ICR and the Oodles staff seemed nice enough, but I know that at least originally they offer a very different service. Oodles teachers are much younger, and much more commonly Singaporean - it’s almost more like tuition than a tuition centre id say.

[baobao88]

@ICRInsider
thank you, much appreciated