Chinese Assessment Books

[Suz855]

Honestly, I will not buy assessment books to stress the poor kids, why not change track & bring him to the library or bookshops & start flipping and reading the Chinese books, btw, comics books always interest kids ... if his vocab is limited & can't really read .... then choose something interesting & read to him/her daily .... not only you get to bond with your kid & am sure it will inspire him to enjoy the language better

[hquek]

Agree. If a child's language subject is not good, it probably means he is not exposed to the language enough. Bring to the library and start acquainting the child with storybooks. Once the child has read enough, his language skills will improve.


If finances are not an issue, try http://www.dangdang.com for good chinese books at very very cheap price. Tamarind's blog (http://tamarindvillage.blogspot.com/2010/09/how-to-raise-bilingual-child.html) has a list of wonderful chinese books you can try. My DS1 used to hate chinese (he's 6 this year), but after we got some really good stuff from dangdang, he's happy and excited when it comes to chinese story reading time.

[Charmaine_chong]

Dear Ladeline,


Spending on assessments couldn't solve the roots.

I agree to Hquek. Expose your kids to stories.

You may want to find out more about the benefits of reading aloud to your kids and how to get your kids to read.

让孩子踏上阅读快车道/名师大课堂
http://product.dangdang.com/product.aspx?product_id=20644925

朗读手册-5th edition
http://product.dangdang.com/product.aspx?product_id=20633120

[ladeline28]

Hi all,


Thanks for all your responses. I agree that my son has not been exposed to Chinese enough. I’m the only person in the household who knows Chinese and we watch only English TV programmes. Moreover, my standard of Chinese is not good enough so I don’t read to him. I have engaged home tutor and had put him in holidays programmes whenever possible for more exposure.

The problem is that he hates the language and have "shut-off" from speaking, listening, reading and watching Chinese related. I have constantly reminded him of the importance of the language and that he needs to learn it as he is Chinese. After all that have been said, he still refused to work on improving his Chinese.

Is there any mothers who have the same problem as me who can share some light on how they managed to deal with this situation?

[Charmaine_chong]

Dear Ladeline,


Does he likes the home tutor?

I have a friend who encountered such experience but her son was P1. After getting a right home tutor, he is ok. He finds that the home tutor is funny and loves learning afterwards.

Did you scold him when he refuse to read?

May be you try to encourage him or take a book out to read if you can? Alternatively you could borrow cd that comes with book, turn it on and look at the book.

Hope it helps.

[pixiedust]

ladeline28:

The problem is that he hates the language and have \"shut-off\" from speaking, listening, reading and watching Chinese related. I have constantly reminded him of the importance of the language and that he needs to learn it as he is Chinese. After all that have been said, he still refused to work on improving his Chinese.

We are in similar situation except ds is 1year older and he doesn't have the same negativity in the language. Why does your ds dislike the language ? Is it because he has been constantly reprimanded or pressured ? It is very discouraging for the child if he has put in work and yet unable to get good grades for the subject. Is the school exam paper very difficult ?

For us, I explained the banding mechanism and got him to check with his friends. ds could see his weak chinese affected his cohort position. Then I went on to explain about T-score and secondary school selection. Sometimes we watch the news and I highlight the impact of the growing economy, how is one to set up co-operation or business deals if you can speak the language ? Over time, I think it began to sink in. These may not be the right 'carrots' but for us, it worked. At least ds tries to work on the language. Just that there's so much catching up to do so we set realistic expectations too. I just hope he does well enough not to let the overal T-score be pulled down too much.

As for assessment books, I target the area more likely to acheive improvements in marks. Example compo and compre - very hard to gain even 1 - 2 marks even if you work through tonnes of assessments.

[sleepy]

ladeline28:

Is there any mothers who have the same problem as me who can share some light on how they managed to deal with this situation?

Children naturally shun away from difficult task.

When my dd was around 5 to 6 years old - whenever I asked her to learn or write, tears would roll down her cheeks and she would chant 'I hate learning Chinese, I hate learning Chinese'. I've no choice but to spoon feed her, sit down with her to learn all the required 生字, look up dictionary to translate new words to hanyu pinyin for her

Over the years, she gained confidence and doesn't hate the subject anymore because she realised Chinese language isn't as scary or difficult as she percieved it to be. Nevertheless when asked to read a Chinese book, her default answer is 'I don't know how to read'

She doesn't have regular tuition or enrichment as I discovered she couldn't catch up in class. So I've been coaching her personally since K2. I do despatch her to creative writing at CC once a week because it's an uphill task to get her to write compo at home

Although she's still a potato at heart but she can read (reluctantly) when shove a Chinese book & write those words required in tingxie list. I don't expect her to read 四大名著, I'm contented as long as she knows enough to survive exam

[ladeline28]

Charmaine_chong:

Dear Ladeline,


Does he likes the home tutor?

I have a friend who encountered such experience but her son was P1. After getting a right home tutor, he is ok. He finds that the home tutor is funny and loves learning afterwards.

Did you scold him when he refuse to read?

May be you try to encourage him or take a book out to read if you can? Alternatively you could borrow cd that comes with book, turn it on and look at the book.

Hope it helps.

Hi Charmaine,

Thanks for your sharing.

My son's liking for the tutor actually depends on his mood and also on whether the tutor has scolded him before. He may like the tutor initially but he will change his feelings towards the tutor some time later, if he get reprimanded or when the tutor was impatient with him. Well, you can say that I have not found one whom he looks forward to having lesson with.

[ladeline28]

sleepy:

ladeline28:

Is there any mothers who have the same problem as me who can share some light on how they managed to deal with this situation?

Children naturally shun away from difficult task.

When my dd was around 5 to 6 years old - whenever I asked her to learn or write, tears would roll down her cheeks and she would chant 'I hate learning Chinese, I hate learning Chinese'. I've no choice but to spoon feed her, sit down with her to learn all the required 生字, look up dictionary to translate new words to hanyu pinyin for her

Over the years, she gained confidence and doesn't hate the subject anymore because she realised Chinese language isn't as scary or difficult as she percieved it to be. Nevertheless when asked to read a Chinese book, her default answer is 'I don't know how to read'

She doesn't have regular tuition or enrichment as I discovered she couldn't catch up in class. So I've been coaching her personally since K2. I do despatch her to creative writing at CC once a week because it's an uphill task to get her to write compo at home

Although she's still a potato at heart but she can read (reluctantly) when shove a Chinese book & write those words required in tingxie list. I don't expect her to read 四大名著, I'm contented as long as she knows enough to survive exam

Hi sleepy,

Thanks for your sharing. In fact, I did the same as you. I spoon fed him since K2. I still write the hanyu pinyin and English translation for him on his tingxie lists and textbooks. However, I felt he has relied on me too much and is thinking that it is mummy's job to do that. Sigh!

[Chenonceau]

My son’s Grandma was a great believer in assessment books. She was a Chinese Tutor after leaving MOE as a Chinese Teacher. She was my son’s Tutor up until last month. It killed my son’s interest in Chinese. Also, it was ineffective because the exams test far beyond the scope of what is taught.


I absolutely had to get my son to start reading or there is no way to do well.

However, the major focus now is to get him to start reading in a big way. I have some good initial results with audiorecordings of stories/compos. He has the text and he follows the tape alongside. He has to memorize the stories/compos in blocks of 6 lines. Then he recites to me each block of 6. He is happy with this because he can easily manage 6 lines and he will seek me out to recite them before he forgets. At the end of the whole story/compo, he can read the whole compo/story fluently. That’s what I want… and he feels good that he can do it.

In the beginning, I had to sit next to him and encourage him along… but now, he is quite independent… and he has started reading something called ma xiao tiao. We hunted high and low at Bras Basah to find a set of books about "a naughty boy who has adventures". Seriously, I can’t read Chinese so that was a shot in the dark for me… I wanted books that would engage him, and I marched into the store and asked really asked for books about "a naughty boy who has adventures".

You really should check out Tamarind’s blog for a list of books suitable for younger children. It’s a precious resource indeed. I will be getting some of her recommendations for my son.

Instead of assessment books, I now use a collection of the previous year’s test papers from various schools. You can download these from the internet. About 1.5 months before the exam, I let him do one a week so that he is used to the exam format.