Asian Mums are more SUPERIOR?
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rosemummy:
Studying does not only mean doing assessment books and learning from textbooks. Many parents force their kids to do tons of assessment books, of course kids will find that it is boring to study. If kids understand why they need to study hard, then they will be motivated to study even when they are teenagers.
A routine definitely helps, but not all kids find studying interesting. Some prefer to laze around, sleep or do nothing to studying. Also, their habits and routine will change once they're in their teens due to peer influence etc. Their schedule will also be different. There're many more distraction besides TV and computer games once they're in their teens. But I guess parents can only do this much. -
rosemummy:
I heard that in lower primary, top 3 positions in class are usually dominated by girls. By upper primary, there will be more boys than girls in the top positions. Boys, especially, do develop slower than girls, and they will mature later. They may not be paying attention in lower primary, but it is not difficult to catch up in upper primary.
In primary school, most kids' marks will drop as they progresses. In P1 / 2, it's easy for a child to score 95 and above if they don't make any careless mistakes. To lose 15 to 25 marks due to careless mistakes is worrying. And if a child can't do 20 to 30% of the questions at P1 /2, there may be a problem in understanding / concepts which can be an issue later on as what they're going to learn builds on those concepts. There're exceptions, but it's really quite rare for a child scoring 70 to 80 in P1 / 2 managing above 80 in P6. Most with such marks in P1 /2 will end up with an average of less than 70%, or below 200 for PSLE. Nothing wrong with that if that's what the child is capable of, but it's best if the parents address the causes for such low marks early.
Those who lose a lot of marks due to careless mistakes, will do much better once they are mature enough to understand why they need to study hard. Instead of worrying, parents should try to motivate them.
In my girl's school, the top PSLE scholar last year is a boy. He was in the 20+ position in P4, then in P5, he was in the top 5. In P6, he topped the entire school. If a child decided that he wanted to work hard, he will do well.
I think that it is too general to assume that \"Most with such marks in P1 /2 will end up with an average of less than 70%, or below 200 for PSLE\". I wonder if there are any official figures to prove this. -
tamarind:
Marks is but a number. More impt is not the marks, but the process of getting it and the analysis of how the marks are lost.
I heard that in lower primary, top 3 positions in class are usually dominated by girls. By upper primary, there will be more boys than girls in the top positions. Boys, especially, do develop slower than girls, and they will mature later. They may not be paying attention in lower primary, but it is not difficult to catch up in upper primary.rosemummy:
In primary school, most kids' marks will drop as they progresses. In P1 / 2, it's easy for a child to score 95 and above if they don't make any careless mistakes. To lose 15 to 25 marks due to careless mistakes is worrying. And if a child can't do 20 to 30% of the questions at P1 /2, there may be a problem in understanding / concepts which can be an issue later on as what they're going to learn builds on those concepts. There're exceptions, but it's really quite rare for a child scoring 70 to 80 in P1 / 2 managing above 80 in P6. Most with such marks in P1 /2 will end up with an average of less than 70%, or below 200 for PSLE. Nothing wrong with that if that's what the child is capable of, but it's best if the parents address the causes for such low marks early.
Those who lose a lot of marks due to careless mistakes, will do much better once they are mature enough to understand why they need to study hard. Instead of worrying, parents should try to motivate them.
In my girl's school, the top PSLE scholar last year is a boy. He was in the 20+ position in P4, then in P5, he was in the top 5. In P6, he topped the entire school. If a child decided that he wanted to work hard, he will do well.
I think that it is too general to assume that \"Most with such marks in P1 /2 will end up with an average of less than 70%, or below 200 for PSLE\". I wonder if there are any official figures to prove this.
I know of a bright girl whose mum is only interested in the making her do tons of assessment books (same type). She did very well in lower primary (scoring about 98 average) but somewhere in upper primary, her grades started slipping. Her mum was worried and piled more assessment books on her. What is lacking is the \"process of getting the marks\" (by my terminology): continue building a strong foundation. Doing repetitive assessment books is not exactly the right way of building foundation: exposure to reading, exposure to creative thinking maths problems in a fun way, etc. That should be the way. The girl lost interest and confidence in the process and she became an average student.
Same batch there is also a bright boy who was very careless in his test / exam and score an average score in lower primary. His mum was worried, but upon analysing the paper, she agreed that the kid's concept / foundation was there but he was just careless. She motivated him to be more careful, and carried on enriching his learning (no, she did not pile tons of assessment on him). She engaged him to learn in fun ways - exposing to books of his interest, creative thinking skills, etc. His grades improved over time and he surpassed the girl who happened to be in the same school.
Parents need to know your kids well and analyse the situation before panicking and engaging in activities that might do more harm than good to your kids in their learning journey. -
Pen88n:
I totally agree. Doing tons of assessments may enable kids to get near perfect scores in P2/P2, but by the time they reach P3, if they do not have a strong foundation in languages, which can only come from reading extensively in both English and Chinese, then their marks will definitely drop.
Marks is but a number. More impt is not the marks, but the process of getting it and the analysis of how the marks are lost.
I know of a bright girl whose mum is only interested in the making her do tons of assessment books (same type). She did very well in lower primary (scoring about 98 average) but somewhere in upper primary, her grades started slipping. Her mum was worried and piled more assessment books on her. What is lacking is the \"process of getting the marks\" (by my terminology): continue building a strong foundation. Doing repetitive assessment books is not exactly the right way of building foundation: exposure to reading, exposure to creative thinking maths problems in a fun way, etc. That should be the way. The girl lost interest and confidence in the process and she became an average student.
Same batch there is also a bright boy who was very careless in his test / exam and score an average score in lower primary. His mum was worried, but upon analysing the paper, she agreed that the kid's concept / foundation was there but he was just careless. She motivated him to be more careful, and carried on enriching his learning (no, she did not pile tons of assessment on him). She engaged him to learn in fun ways - exposing to books of his interest, creative thinking skills, etc. His grades improved over time and he surpassed the girl who happened to be in the same school.
Parents need to know your kids well and analyse the situation before panicking and engaging in activities that might do more harm than good to your kids in their learning journey.
Kids who are under tremendous pressure from parents who punished them for making mistakes, may lose their motivation to study. Parents should be instilling a love for learning in kids, instead of drilling them on the same topics over and over again so that they don't make mistakes. Very often, fear and stress will cause the child to make even more mistakes.
I remember that when I was in P3, I had a panic attack during a maths exam, and I could not think at all. I got 70 marks, and I was devastated because I used to get 100 marks for maths. This was not due to any pressure from my mother. I was pressurizing myself because I wanted to stay at the top. -
insider:
insider,
I concur with you fully, Chenonceau, at least this has been the way that I have been raising my 3 kids.
All my kids are expected to know how to pack their own bags from week 2 of P1.
.
.
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PS: Qualify here is that I do not set high targets for my kids coz I am a mum who is satisfied with an average B results and the rest of the time they should go and play and play and play. Play was ultra important to me when I was young and I do want my kids to have a childhood / teenage years as colourful as mine...
PS2: Qualify further here that my family is a very closely knitted one that till now still spends dinner time almost daily together. We are open to discuss any embarrassment or whatsoever incidents over dinner table and we celebrate successes and talk about frustrations/failures freely. There's an unspoken code of honour in my house - that the kids can talk about / admit any mistakes without much fear of being shut off. This trusting atmosphere is something very important that I built for my family.
It takes tremendous courage, self-control, patience and maturity for your style of parenting. I salute you for it.
As a parent I think I'm over-protective by nature. It is very difficult for me to let my child learn from a fall, while I could have easily prevented it. I do let him sometimes but more often than not, I'll do my best to prevent it. :oops:
In today's world of 'kiasu parents' where every parents wants to provide the best possible enrichments and tutions (on top of closely supervising/coaching) to enable thier children to top, it is indeed commendable that you let your children run their own race but just gently guide them with minimal interference. :udawoman: -
insider:
PS2: Qualify further here that my family is a very closely knitted one that till now still spends dinner time almost daily together. We are open to discuss any embarrassment or whatsoever incidents over dinner table and we celebrate successes and talk about frustrations/failures freely. There's an unspoken code of honour in my house - that the kids can talk about / admit any mistakes without much fear of being shut off. This trusting atmosphere is something very important that I built for my family.
Bravo! This is a very difficult thing to achieve. :celebrate: -
Chenonceau:
I like the approach of letting the child experience failure early in life. Everyone will experience failure in some way some time in life. Failure can be really devastating for someone who had always been successful. Definitely good for them to learn that things don't always go their way.
In the field of psychology, there is a notion termed \"psychological immune system\". This refers to the phenomenon where that people discount, augment, suppress, and rearrange unpleasant information in an attempt to control its emotional consequences. These children who don't care... have failed so often that their psychological immune system has kicked in to protect them from sinking into depression. They discount the value of academic success because it is too emotionally painful to keep on failing.rosemummy:
Actually, my thoughts / posts was as a result of a recent discussion I have with a friend who's a HOD in a neighbourhood secondary school. She was telling me that there're kids who just can't think rationally and according to some studies, most (if not all) of them had always been poor in Maths. They just can't see the seriousness of the consequences, and don't care. The school can try every means to help them, but can't. The worse thing to happen is the negative influence they have on the rest of the students. Just like to see if anyone in this forum has some ideas what to do to help such kids.
It is difficult to help such children because the first step is to establish an emotional connection, and through that emotional connection, to provide emotional encouragement enough to temper the emotional distress that comes with failure. Once that emotional distress is tempered, then the children may have strength to face their failures. But this is earlier said than done. To feed enough emotional encouragement to a child that has failed so much that he discounts the value of academic success, the emotional connection cannot be one of nodding acquaintance. It needs to be a very deep and personal connection. Teachers will burn out if they have to do this with every child.
Whilst failure teaches lessons important for success, adults need to make sure that a child does not face failure alone and disempowered. One may wish to inoculate a child against bird flu, but the vaccine must contain very weak strains of the virus or it will destroy the child.
Similarly, the experience of failure should be given early in small but weak doses so that when the child grows into teenager and adulthood, he is resilient and can face and conquer failure without resorting to discounting the value of what is important.
This is a possible solution only. Hard to make recommendations unless the child is right in front of me. Admittedly, it is a solution that is quasi-impossible for teachers to implement without parental involvement. Very often too, these kids have such poor relationships with their own parents that establishing a strong parent-child emotional connection is well nigh impossible too.
I remember talking to a clinical psychologist in the US. He does a lot of work with children and teenagers in El Salvador, one of the poorest, war-torn country in South America. He was sharing how difficult it had been to help them because they have lost hope in their situation. And kids in much better situation do get influenced if they're exposed to such an environment. That's why I think there's a lot of problems in some of our neighbourhood schools. You only need a few bad apples to influence the rest, and it's difficult for teachers or parents to do anything. -
tamarind:
There're definitely exceptions, but I'm talking about the norm. If a child is used to making careless mistakes and somehow got the idea that it's acceptable because they know their work, this can become a habit and they may not change. There're definitely some who change, but generally, most who start out doing badly will stay that way. If a child is careless enough to lose a quarter of the marks, I think it's serious. How often can we afford any careless mistakes, much less making them in a quarter of what we do, in life or at work?
I heard that in lower primary, top 3 positions in class are usually dominated by girls. By upper primary, there will be more boys than girls in the top positions. Boys, especially, do develop slower than girls, and they will mature later. They may not be paying attention in lower primary, but it is not difficult to catch up in upper primary.rosemummy:
In primary school, most kids' marks will drop as they progresses. In P1 / 2, it's easy for a child to score 95 and above if they don't make any careless mistakes. To lose 15 to 25 marks due to careless mistakes is worrying. And if a child can't do 20 to 30% of the questions at P1 /2, there may be a problem in understanding / concepts which can be an issue later on as what they're going to learn builds on those concepts. There're exceptions, but it's really quite rare for a child scoring 70 to 80 in P1 / 2 managing above 80 in P6. Most with such marks in P1 /2 will end up with an average of less than 70%, or below 200 for PSLE. Nothing wrong with that if that's what the child is capable of, but it's best if the parents address the causes for such low marks early.
Those who lose a lot of marks due to careless mistakes, will do much better once they are mature enough to understand why they need to study hard. Instead of worrying, parents should try to motivate them.
In my girl's school, the top PSLE scholar last year is a boy. He was in the 20+ position in P4, then in P5, he was in the top 5. In P6, he topped the entire school. If a child decided that he wanted to work hard, he will do well.
I think that it is too general to assume that \"Most with such marks in P1 /2 will end up with an average of less than 70%, or below 200 for PSLE\". I wonder if there are any official figures to prove this.
As for how someone scoring 70 to 80 will do for their PSLE, it's a general trend that there's a slippage in marks as they progress. The percentage of students scoring above 85 or 90 will drop as they progress. Talk to any school or parent who have seen a child through P6 and I'm sure you can confirm that. I'm not denying that there're exceptions, but how sure can we be that our child will be that exception? -
I think it is worrying if a child at P1 is scoring only in the 70s for their tests. This means foundation is weak. If nothing is done to ensure that these children keep up with the syllabus, they will only slip further. Yes in lower primary, girls tend to dominate the top positions but boys are not too far behind. It is not a case of girls scoring in the 90s and all boys in the 70s and boys eventually catch up. The difference are usually the 2-3pts different and it also boils down to most girls being more careful and conscientious then boys.
I agree with rosemummy, there will always be exceptions and even for these exceptions, chances are, along the way, there was some intervention.
And even though I can say that marks is not everything and P1/2 seriously dun need tuition, blah blah blah, that is cos I am secure in the knowledge that DD is doing ok for now. But if DD were to be scoring in the 70s I will not be ok especially when I know she does not have any learning difficulties. I will definitely be looking into where the problems are and finding means and ways to help her improve. I am definitely not going to sit back and say wait and see, maybe she is a late developer. -
It is not logical to make any conclusions only by speaking to a few parents.
We need official figures to prove that.
Anyway, I am not saying that we should not do anything. But parents should know what is the right thing to do. There are many reasons why a child gets 70 marks. It is not always because foundation is weak.
If a child knows the concepts, but makes careless mistakes, then punishing him and drilling him with more and more assessments may only make things worst. The poor child is going to become so stressed, he is simply going to give up.
It could be that the child is just not smart enough at 7 to 8 years old. I do believe that many kids, especially boys, are late developers. They do become smarter when they grow older. Parents just have to be patient.
Most often, the child is just not paying attention, and could not care less about doing well. Then parents must know how to motivate him. Whatever a child learns in P1 and P2 are quite simple. If a child is smart, it is very easy to catch up in upper primary.
If the child is really just average, then no matter how you push him, he is still going to be in the 70-80 range. Why not just let him enjoy his childhood ? He may have other strengths that can enable him to be successful in life.
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