Preparing kids for P5 in 2011

[Leanne]

Hi Pixiedust,


Yes, good foundation for languages is very impt esp during the pre school till lower primary days.It builts from there.


For chinese, I would not encourage just doing past year papers for revision.Its not enough.Maybe just for ciyu is ok, not for the rest of the section, esp compre.

Just one cent of my thought.



cheers
Leanne

pixiedust:

It is nice to read all the encouraging notes here, especially from current P6 parents.

Brenda, good tip ! I only started using school exam papers this year and I do find it more time saving. I don't know about Maths yet, I'll wait to see actual paper - should be returned within these few days.

It is just that for the 1st time, ds will come back with news of how many people failed and it is quite scary. We worked very hard (at least that's what I feel) on Chinese but the result is still not good.I feel like we are running after a moving target. I felt quite discouraged but after the weekend break and some clearing of the mind, we've just got to push on. If we give up then who's going to help the kid, right ?

We r&r the whole weekend, went to watch the movie 'The King's Speech', it is very inspiring.

Any parents with younger children reading this thread, PLEASE make sure your children have very strong foundation in both EL and MT !

[Brenda10]

pixiedust:

It is nice to read all the encouraging notes here, especially from current P6 parents.


Brenda, good tip ! I only started using school exam papers this year and I do find it more time saving. I don't know about Maths yet, I'll wait to see actual paper - should be returned within these few days.

It is just that for the 1st time, ds will come back with news of how many people failed and it is quite scary. We worked very hard (at least that's what I feel) on Chinese but the result is still not good.I feel like we are running after a moving target. I felt quite discouraged but after the weekend break and some clearing of the mind, we've just got to push on. If we give up then who's going to help the kid, right ?

We r&r the whole weekend, went to watch the movie 'The King's Speech', it is very inspiring.

Any parents with younger children reading this thread, PLEASE make sure your children have very strong foundation in both EL and MT !

Hi pixiedust

Perhaps for maths this method still workable. As for EL and CL, is better to read extensively and watch CL and EL TV or movie show to increase the knowledge and listening strength. For EL or CL compo. have to write at least once a week otherwise the improvement is very slow. Like for CL, dd school (Not sure about other school) only written about 10 compo. a year and this is definitely not enough.

BTW, thank you for sharing the good show.

[pixiedust]

Thanks Leanne and Brenda.


For Chinese, we did more than the school papers.
However, as the ds’s chinese teacher told the class, 90% of exam is 课外.
Whatever we did is just not enough to score well in OE compre and cloze. Sigh…oh well, just have to continue trying.

I am worried because CA1 is just paper2, SA1/PSLE will include oral and compo.

Yes, our school also do very little EL/CL compo practise per year.
One compo a week sounds good, arggggggggghhhhhhh… I need to go drink some coffee now and think about next step.

Thanks everyone again.

@Janet, how are you ? feeling better ? Wait for the paper to come back then analyse the problem. There’s still some time.

[janet88]

pixiedust:

Thanks Leanne and Brenda.

For Chinese, we did more than the school papers.
However, as the ds's chinese teacher told the class, 90% of exam is 课外.
Whatever we did is just not enough to score well in OE compre and cloze. Sigh...oh well, just have to continue trying.

I am worried because CA1 is just paper2, SA1/PSLE will include oral and compo.

Yes, our school also do very little EL/CL compo practise per year.
One compo a week sounds good, arggggggggghhhhhhh... I need to go drink some coffee now and think about next step.

@Janet, how are you ? feeling better ? Wait for the paper to come back then analyse the problem. There's still some time.

Hi pixiedust,
I'm planning to get son to write 1 compo every week starting from next week...hopefully can help him do better for SA1.
Very worried too bcos CA1 is just Paper 2 and with oral/compo thrown in, don't know what to expect.

Can't expect teacher to do much, we have to do what we can to help our kids.

Thanks for your kind advice.

[Peony]

Janet,


Hope your son will use his CA reults to spur on and not be demoralised. Many others are facing the same situation. It takes time to improve so he should not be hard on himself. And fractions is difficult for many students.

Have not gotten my DD’s mock exam results yet.

Have spoken to many parents and all in same boat - big jump from P4 to 5, yet no time to revise and keep up.

Am also working on her compo. But am using her school compos to improve as I worry about time factor if she has to write one a week. Going back to basics and teaching her how to execute her plans - she plans but when writing, goes off tangent - and also how to "flow" and not have "gaps".

[livewith_vanilla]

Somehow, the marking scheme is super strict . My teacher always says this " I can be kind, and not be too hard on you, and accept this answer. But who knows whether the PSLE markers will mark you so leniently? So I only accept the best answer"


By adjusting to difficult papers with high markings standards, the kids will be able to score in PSLE without losing marks just for writing the not-so best answer.

[janet88]

Hi Peony,

I saw the comments written by his teacher regarding the pic compo…lack of content, predicatable and generally needs to put in more details.

For Maths, amazingly ‘stunning’ results - 33%. Hubby is super shocked :!:
For the rest of the subjects, all in 60+ range. Lots of hard work needed to pull up for SA1.

Hi livewith_vanilla,
Having difficult papers with high marking standard will give the kids a good wake-up call. This way, they know they have to give answers which examiners want.

[pixiedust]

@Janet, your school has compo for CA1 ? Ours only paper 2. Also, they return the compo to the pupils ? That is really good. Ours, not returned. We ‘fought’ with the school on this point for years but no avail. I hate it because it is like a blackbox to us.


Next week is term break, good chance to do some catching up.
We only know the scores, need to see papers to know which areas to work on.
Chinese remains our biggest challenge.

[janet88]

pixiedust:

@Janet, your school has compo for CA1 ? Ours only paper 2. Also, they return the compo to the pupils ? That is really good. Ours, not returned. We 'fought' with the school on this point for years but no avail. I hate it because it is like a blackbox to us.


Next week is term break, good chance to do some catching up.
We only know the scores, need to see papers to know which areas to work on.
Chinese remains our biggest challenge.

No oral and compo for CA...I sure faint if there is.
His compo done was practice..but there are not many and that is my worry as he refuses to read newspapers :x Compo for SA1/2 is never returned nor shown to parents.

I need to see all his 3 subjects, hubby focus on Maths to see what went wrong.

[jesschan]

Janet,


Don’t worry too much. I notice that many schools set very high standards for CA1 to "jerk up" the kids and your son’s school standards are quite high, especially the Chinese paper.