2011 PSLE Discussions and Strategy

[Leanne]

You are welcome, pixiedust.



No pain no gain, I guess this applies to all subjects.The only difference is which subject the kid has to work on.


Cheers
Leanne

pixiedust:

Leanne:

..discuss the plot,(ensure no wrong chinese word is written, so no marks deducted) and for oral, just practise with him.

Ah, I see ! That's really a lot of hard work. No wonder he did well.
I also emphasised to my ds no wrong chinese word but he still makes plenty. Just very poor memory and sensitivity to the language. Nevertherless, it is good to know your hardwork paid off...inspires me to head the same direction too. Thanks for sharing.

[wkong]

pixiedust:

wkong, the chinese teacher's email reply is so inspiring. I wish all schools take that approach. is your child naturally strong in Chinese or you did some magic ?

Hi Pixiedust,

DS was never strong in Chinese, in fact he dislike it alot. Been asking me if possible send him overseas study cos he will not need to take CL or HCL. But I told him he has to face the fact and work on it.

Basically what I do is each time the CA or SA results are out, I will SMS or email to his teachers to understand which area I need to focus on him, and what I should take note. I will then re-enforce it when I am revising with him.

[wkong]

Chenonceau:

Is your son in P5? If so, maybe can try memorizing compo using digital audio tracks+ glossary list+ printed text? My son's compo grades went from 8/20 to 16/20 from November 2010 till now. His teacher can't believe it. He has memorized 19 compos and writes an average of 1 compo in 2 weeks.

I also get grandma to read 3 newspaper articles with him everyday.

Hi Chenonceau,

How did you manage to convince your DS to writes an average 1 compo in 2 weeks? I can never convinced my DS to do it. Any tips for that?

Cheers,
wkong

[janet88]

wkong:

Chenonceau:

Is your son in P5? If so, maybe can try memorizing compo using digital audio tracks+ glossary list+ printed text? My son's compo grades went from 8/20 to 16/20 from November 2010 till now. His teacher can't believe it. He has memorized 19 compos and writes an average of 1 compo in 2 weeks.

I also get grandma to read 3 newspaper articles with him everyday.

Hi Chenonceau,

How did you manage to convince your DS to writes an average 1 compo in 2 weeks? I can never convinced my DS to do it. Any tips for that?

Cheers,
wkong

Son's tutor said he must start memorizing some 开头，结尾 and add in conversation from now...no time to learn this in P6.

[wkong]

Leanne:

Pixiedust,


Honestly, what we did was do as many compre as possible(toughest to do as ds takes ages to write), do compos on different title, discuss the plot,(ensure no wrong chinese word is written, so no marks deducted) and for oral, just practise with him.

Maybe lately ds picks up reading as in chinese story book, and that thus helps a bit, tho its a bit late.

rgds
Leanne

Hi Leanne & KS parents,

Do you have any tips for CL picture composition writing? My DS can never relate picture 1 to picture 2 and so on.

Thanks,
wkong

[Pen88n]

Thanks, everyone, for all your tips. DS is in P6 now, so not much time to catch up for languages. I’m gonna put aside time for him daily to do the languages and improve on the various sections. Unfortunately, he is not weak only in some section, but lose marks in overall. His EL marks lost in S&T, cloze and compre. CL MCQ and compre both lost equal marks. So more work need to be put in.


For a guide, can anyone advise what should be the range of marks to aim for for EL (/95) and CL (/90) for paper 2 for a high A or low A*, taking into consideration compo will lose more marks?? DS is only getting in the range of the 70s and I’m pretty worried that may not be enough to get him even a A and will pull down his T-score for PSLE.

Thanks again for all the advice.

[happiest]

dear Pen88n,


I also need the same advice as my son manages only 70s for English. Any tips would help. hopefully other parents can share their tips.

[janet88]

Pen88n:

Unfortunately, he is not weak only in some section, but lose marks in overall. His EL marks lost in S&T, cloze and compre. CL MCQ and compre both lost equal marks. So more work need to be put in.


Thanks again for all the advice.

Ok, although my boy is in P5, he is also facing same problem...losing marks in overall exam...don't know how and where to start now.
For some S&T, he is ok but come direct & indirect, sure to lose marks. I've made him practice 'where' and 'unless' often for S&T, but still he can't get those questions correct.

[Brenda10]

Pen88n:

Thanks, everyone, for all your tips. DS is in P6 now, so not much time to catch up for languages. I'm gonna put aside time for him daily to do the languages and improve on the various sections. Unfortunately, he is not weak only in some section, but lose marks in overall. His EL marks lost in S&T, cloze and compre. CL MCQ and compre both lost equal marks. So more work need to be put in.


For a guide, can anyone advise what should be the range of marks to aim for for EL (/95) and CL (/90) for paper 2 for a high A or low A*, taking into consideration compo will lose more marks?? DS is only getting in the range of the 70s and I'm pretty worried that may not be enough to get him even a A and will pull down his T-score for PSLE.

Thanks again for all the advice.

Hi Pen88

No good in this area but just give my 2 cents thought:

EL
Compo. - 40
Situatioanl Writing - 15
Oral - 30
Listening - 20
Paper 2 - 95
----------------
Total 200


CL
Compo. - 40
Listening - 20
Oral - 50
Paper 2 - 90
----------------
Total 200

For high A, E.g 89, mean score 178, that's mean 22 marks loss
For low A, E.g. 78 , mean score 156, that's mean 44 marks loss (If paper 2 loss 20 marks, then the other 3 components cannot loss more than 24 marks)

However, end of the day they will adjust the up or down base on the overall performance by the P6 cohort.

[pixiedust]

Pen88n:

....lose marks in overall. His EL marks lost in S&T, cloze and compre. CL MCQ and compre both lost equal marks....

Mine is in P5 but I hope I can make small contributions here too.

For EL S&T, it pulls together all the grammar foundation. However, it can be drilled through practise. Unfortunately, any small(aka silly) mistake will cause 2 marks to be deducted ie. 0 for that question. Things like copy words wrong or missing punctation. Hence, I make sure ds fully understand that and be very careful. It helps if they understand the grammar rule behind instead of just memorizing the answer. For me, I find S&T best section to bet on to improve with drilling/practise.

For cloze, also a problem for us. I read in another thread this method worked for some children: Read once from start to end, Read 2nd time - fill in answer on top of blanks with pencil, Read 3rd time - does it all sounds connected and flowing ?, Fill in answer. I have yet to see ds's CA1 paper but I do have this method in mind to try out when we work on cloze passages in future.