All About Preparing For Primary One

[UmmuMuadz]

Hi,


The registration date is drawing near. I'm not so stressful about the registration part. I'm more kan chong about my son's \"ready-ness\" for Primary 1. :shock:

Currently, he is attending weekly phonics lessons. He can read books now. Started him on the spelling also. On top of that, bought him some pre-primary 1 enrichment books for maths and english.

Just wondering if the above is enough. Should I send him for prep classes? If yes, any suggestion? :?

If I decide to prep him myself, which are the areas that I should focus on? :?

Mummies, your advices pls. Very much appreciated. :?:

Thank you

[turquoise]

I personally don’t think prep classes are necessary for P1, especially as your son can read and write. You don’t want him to get too bored in school.

[pocupine]

hi my dd is going to p1 next year. and i am in the 2a2 pharse for Rosyth. currently, she is attending phoinc, speekiasuch n drama which are enrichment courses provided by the childcare. (of course need to pay :lol: ). i send her to BeiJing Language for her Chinese. which i find it very good for her speech and interest in chinese.


by the way , do you think that it is adequate for her.
i try not to be kiasu BUT my friend told me cos she is gg Rosyth thus i shd send her for something more...

i hope that some seniors can advise me..

thks :idea:

[ChiefKiasu]

pocupine:

hi my dd is going to p1 next year. and i am in the 2a2 pharse for Rosyth. currently, she is attending phoinc, speekiasuch n drama which are enrichment courses provided by the childcare. (of course need to pay :lol: ). i send her to BeiJing Language for her Chinese. which i find it very good for her speech and interest in chinese...

If your child can read and speak simple English and Chinese books at this point, she is doing fine already. Have you read http://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/content/preparing-primary-school yet?

[pocupine]

THANK YOUFOR THE TIPS ..

i will check it out,,

Cheer... :celebrate:

[metz]

Many parents equate well-prepared for P1 with having an easy time and doing well in P1. Not sure if this is true but I’m certainly believe that being "not well-prepared for P1" does not equate to having a tough time in primary school.


My niece wasn’t exactly reading well at end of K2 last year. On top of that, she doesn’t have a fantastic memory - meaning she’ll forget things if taught too early. Hence, my sister decided against preparing her too far ahead. Instead, she follows her girl’s pace (of course, with some stretching here and there) and works on her weaker areas. My niece, in my view, performed excellently in her school mid year tests (SA?) this year, scoring ard 90 to 90+ for all 3 subjects and was ranked fifth in her class. She’s from a popular and much sought after school in Punggol.

Just a thought, instead of constantly worrying if our kids are well prepared and equipped for the P1, perhaps it’s better to look inwards at our kids’ abilities and help them accordingly and consistently.

[ChiefKiasu]

chamonix:

Many parents equate well-prepared for P1 with having an easy time and doing well in P1. Not sure if this is true but I'm certainly believe that being \"not well-prepared for P1\" does not equate to having a tough time in primary school...

chamonix, this is a very valid point. But I still wished I have better prepared my P4 boy for Chinese, when he was in preschool... sigh.

[sunset_dae]

Henry park is also a GEP school, but it seems that there is not much info abt the sch. The website also does not show the recent PSLE results and achievements.

Anybody can comment abt this school?

[Picolo]

chamonix:

Many parents equate well-prepared for P1 with having an easy time and doing well in P1. Not sure if this is true but I'm certainly believe that being \"not well-prepared for P1\" does not equate to having a tough time in primary school.


My niece wasn't exactly reading well at end of K2 last year. On top of that, she doesn't have a fantastic memory - meaning she'll forget things if taught too early. Hence, my sister decided against preparing her too far ahead. Instead, she follows her girl's pace (of course, with some stretching here and there) and works on her weaker areas. My niece, in my view, performed excellently in her school mid year tests (SA?) this year, scoring ard 90 to 90+ for all 3 subjects and was ranked fifth in her class. She's from a popular and much sought after school in Punggol.

Just a thought, instead of constantly worrying if our kids are well prepared and equipped for the P1, perhaps it's better to look inwards at our kids' abilities and help them accordingly and consistently.

Your niece is so similar to my ds2 - not reading English/Chinese very well, doesn't have a good memory, ... plus at K2 last year & earlier, he was the kind who tried to avoid learning, meaning that if he sensed some questions posed to him was too difficult for his ability, he would be totally switched off, say dunno and pretend to be sleeping. He actually has a competitive streak in him, but I think his fear of losing made him avoid learning. This lasted for as long as I can remember, meaning, he wasted him own time for many years.

This year when he started P1, his competitive nature works for him and he wanted me to help him to prepare spelling/tingxie for him weekly, and 2 months before the SA1, he was also willing to have me guide him with his school work. Trust me, I nearly vomitted blood a couple of times, over HYPY, simple Math, simple English, etc. and did so many repetitive revisions with him, esp HYPY! OUR efforts paid off when he got the 5th in class in a popular SAP school.

It's true that every child has different abilities and personality, and so wise mummies need to 因材施教 (teach a student according to his/her aptitude, disposition, interest etc and suit the instruction or education for the student's level).

I always tell DH that despite having coached DS1 only last year for his P1 work, when I started to help DS2 this year with his P1 work, only do I realise that I only covered about 15 - 20% of the P1 coursework, cos DS1 didn't need much of my help last year!

Going forward, it is important to handhold my 2nd child unitl he has achieved a certain level of proficiency in his 3 subjects. He needs a lot of repetitions as his memory is not good enough. He belongs to the type that needs 1 - 1 attention and is not suitable to join big enrichment classes. He is lucky to have a younger brother to 'push' him - whenever we come across Chinese words that he should know at his level but just conveniently says \"I dunno\", I would quickly add that \"Di di, tell gor gor the answer..\" and DS2 will quickly say the correct answer first! As di di is catching up very fast, he knows that he cannot slack too much. Having said that, my expectation of his academic achievement is very realistic and I really don't think he can be academically better than my other two, unless they have attitude problems in future. He can still be successful in life if he knows how to use his own strength and avoid 'battle fields' that he can't win.

[titank]

Hi All,


Seow liao, now I begin to worry about P1 chinese. How to generate interest in chinese for my DS? He just simply told me chinese is difficult, difficult.

What can I do now? I beleive nowadays most kid does not like chinese at all.