Lose marks through carelessness!
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Dreamaurora:
Personally, I feel that to a kid, a prize money of $50 compared to $42 due to careless mistake, will make no difference. In any case, he still gets his stuff right? To make the kid remember and sit up, the kid must commit the act of digging into his piggy bank for money to pay you! He can still get his $50 stuff, but he needs to give me the $ he owes me for careless mistakes. I used this method on the last resort, ie the kid makes mistake even after I had gone through/teach a series of techniques on how to check his work.As someone posted earlier, work out a fine and reward system.
If they are overly careless, yes, the kids need to be penalised.
But parents do need to allow some buffer of 'carelessness' to teach kids to accept there will be imperfections in their lives.
You can do this system. For example let's say that for this month you promise your kid you are going to buy him/her something worth $50. Then you adjust this to the number of careless mistakes the kid makes. So for example, let's say for you give a buffer of maximum 2 careless mistakes per math test. If the kid makes less than 2 then you can increase the prize money by $1 but if he/she makes more than 2 then you decrease the prize money accordingly.
First, parent must teach the child how to check for carelessness. I listed down the usual careless areas (spelling, caps, punctation etc etc).
I accept carelessness for daily school work because the kid may not have time to check his work. but when time is allocated to check work and techniques taught on how to check and the kid still makes mistakes, then it is attitude problem. -
Let me clarify further the fine and reward system. It is not true that the kid will get his prize even if he continue being careless. The trick is to work out a prize that with the kid’s current rate of carelessness, he will lose the prize if he does not change. So let’s say that in a month a kid make an average of 20 careless mistakes. You can then start the prize at say 10$ and if the kid does not clean up his act, he will definitely lose the prize. But he if changes his act, he can get better things.
Personally, I do not agree in taking away the kid’s belonging or money if he does not change in this case. While this technique works when a kid misbehaves (for example refusing to eat a meal or not keeping his toys properly) it may be dangerous if he sees his peers in school are not penalised for carelessness and as such see his parents as the evil ones. -
Dreamaurora:
Thanks for clarifying.Let me clarify further the fine and reward system. It is not true that the kid will get his prize even if he continue being careless. The trick is to work out a prize that with the kid's current rate of carelessness, he will lose the prize if he does not change. So let's say that in a month a kid make an average of 20 careless mistakes. You can then start the prize at say 10$ and if the kid does not clean up his act, he will definitely lose the prize. But he if changes his act, he can get better things.
Personally, I do not agree in taking away the kid's belonging or money if he does not change in this case. While this technique works when a kid misbehaves (for example refusing to eat a meal or not keeping his toys properly) it may be dangerous if he sees his peers in school are not penalised for carelessness and as such see his parents as the evil ones.
Just to share my own method la. Any method will have to be dependent on the kid's character and what is his reaction. The parent have to be vigilant to the reaction of the kid. Once my kid know that he had hit a point where he will lose majority of his $, instead of being more vigilant, he went into desperation and disregard the whole system and brush it all aside without wanting to put in effort for the next round.
My system of 'fineing' the kid only applies to exams when the kid clearly knows that there are enough time for checking. We will also need to assess the difficult of the paper and how much checking time the kid has to carry out proper checks. If the kid so protest about the taking away of his money, ask him to come up with a better solution.
I am talking about my middle-primary boy. And our sharing are just references that parents here can adopt, but please adapt to suit person/circumstances and be flexible.
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just to qualify, this SA1 is the second round that I am carrying out the system. In CA1, some careless mistakes are 'acceptable' (eg whole/majority of class got the question wrong so it because a 'tricky' question instead of a careless mistake). For the few dollars that he had paid me, we went for a meal together and he paid for it. -
radiantmum:
Nobody is perfect. I vote for this solution. You have to teach your DD/DS how to check back. If necessary hire a tutor to do that. This will carry him/her throughout his/her life. Its a worthy investment.In my view telling a kid not to make careless mistakes is as good as telling an adult no human errors allowed. My preferred approach is to teach them how to avoid mistakes by putting in more checkpoints.
1. Check that you answered every single question and page - Fill up all the brackets & brackets.
2. Teach them how to cross-check their answers. If 2+3 = 5, then does 5-3 = 2?
3. Cover the answer and do it again and see if you get the same answer.
Last but not least, it's OK to make mistakes. Most importantly learn from your mistakes and not make them again
I teach all my students to do that and so far they have all scored 80 marks and above. Its good to start early as they are most receptive young. This habit will then be brought over to secondary school, not only for maths, but for all other subjects. They will feel uneasy if they don't verify their answer. THATS WHAT WE WANT!! -
In my view telling a kid not to make careless mistakes is as good as telling an adult no human errors allowed. My preferred approach is to teach them how to avoid mistakes by putting in more checkpoints.
1. Check that you answered every single question and page - Fill up all the brackets & brackets.
2. Teach them how to cross-check their answers. If 2+3 = 5, then does 5-3 = 2?
3. Cover the answer and do it again and see if you get the same answer.
Last but not least, it's OK to make mistakes. Most importantly learn from your mistakes and not make them again
This is the method we used since DS1 entered P1...... he's now P3, still the same. DH :spank: him, mistake corrected but last him a week. The carelessness returned. Now, feel like giving up... not sure what else we can do to help him.. :stupid: -
KS_me:
Dun fret. My elder boy was like this up to P6.In my view telling a kid not to make careless mistakes is as good as telling an adult no human errors allowed. My preferred approach is to teach them how to avoid mistakes by putting in more checkpoints.
1. Check that you answered every single question and page - Fill up all the brackets & brackets.
2. Teach them how to cross-check their answers. If 2+3 = 5, then does 5-3 = 2?
3. Cover the answer and do it again and see if you get the same answer.
Last but not least, it's OK to make mistakes. Most importantly learn from your mistakes and not make them again
This is the method we used since DS1 entered P1...... he's now P3, still the same. DH :spank: him, mistake corrected but last him a week. The carelessness returned. Now, feel like giving up... not sure what else we can do to help him.. :stupid:
Now facing the same prob with my P4 boy. Was going through Maths prob sums with him this morning. For those he does not draw models, the chances of careless mistakes is higher.
I think it is a mentality prob- must finish quickly, full of self confidence- no need to check again :stupid: -
Jennifer:
Totally agree with you. Found out the truth from him after every SA test. He really did not check, said he's over confident.Dun fret. My elder boy was like this up to P6.
Now facing the same prob with my P4 boy. Was going through Maths prob sums with him this morning. For those he does not draw models, the chances of careless mistakes is higher.
I think it is a mentality prob- must finish quickly, full of self confidence- no need to check again :stupid:
Teacher said he has short attention span, first 20 qs no issue... subsequence qs he lost attention... don't need to talk about the checking part...
REally hope he wakes up by end of this year... at lease in time for the P6. :rant: :rant: :rant: -
Checking is a habit that needs to be practised & formed, so that it becomes auto.
So it is critical to reinforce it as often as possible, as we can't expect the kids to \"switch on\" their checking mode on demand, if they don't have this habit in the 1st place. It is our discretion to give exceptions when there is mitigating factor like unreasonable work time given, sick etc.
The fine needs not to b just monetary but can be anything that the kids treasure e.g. tv/pc time, trading cards.
However, it is important to stress to the kids after each fine that the aim is not to take away their treasure but to help them form the habit to check their work. We can also give them some chances to \"earn\" back these \"lost\" treasures on other occasions.
Also look for opportunities in news & our daily lives to highlight the importance of a proper check & its adverse effect when not properly done. E.g. I told DS that engineers checked & double-checked to ensure the bridge can hold the weight of the vehicles; the supervisors & builders were v careful & checked their work when he asked why Sheares Bridge didn't collapse when we were travelling on it.*touch wood* :lol: -
i felt so heartache now.
my hubby is threatening my daughter to stand outside the gate for being rude. she is crying now. but i dun want to interfere coz i also felt that she needs discipline.
for these few nights, i get really frustrated having to deal with daughter’s carelessness, forgetfulness, sloppiness in her work. Having to deal with all 3 subjects homeworks from school and home assignments are already so handful i couldnt even have time to make her read storybooks or read with her! This makes me even more frustrated when i know reading storybooks is the key to master language… i felt so overwhelmed and i know she is too… i have no choice… I am not asking her to get tip top marks just band 2 if good enough for me… but her recent tests really got her into band 3 coz her careless mistakes…
i dont know why singapore education has to make things so diffcult for kids. is it me? am i wrong to push her this hard? i feel like dont care liao… but i cant… its for her own gd in long run… she is still crying so hard… if only i’d known, i choose not to have kid in the 1st place… i felt like a wretched mum. -
Yong HL:
i felt so heartache now.
Hugs to you.
Some children mature later. We just hv to accept this fact.
U r right that reading is the key to mastering languages. We often do not see immediate results when using this approach. But in the long run, the benefits reaped are many times more than doing assessment books exercises.
Instead of revising all topics, u can focus on her real weak areas one at a time. To attempt to do all daily is very taxing on you and your child. Just like doing exercise, our body needs a rest day in between the exercise days.
Take for example my p4 boy. Connectors and OE compreh are his weak areas (becos he reads a lot, he does not hv much prob with the other sections like grammer/vocab cloze). I took to coaching him connectors first and left OE compreh out. We studied the examples in the assessment books for connectors and analysed the usage. This way, learning is interactive and he is more receptive and can internalise the concepts. Now he is almost able to score full marks for connectors. We are just starting to work on OE compreh.
Becos of my method in coaching, he is bordering around high band 2 to low band 1. I am also worried but if I try to do more, it might backfire. So I try to push a little at a time and gauge his response. If he is ok, then I add more. If he complains too much, then I back off. Like flying a kite.
just my 2cts worth.
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