Preparing kids for P5 in 2011

[linden2000]

I am also very impressed with the pontangs. Just received consent form for this term's Chinese remedial. Actually DS has been going such remedial for years already but yet to see improvement. But I am too cowardly to say I object to him going because I know I will straightaway get a call and an earful from the Chinese teacher.


Everyday there is either supplementary or remedial or CCA. Come back still have to finish homework. Where is the time to revise? And still must sleep at 9.30 else he falls asleep in class. :roll:

Thanks to Chenonceau for sharing your strategies. Always learn a lot from you.

[underthesea]

Chenonceau,

Thank you so much for your reply and thanks for the tips too. I will try your method to coach dd.

[linden2000]

pixiedust:

phankao - we have ipad but it is just a platform so depends on which Chinese apps we download. I tried asking around but so far only downloaded the Chinese dictionary. I also enabled the stylus/hand-writing input - the small bonus I see is that ds is keen to use the ipad to lookup the dictionary and hence \"forced\" to write the hanzi - how much benefit this equates to in the long run remains to be seen.

Hi Pixiedust. Not sure what you are looking for but we downloaded Chinese comics audiobooks 漫画西游 (ie 西游记）and 漫画三国 (ie 三国演义). DS is not interested in reading Chinese books so I find that the illustrations help to keep him interested. There are also sufficient words to practice word recognition and reading with no hanyu pinyin. I find that when there is hanyu pinyin, he will rely on that and is not truly 'reading'. 漫画三国 may be a little 'heavier' in content since it has got many more characters and state names but so far DS has been interested to read on surprisingly. From within the app, you can also choose to download others like 成语故事 which has 100成语 with their respective stories and model sentence as illustration. 3 parts, ie 300 of them. So far we've only downloaded the first 100. Hope the above helps.

[Chenonceau]

linden2000:

I am also very impressed with the pontangs.


Thanks to Chenonceau for sharing your strategies. Always learn a lot from you.

You're welcome!!

The schools do more of what does not work. More classes and more hours of big group teaching. The new PSLE testing format is heavy on thinking skills across all subjects...

(1) Science thinking skills and heuristics
(2) Math thinking skills and heuristics
(3) English compo skills (standards for creative writing have risen amazingly)
(4) Chinese compo skills (idem above)

Skills can only be mastered with practice and individualized feedback. This can't be done in big groups of 40 students.

If teachers teach less, students must DO more and teachers must MARK more.

The longer hours of remedial and supplementary are inefficient and ineffective. It is more of the same thing - big group teaching. When my DS works at home with me, he has to practise. He needs to write one compo a day... compared to 2 compos in 3 months. When I mark his compo, I comment on every line (green for good things and red for points of improvement). Every hour of compo practice he does (and which I correct in detail), teaches more than 10 hours of talking by teacher. Remedial classes are a waste of time. It makes sense to swap 10 hours' remedial for 1 hour of work... and play an extra 9 hours. When I correct his compo, I comment on EVERY line (good things are commented in green and improvement points are commented in red). He scored 24/40 for SA2 in English compo because he wrote like he did in P4. Over June, we ratcheted up the quality of his writing by A LOT. Later, if got time, I will key into his blog and link here. You can compare with his P4 work.

In addition, when we work at home, my DS gets to pick the practices that are most useful to him. My brief to him is simple - \"I want you to be lazy. Get the best results in the least time. So, you don't be goondu goondu, complete everything in the book. Do enough that you understand, and then move on. And skip all the easy questions because those waste time.

In the past, when standards were lower, there is less of a crunch on time resources. Nowadays, the PSLE standards are so high that I use Sec 3 assessment books to teach PSLE creative writing because if I stick with the PSLE books, he can score only 24/40. I need to teach him techniques of bathos, irony, energy plotting... If I rely on teacher, compos come back with a tick... no mark... no comments.

It's NUTS!! :scratchhead: :siao:

With PSLE hitting such high standards (across every subject), the crunch on resources is considerable. Something must go... and I am certainly not retrenching Play Time because that is key to children's well-being. Regular school (ineffective and inefficient) has to be retrenched instead.

Maybe there are the 0.02% of students who are so smart that 2 compos a term can bring them up to the standards required. My son is not gifted. The only solution is to practise more, and for that we need TIME.

[PiggyLalala]

linden2000:

pixiedust:

phankao - we have ipad but it is just a platform so depends on which Chinese apps we download. I tried asking around but so far only downloaded the Chinese dictionary. I also enabled the stylus/hand-writing input - the small bonus I see is that ds is keen to use the ipad to lookup the dictionary and hence \"forced\" to write the hanzi - how much benefit this equates to in the long run remains to be seen.

Hi Pixiedust. Not sure what you are looking for but we downloaded Chinese comics audiobooks 漫画西游 (ie 西游记）and 漫画三国 (ie 三国演义). DS is not interested in reading Chinese books so I find that the illustrations help to keep him interested. There are also sufficient words to practice word recognition and reading with no hanyu pinyin. I find that when there is hanyu pinyin, he will rely on that and is not truly 'reading'. 漫画三国 may be a little 'heavier' in content since it has got many more characters and state names but so far DS has been interested to read on surprisingly. From within the app, you can also choose to download others like 成语故事 which has 100成语 with their respective stories and model sentence as illustration. 3 parts, ie 300 of them. So far we've only downloaded the first 100. Hope the above helps.

We do not have ipad but we have iphone. Can these Chinese comics audiobooks 漫画西游 (ie 西游记）and 漫画三国 (ie 三国演义) be downloaded onto a iphone? Anyone know whether iphone has free app like 成语故事 or anything to do with chinese that we can download? TIA.

[PiggyLalala]

Unlike some of the parents here, I feel uneasy over ‘the pontangs of regular school’, how do you explain to your son the white lies that you may need to write in the excuse letter to the school. I fully agree and impressed with most of your strategies and would like to learn from you on how you communicate with your child over the ‘pontangs of school’. TIA.

[Brenda10]

Chenonceau:

Skills can only be mastered with practice and individualized feedback. This can't be done in big groups of 40 students.

According to dd, the recent Math problem solving workshop organised by the school during June holiday was about 20 person to a class. Therefore some of her classmate joined another class.

[Brenda10]

Hi pixiedust


You can also borrow the whole set of 三国演义漫画 (20 books) from the library. Also, there are some interesting CL comics on 成语故事 and 三十六计.

[janet88]

PiggyLalala:

Unlike some of the parents here, I feel uneasy over 'the pontangs of regular school', how do you explain to your son the white lies that you may need to write in the excuse letter to the school.

I allowed my son to pontang once or twice before SA2. Time was very tight even though we started revision 1 month plus before. Since it was SA2 and teachers would have somewhat completed syllabus, I explained the reason to him and we had an agreement that the 'pontang' was necessary. He cooperated...think we may have to do so again this year...with such a whole lot to cover.

[HappyFaye]

Chenonceau, thanks for the interesting strategy. I let DS read your postings with regards to your DS schedule during June and the planned play day late last night.


His reactions -
“1 compo per day? Siao ah.”
“He only gets to play 1 day on Sun & half the Sat?”
“Finish 1 Maths Assessment book in seven days? Wow!”

Then we went on to discuss the limited time he spent on revision (max 1 hour per day during weekday, but have not implemented since the start of school).

He then complained,” Mummy, but you didn’t give me play days”
My reply - ”Dear, be fair. Once you finish your work, you can play non-stop. You don’t feel you have play times because I always nag at you to stop playing computer. Didn’t I ask you go out and play all the time, once you finish what you are required to do?”
DS – “just kidding lar.”
Me – “ With your current effort, I am confident you can get 230. But if YOU want to score higher than that, you need to corporate with me.”
DS – “still got 14 months mah.”
I gave a big stare at him
DS – “I know, I know. Languages need time to improve. Ok, let’s start tomorrow. Can I sleep now?”

I really like the way you communicate with your DS

Chenonceau:

\"I want you to be lazy. Get the best results in the least time. So, you don't be goondu goondu, complete everything in the book. Do enough that you understand, and then move on. And skip all the easy questions because those waste time.”

DS has been on this mode since P1 with 2 questions a day. But what I am irritated is that he will only wait for me to tell him what to do, which page, which question. If I do not give instruction, he would not do. The bad thing is because he has been on this mode, asking him to do a bit more on compo is an uphill task. How should I put that across to him :scratchhead:

This discussion here is excellent for my DS. Thanks a lot!