LCentral Discussion

[MMM]

I faced this dilemma 3 years ago when choosing between J&E, Lcentral and ICR.


My 2 older kids attended J&E phonics program. It is a very solid phonics program and help build strong foundation however it’s a little long. Eg. from mid nursery - mid K2. That is like 2 years.

At that point, I was thinking of ICR as they have many branches. However after speaking to the J&E lady (I know her for quite sometime as my older kids were there), she told me that alot of the ICR students actually went to their centre for accelerated program just before P1. My impression was that ICR teaches based on sight words rather than phonics decoding? (For parents who are familiar with ICR, pls help to comment if this is true).

But we cannot ignore the fact that different branches may have different results. Parents’ commitment in revision also plays a part.

I recalled looking at Lcentral and found it impressive but due to my familiarity with J&E and Lcentral was a fairly new player at that point, in the end, I decided to put my youngest back in J&E for phonics and LW for creative english.

She recently completed her entire J&E phonics program and right now she is with Lcentral liftoff which she will complete by year end and move to Success 1. She has been with Lcentral for 3 months and frankly, I am unsure if it is due to her readiness (as she is older), coupled with her phonics background or the program is very effective, I see significant improvement in sight word reading after she joined Lcentral and it’s only 3 months. I do hear other similar comments from a pal as well as dd’s classmate who happens to be in Lcentral. Wasn’t able to read and has been attending LW program but after joining Lcentral, the dd was able to read independently.

So with that, if I can turn back the clock, I think I would put her in lcentral for a start, maybe she would have achieved much more.

[vfong1]

My DS is with Lcentral for the liftoff program around 2 over months and so far I have been seeing positive results in his reading fluency and increased vocab knowledge. Also, parents do play a part on the reading homework. He reads better than before now.

[Dino mummy]

The review I found on this website on LC was mainly on their pre schoolers programmes, nothing much on their Success programmes for Primary level. Likewise, i heard +ve feedback on ICR on their pre schooler programmes, not on their Pri level programmes. Therefore, i cant decide which is better tho’ LC is cheaper than ICR.

I dun have good feedback on Jan and Elly. I dun see any improvements in my boy. He attended almost 1.5 yrs of writing with J&E but he did not take away much from this programme. I knew the kids played monopoly in class during lessons. I wonder what does monoploy has to do with writing…Creative?

[MMM]

Dino mummy:

The review I found on this website on LC was mainly on their pre schoolers programmes, nothing much on their Success programmes for Primary level. Likewise, i heard +ve feedback on ICR on their pre schooler programmes, not on their Pri level programmes. Therefore, i cant decide which is better tho' LC is cheaper than ICR.

I dun have good feedback on Jan and Elly. I dun see any improvements in my boy. He attended almost 1.5 yrs of writing with J&E but he did not take away much from this programme. I knew the kids played monopoly in class during lessons. I wonder what does monoploy has to do with writing...Creative?

My eldest did J&E english program for 1 year. She started J&E only in K2 and only did up to intermediate phonics. As she was in P1, she joined their writing program subsequently.... No results so I pulled her out.

Subsequent to that, we put her and my ds in British Council for 2 years! They enjoyed themselves but again no results.... dh was like.... maybe language learning takes time???? The ironic thing is that for CL, it's also a language and we see results though we converse mainly in EL at home.

So enough is enough, both my older kids are now in their success 3 and 4 programme. Lcentral is alot more academic, I sort of like it. They will go through compre, compo, grammar, weekly spellings, prep test, etc... They have been there since beginning of this year but the issue is that despite that they are doing fairly ok in lcentral, this is not translated into school results yet. So frankly.... we are still observing and it's frustrating as at the end of the day, parents want that tranlsated into school results.

[Dino mummy]

Are ur kids with LC Bukit Timah? Yah, we can see results when the kids are with chinese enrichmt classes but not so for English. It is so tiring sourcing for a english class…moreover, the class has to be in weekends and can’t clash with his existing chinese classes and near my area…So, will you recommend LC?

[MMM]

Dino mummy:

Are ur kids with LC Bukit Timah? Yah, we can see results when the kids are with chinese enrichmt classes but not so for English. It is so tiring sourcing for a english class...moreover, the class has to be in weekends and can't clash with his existing chinese classes and near my area...So, will you recommend LC?

They are with LC Kovan.

I cannot conclude at this point. I don't think I will pull them out now. But if there is another course that is more effective, I will consider changing. There are some kids in their class that has been with LC for a couple of years and doing well in school.

For my K2, I will let her continue with their success 1program.

So we are still monitoring. Eg. this time round, I handed the kids' CA 2 papers to the teachers and requested their help to review and help identify which is their problem areas that we can work on.

It's really frustrating because for the other 3 subjects, I think they can make it and get decent scores. Just this EL that feel so helpless. I give them EL assessment papers to do at home as well.

[Dino mummy]

i can understand…i tried both native speaker as well as local tutor but results are still not what we expected. Altho’ he still get Band 1 for his SA1, I can see that his result is deterioting…Those tuition centers such as KRTC and mind stretcher, wonder good or not…I hesitiate in enrolling him…

Thot maybe i can get an "answer" from this forum in helping me to decide…

[yeo88]

Hi,

Thanks for all the interesting feedback on LC. I am still wondering whether I should enrol my elder daughter (P4) to LC BT or Morris Allen. She is now having private tuition but I would most likely stop it as I can’t see improvements and private tuition is very costly.

MMM,
I see that your elder kid is in P4. Would you recommend the centre?

I would most likely bring my girl for assessment tonight and enroll her if I am satisfied. Appreciate if any of you could send me the necessary details to obtain the discount.

Thanks

[Dino mummy]

hi Yeo88

So, u are set for LC BT? Will you be considering ICR at BT too?

[MMM]

yeo88:

MMM,

I see that your elder kid is in P4. Would you recommend the centre?

I would most likely bring my girl for assessment tonight and enroll her if I am satisfied. Appreciate if any of you could send me the necessary details to obtain the discount.

Thanks

Hi,

I've pm you.