2012 PSLE Discussions and Strategy
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If I may add to janet_lee88's post - her second paragraph suggestion is a good one to \"prove\" to the kids that these clues exist. You can in fact start with a cloze piece, refer to the model answers and then look for the links ie reverse engineer the process and draw the arrows between the clues and the answers. Some other simple \"rules\" help - specific vocab is chosen over general vocab so we would choose \"patients in the waiting room of a clinic\" over 'people in the waiting room of a clinic\".
Remember that when setters set a piece of cloze, they have to convince the QC Committee for that paper [usually made up of other teachers in the level plus HOD] that the clues are in fact there; so the clues do exist for \"mining\" -- the kids just have to find them.
Having knowledge of the subject matter helps some too - because then the kids know the specific vocab -- but this is more of a bonus to make finding the answers somewhat simpler. -
Hi Everyone
Will be uploading the P6 Annotation piece soon and for want of a better method, it'll come in similar form to what I did for the P4 piece.
I hear the request to show what an annotated piece looks like but (a) I'm not sure know how to insert a scanned image here :oops: and (b) I can tell you what it looks like - real messy; which is why I started off by re-typing out each line of a compre piece and sharing the thought processes I went through after reading each line.
Remember that the purpose of the annotation is to (a) slow the child down and (b) through (a), enable the child to mine each sentence for meaning. The \"which tool is better\" is probably not as important as training the child to go through the process when reading the passage and to analyse the questions to ask himself/herself what the teacher is asking of him/her.
Do they teach the kids to annotate in school? In DD's 2011 experience \"Yes, a little\" but this was not the case for my older child, although it's the same school. But this process takes time to develop and the teacher started teaching annotations after CA1 2011 by asking the kids to use a highlighter. We went through that phase too -- DD became very proficient in colouring
I'm not sure how others cope and annotations may not be the only way to get the marks in for this section - but this worked well for DD -- she improved and thereafter her grades were consistent at this higher level.
Best resource I had on annotations was from the English trainer I worked with [google: learning ventures] and the Oxford Essentials books I recommended earlier.
Hope this clarifies. -
psle2011mum:
Will be very happy to upload it here for you. Just email them to me (pmed) :imcool:Hi Everyone
Will be uploading the P6 Annotation piece soon and for want of a better method, it'll come in similar form to what I did for the P4 piece.
I hear the request to show what an annotated piece looks like but (a) I'm not sure know how to insert a scanned image here :oops: ................. -
Hi
I will be posting the P6 Annotation piece following this -- it was taken from Nanyang's 2011 CA1 paper. It was done for a friend and has been shared with a few others, but I have revised it slightly to be more in line with the P4 one I did earlier ie as a \"step up\" for those of you who plodded through the earlier one. :salute:
I have also handwritten my annotations on a hard copy of this compre piece and when I get back to office [ it'll have to be Monday though], I'll email it to the very kind peterch who has volunteered to thereafter upload it for the forum.
Warning though, the handwriting is very tiny due to the space contraints of the paper.
There was an earlier question as to how annotating is used in exams --uh... DD actually did this for every exam. She did this OEC section first for every paper [home practice/school exam/PSLE] because it is too tedious and tiring to leave till the end. She can take a whole hour for this part of the paper - about 40 + mins annotating and the rest to analyse questions and craft/check answers.
Ok - Part 1 coming up! Gb! -
Part 1 – P6 Annotations
Luke and his family were in low spirits.
Circle ‘low spirits” and write what does “low spirits” mean.
Child needs to be able to re-phrase these words eg “sad/troubled/worried about something”.
Note this is one of those words which has a few closely related ideas in them ie you feel in low spirits for a variety of reasons, so child at P6 needs to be able to understand in this case, which of these ideas is more relevant. The child can’t do this just by reading the first sentence, but will be able to conclude after reading the whole passage and should come back to this point and cancel the irrelevant ideas out.
There had been no rain for weeks.
Ask “What is the impact of this?/ What has “no rain” have to do with being “sad”?
In our urban context where we have advanced technology for water reserves, to most kids not having rain for weeks is not a serious concern.
The child needs to know that many of the passages will be in a different “context” – different country, different culture, different period in history, so they need to understand the impact in different contexts. In this case, if the context is in an earlier, less advanced country, no rain means “drought”, “no crops” and “death”. That is how serious it can get, so child should be able to tell you just by reading this line at least some of these ideas.
They did not have even one sack of corn to sell today at the marketplace.
They had to sell the few vegetables that they had brought there.
This is the verification of the previous sentence – we are talking about a family of farmers. From this sentence, we can even tell what kind of farmers they are – corn farmers who grow some vegetables to sell.
For higher ability kids, they can also tell that ‘corn sales’ yield more money for the family than selling “vegetables”. This is implied because when you read the 2 sentences together, it is clear that the family preferred to sell corn rather than vegetables and the child should question “why”.
BTW, the answer to the “why” question is not evident from the passage; but I still encouraged DD to ask such questions to train a more “enquiring” mind.
Luke had a brother, Antonio.
Another character is introduced; as part of the exercise, kids can be asked to draw a column at the side of the paper and then write down the qualities about the characters as they read through the passage. So thus far, the columns would look something like this:
Luke :
•\tBelongs to a family of corn farmers
•\tHas a brother named Antonio [ younger?/older?]
Antonio:
•\tBelongs to a family of corn farmers
•\tHas a brother named Luke
but the child can add on as he/she reads more.
Very often characters are introduced for contrast as in this passage so this exercise deepens understanding.
Like the other boys, Antonio admired the bullfighters.
This “bull fighting” idea should lead the kids to think of a few related ideas. Do they know what bull fighting is? Can they describe a bull –fight? Which country/countries are famous for bull fights? Which period in history is this passage likely to be set?
Some kids know nothing about bull-fighting – this disadvantages them because some of the most common issues/themes relating to bull fighting would most likely be touched on in the passage.
From this sentence though, even if the kids don’t know anything about bull fighting, they should be able to arrive at the following conclusions: (a) bull fighting is admired by boys – likely to be something boys like to do eg football/rugby/wrestling -- typical boy activities (b) Antonio was a typical boy.
It was their job both to kill the bull and to entertain the crowd.
Who /what does “it “refer to? Make the child link back this pronoun. “It” refers to the bull fighters. So from this sentence, if the child gets the pronoun right, then they would be able to tell you [even if they didn’t know anything about bull fighting], that bull fighters (a) kill the bull and (b) entertain the crowd.
Here again, if the child is widely read/exposed, even if they didn’t know about bull fighting, they can co-relate bull fighting to other activities where animals are killed for sport eg cock-fighting in Thailand; hunt rabbits/hares in England.
Some more urban kids wouldn’t know about killing animals for sport and they will likely cost them some marks because they may miss the “key” words. A common issue about killing for sport is that a living thing is killed for something which is of more a “luxury/entertainment” rather than a “need” eg for food or in self defence eg when the animal attacks.
Antonio wanted to be a valiant bullfighter himself some day.
Antonio is not a grown man yet – likely still a boy and this is his ambition. Kids should be able to re-phrase to use the word ‘ambition” here. If they are able to do this, there will be less likelihood of the teacher taking off marks for “lifting”. I think the problem is not so much that “lifting is prohibited”, but more that the teacher is not confident that the child understands if all that is in the answer is ‘lifted”. The essence of answering “Comprehension” questions is “Demonstrating understanding”.
Luke’s father said with a smile, “The bullfighter is a great man.”
The child must note that Luke’s father’s reply was given “with a smile”. What kind of smile? The child needs to conclude “smile of approval”. I sometimes would use these opportunities to go through with the kid the different ‘smiles” – friendly smile, encouraging smile, forced smile; this improves vocab and hopefully alerts the child that meaning is conveyed through gestures and not only words. The words that follow can then be described as “words of approval”.
Approval of what? Luke’s dad agrees with Antonio’s ambition. The child also needs to link back to an earlier idea – “Like the other boys, Antonio admired the bullfighters.” and realise that the father thought like Antonio and the other boys. The child needs to have some understanding that this “bull fighting good” idea was the “norm”.
OK - other parts have to \"akan datang\" cos I have an appointment now - very sorry about that but will make sure it's done by tomorrow . -
psle2011mum, Thanks for your generous sharing. I am trying to help out on the technical part, please check your PM.
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Hi Folks
Back from the appointment and didn't want to keep this half done so here are the other parts...
Part 2 P6 Annotations
Luke had a different dream. He wanted to be an artist.
Straightaway the child needs to be able to pick up that “contrast/compare” questions are very likely. The child needs to see that the author introduced all the earlier ideas to make this one point – Luke was different.
The question is “how”. The child should be able to link the word ‘dream” here to ambition and then connect to the earlier ambition idea which was when the author described Antonio’s ambition. Luke’s ambition was to be an artist and Antonio’s ambition [like most others in the society that the story is set] was to be a bull fighter.
Once, his father had seen him drawing and had become angry. “It will not help you to feed the family,” he had said. So Luke kept his dream to himself.
The child needs to understand that this provides the answer as to why there is “disapproval” [link back to the earlier idea of “approval” of Antonio’s ambition] of Luke’s ambition and by implication, why there is approval of Antonio’s ambition. By this time, there is more material to add to that “character” table as follows:
Luke :
•\tBelongs to a family of corn farmers
•\tHas a brother named Antonio [younger?/older?]
•\tUnlike other boys, does not want to be a bull fighter
•\tLuke wants to be an artist
•\tLuke’s father disapproves of Luke’s ambition because he thinks that artists cannot earn enough money to help the family put food on the table
Antonio:
•\tBelongs to a family of corn farmers
•\tHas a brother named Luke
•\tLike other boys, wants to be a bull fighter
•\tHis father approves of his ambition because if A becomes a bull fighter, A can earn money to help put food on the table
He spoke very little for fear that others might laugh at him.
Luke is sensitive and smart; he has sensed his father’s/society’s disapproval through his father’s comments and so keeps his ambition to himself. The child can add on to the traits for Luke.
He put all his feelings into the pictures that he drew in secret.
I would encourage the child to paraphrase this so that you can see child’s understanding eg paraphrase could be something like – Luke couldn’t let anyone know about his dream, so he poured his soul into his drawings instead and he did not show any one these drawings, perhaps because he knew they would disapprove – just like his Dad disapproved.
“Go and sell some peppers,” his mother told him one morning. Luke took the basket of peppers and set off for the market with her.
The child should know what “peppers” are ie they are vegetables; so from here and the link back to the earlier idea, the child can tell that the drought situation has not become better and there is still no corn to sell.
That morning, the sun was already very hot. Still, Luke enjoyed walking up and down the busy street while his mother sold the peppers.
I would encourage the child to make a mental drawing of this – parent working, child tags along. A matured child might conclude that the situation was still one of the norm ie where the parent worries about putting food on the table [providing for the family] and the child is just along for the ride and can still find this time “enjoyable”.
The variety of things sold at the market made a picture in his mind.
I would ask – what can you tell me about Luke from this?
Answer :Luke still carefree; he is also observant and I would add this to the character list.
On the way home, Luke could not wait to draw what he saw.
Luke is still very much the child; he doesn’t worry about how much money they got from the sale of the peppers, he just wants to get home quickly to do what he likes to do.
That week, however, he had little time to draw. He needed to help out at the farm.
Luke has to help out at the farm even though he is very young. This would tell the child that Luke is from an era and country totally unlike Singapore.
The well had gone dry. Every morning in the week, Luke had to walk for miles to get water from a deeper well. In the afternoon, he chopped weeds in the cornfields. He did not mind the hard work.
These descriptions contrast even more the difference between Luke’s life and a typical Singaporean child’s life.
While he worked, he thought about what he would draw.
What can you tell about Luke here – he likes day dreaming? Add this to character listing.
OK, Part 3 to follow... -
Part 3 – P6 Annotations
Another week passed. Still there was no rain. “It’s no use going to the market tomorrow,” Luke’s mother said. “We have so few things to sell.”
Ask the child what more information these 2 sentences tell the child. Answer: The situation has gone from bad to worse.
It was decided that Luke went to the market himself to sell some peppers while the rest of them stayed and worked in the fields.
I try to instil curiosity in the child too so I would ask the child – why did Luke get sent instead of Antonio? What conclusions can be drawn? Luke was more responsible than Antonio? Antonio was older and could be of more use in the fields rather than Luke who seemed only old enough to carry water and cut weeds? There was so little to sell anyway so perhaps sending a little child, there would be more pity for that child and people would buy [ie Sympathy marketing strategy?]
Between these 3 scenarios, ask the child to explain which the child thinks is more likely and ask for the basis of the reasoning. The passage doesn’t actually explain but you’d be surprised at the kids’ thought processes once you open up their minds.
It was Luke’s first trip to the marketplace himself. That night, he could hardly contain his excitement.
These sentences evidence Luke’s youth – he is excited about this new adventure; this new responsibility that he has been entrusted with. It doesn’t cross his mind about the “what if”s. What if I can’t sell anything?
The next morning, he thought of a brilliant idea.
The child should be able to predict the question already. What was Luke’s brilliant idea? Look at the question again – which parts must I demonstrate an understanding of – BRILLIANT IDEA.
The child needs to understand that the concept of a brilliant idea must be conveyed in the answer so the answer should not simply be “He would sell his paintings”. Why is this answer not given full marks – no demonstration of understanding of the word ‘Brilliant”. If you asked DD to explain “brilliant” in this context, she would probably not succeed. But she would be able to do it in this other way ; I would ask her : when would you say to someone “ That’s a Brilliant Idea!”, what do you mean? Likely, she can tell me, when someone suggests something to do which she totally agrees with, one which she whole heartedly supports, one which totally solves her problems, she would make that remark.
From here, she can go back to her original “he would sell his paintings” answer sentence and try to capture the “brilliant idea” essence from her own example.
Perhaps something like: Luke’s brilliant idea was to bring along his paintings to the market to sell along with his peppers. Luke believed that if he could sell his paintings, he would earn some money and thus be able to help put more food on the family table.
You could almost say, the idea was to bring along to paintings to sell and the brilliant part of the idea was that it was something he, young Luke, could do to earn more money for the family.
Note: The “what” question is often problematic. It is a question stem which is not the same as “state”. The confusion comes with the fact that sometimes, the question means ‘state’ eg what would you like to eat? I explained to DD that it cannot mean ‘state” because each compre question is worth 2 marks.
Before setting off, Luke ran inside and took some sheets of paper from under his bed.
The child must know that these sheets of papers were Luke’s drawings. Anyway even if they missed it, there is a link below [highlighted in BOLD/Underline]
He secretly hid them among the peppers.
What can you tell from this? Luke did not want anyone to know.
Why? They would probably laugh at him since his father already was of the view that art could not earn any money unlike bull fighting.
Soon, he found a spot in the noisy marketplace and spread his mate on the ground. He put the peppers on the mat and took out the sheets of paper. They were all the pictures he had drawn.
This is Luke’s idea in action. See my phrasing above “paintings to sell along with his peppers”. This phrase is therefore accurate and if a child said something like “Luke’s idea was to sell his paintings at the market“ above, some marks may be lost for inaccuracy because of the lack of mention of the peppers.
A short time later, a man asked him about his drawings.
Again as a matter of curiosity, I would ask the child to speculate what type of questions he/she thought the man would have asked. Maybe he asked who the artist was? Why would he ask that? Maybe because the drawings were so good the man was not sure if a child could have drawn them? Was the man afraid that the child had stolen the drawings so he asked to make sure he wasn’t buying stolen goods? These questions WON’T be asked in the compre because they are speculative but the purpose of the exercise is to (a) stretch the child’s understanding to that which is not explicitly stated and (b) require the child to justify his/her statements.
He gave Luke many copper coins.
The child should understand that Luke earned a lot of money from selling his drawings. The extent of “a lot of” should be reflected in the answers because it is provided in the passage.
Before the end of the day, three more people bought Luke’s drawings.
Luke earned even more money from selling his drawings.
Each person told Luke how wonderful his drawings were.
What can you say from reading this sentence? Luke was a talented [teach this vocab rather than saying “good”], self-taught artist. The latter quality is implied and that is where you want to push the child to be – see the things that are not literal but reasonably implied from the passage.
It was the most exciting day Luke had ever had.
Ask the child why would it be considered exciting. (a) First time at the market alone – adventure (b) his idea was proven to be in fact brilliant – success (c) he had proven the detractors like his father wrong because you could earn money from art –vindication; from this, possibilities existed for Luke to then persuade his father to approve of his ambition instead of being dead-set against it. You can probably tell from here that the typical child’s answer: “He managed to earn a lot of money from selling his drawings.” would be inadequate – no demonstration of the understanding of “most exciting”.
Before he left, he counted all the money. There was enough for him to buy food. There was even some money to take home.
This details the extent of his success.
Part 4 coming up... -
Part 4 – P6 Annotations
When Luke arrived home, he gave the money that was left to his father. “What is this?” asked his father in surprise. “You would not get so much money by selling those few peppers.”
What can you tell about Luke from here?
He is not boastful – he didn’t run home bragging about his success instead it is his father who has to ask him questions to find out what happened. Add to the Luke Character listing.
I would also add some stretch here by pointing out to the child that from any one given scenario, there could be more than one scenario to follow. From understanding these possible scenarios and comparing them, many conclusions could be drawn about the characters. Eg. The author could have developed the story a different way.
“What is this?”asked his father in surprise. “ You would not get so much money by selling those few peppers! How did you come by so much money! Did you steal it?” is a possible scenario – if so, what would you say about the characters eg Father has a suspicious nature – note : be careful how child says this – they might say “ Father is a suspicious character” which has a totally different meaning.
Shyly, Luke told him what he had done. His mother hugged him when she heard the story. His father walked over to him. He smiled at Luke as he often did when Antonio talked about becoming a bullfighter.
The child needs to link back to the idea that Antonio had his father’s approval while Luke initially did not but now the father has come around. What does this tell you about the father? My answer - His father cannot see anything as worthy until there is proof by way of money. Again, I would have used this as an opportunity to discuss characters. Is this father a good one? No, he does not believe in his child’s talent and believed only because Luke earned money. What if Luke’s drawings were good but it just happened that that day, there were no customers or customers with no money? Would Luke’s father have approved of Luke’s attempts to help his family situation?
“My son Luke – always doing something for the family.
I would point out to the child that there is no evidence of “always” that is clear from this passage and to avoid writing something like this in their compos.
This time we will do something for you. Here, my son. Here is the extra money.”
Child must be able to tell you what happened here – Luke sold drawings and earned a lot of money; with some he bought food for his family and he gave the balance to his dad but his dad gave it back to Luke.
His father put his arm around him.
What does putting his arm around Luke mean? He has his father’s approval; his father is pleased with him.
“Our artist must use it to buy himself more paper and pencils.”
I would ask the child – why? What is father’s intention? Reward? Hope that Luke can draw more and then earn more? Again this is in the realm of speculation but I think some children might say that it is more likely the latter because at the end that is what the dad is really interested in eg bull fighter is a great man – not because he is brave but because his job can put food on the table. So this latter speculation is in line with what we know of Luke’s father. Does that make Luke’s father a bad father? Not necessarily – in an earlier era, no food means a certain slow and painful death through starvation. Luke’s dad is being practical because you have to be like this in order to survive. This sort of exercise stretches the child’s mind so that they get used to answers which seem wrong but can be explained and answers which seemed right but have problems with them so that one can say that they are wrong.
Footnote : In this P6 annotation, you will see less of the \"circle this word and write its meaning\" directive which was more evident in the P4 piece; this is because a lot more inference is required of the child at P6 as opposed to the child being required only to know the literal meaning of slightly more difficult words. Hence in each line, you can see me trying in one way or other to ask \" what do you understand by this sentence\"/ \"why does the author say this\"/ why did the character do that\"/\"what did the character mean by doing/saying that\"?
At the end of the exercise, you are trying to encourage the child to mine for meaning - dig deep into the sentences, ask questions and frame answers.
That's it folks! Will get peterch's help on Monday with showing you how the messy handwritten annotations look like. DD handed this in for every exam including the PSLE. The teachers did wonder what she was doing but they were good - they never gave her grief over it.
The main purpose of the annotations is to slow down and mine for meaning; after this intensive exercise and an equally rigourous analysis of the questions, the answers come more naturally.
DD ended this section with a checking scheme ie she had a special order in which she checked for (s) spelling (t) tense (a) answer to the question etc Again, the particular items are not important - the process is - so help your child devise one which works for them best.
Have a blessed Sunday ahead everyone! -
:thankyou: psle2011mum for your treasure trove of informaiton. Really appreciate your taking the time to pen down the exam answering techniques for us :love:
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