2012 PSLE Discussions and Strategy

[janet88]

underthesea:

Will start today! Just told dd this morning, CA1 & SA1 are very important for her as she needs the result for DSA.

So, you're going to start her on CA1 past year exam papers ?
I'm thinking of ramping son up on individual components like synthesis, comprehension cloze for eg but don't know if I should do that or get CA1 papers done instead. How does DSA work ?

[fifiyeo]

CA1 round the corner. Tried to do a compre passage with DS yesterday and ended up so angry. He was distracting himself with anything and everything he could find. I was literally doing compre myself. Help!..how to inspire??


I think for DSA, you need very good grades in your report book or have a special niche in something.

[Zekezachzoom]

janet_lee88:

CA1 is round the corner...how are you preparing your kids for it ? Will CA1 be a wake up call?

Went to my DS meet the parent session last Friday, got back with all the important dates for Ca1, sa1, preliminary exam, actual psle. Showed it to DS and he was a bit shocked that there is actually very short time to psle. Adds in all his competition dates, he realizes he needs to be more \"on\" now in order to have time for revisions. So, I started him over weekend the nyps english paper (practicing with him the annotation skill posted by psle2011mum). He did ok and enjoyed the new way to tackle compre. Did another math paper but some of the answer keys are so wrong that, we ended up so fed up with each other as I thought he was not trying hard enough and kept complaining about the answer key was wrong.

Haiz... Should Not have trusted too much on those answer keys. Felt so bad for accusing him for not trying hard enough.

[psle2011mum]

Hey fifyeo


Don't give up yet - yup, DD was often all over the table/bed initially and yes, too easy to lose our cool about it. DD also started with a lot of \"uh\"s and \"don't know\" replies to my early questions, but there was light at the end of the tunnel so don't give up on your DS just yet.

Let commonsense prevail - if you have tried for a reasonable period and find that the annotations are turning him off, then look for another way to help him. The best part of this forum are the many different sharings parents post - be empowered to take what works best for your child and ditch the rest - different strokes for different folks.

I'm not sure what motivates your DS, but I heard this from 2 parents who have boys who were in P5 in 2011-- one was \"enlightened\" enough to bring his DS to the hall to witness for himself the 2011 PSLE results release and the other went to the see the session for herself.

The feedback was that the child came back subdued because he saw the real fear/worry/regret in some of his seniors before they got their results, and then he also saw some of his seniors cry in disappointment --- he really did not want that to happen to him.

The other friend related what she saw to her DS and he sits down for longer now when he is reminded about the \"what if\".

I'm not advocating scare tactics - but I did paint for DD what to expect that day; I left the choice to her, telling her that I was willing to do whatever it took to support her, so long as she led in wanting to work for it. I do think the kids need to \"own\" this idea that it's their PSLE

\"If I had to select one quality, one personal characteristic that I regard as being most highly correlated with success, whatever the field, I would pick the trait of persistence. Determination. The will to endure to the end, to get knocked down seventy times and get up off the floor saying. \"Here comes number seventy-one!\" Richard M. Devos

[underthesea]

janet_lee88:

underthesea:

Will start today! Just told dd this morning, CA1 & SA1 are very important for her as she needs the result for DSA.

So, you're going to start her on CA1 past year exam papers ?
I'm thinking of ramping son up on individual components like synthesis, comprehension cloze for eg but don't know if I should do that or get CA1 papers done instead. How does DSA work ?

Yes, will start on CA1 papers but not for science. Thinking to let her do P5 papers as revision for P3-P5 work.

[beanbear]

I’m trying the "open book" exam strategy for science with DS for the open-ended questions. We aim to do 6 past CA1 papers. Basically I ask DS to read each test question and he needs to ask himself what scientific concept/principle is being tested - ie question the question. Highlight key words in the question to fully understand the question and recognize what is being tested. Then he attempts to answer the question verbally followed by referring to the answer key and if the answer key is unsatisfactory, he would then refer to the science guide books or school notes and then write in the answer consciously and neatly.


After doing one paper, I asked DS for his feedback on this method of revising. He said that it helped him to be more critical and he was more aware of what he is clear about and what areas he needs more help in.

My plan is to do intensive science revision in these 2 weeks to build memory and reinforce the critical thinking skills so that when he eventually sits for his CA at school, he would be able to activate his process thinking skills.

[peterch]

Helping psle2011mum to upload.....


http://i39.tinypic.com/upiqh.jpg\">

[peterch]

Page 2....


http://i40.tinypic.com/2pshllf.jpg\">

[peterch]

last one....


http://i39.tinypic.com/4ut4ba.jpg\">

Big thank you for psle2011mum.....

[linden2000]

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