When is the right time to start tuition?

[jedamum]

mommyNg:

Then the thinking is IF the child has gone for tuition/enrichment, she/he might have gotten higher marks. So to send or not? My inclination is no, what's the value of the extra 3 marks in exchange for every-week tuition (or dependent learning)?

tuition vs independent learning.
if independent learning can reap slightly better benefits than tuition, but takes up more time, is it more worthwhile to continue independent learning or pack and go for tuition? :scratchhead:

[Chenonceau]

I have a bias towards independent learning. Cutting the responsibility fully over to the child by secondary school saves you a lot of hassle...


(1) Kids in secondary school WANT to take charge. If they don't have the skills with which to take charge, they will begin to do badly because they won't let you help them.

(2) It is challenging to control a child's time in secondary school. Their world has increased in variety and scope. If you try to exert control, you will find it stressful... and you won't succeed.

(3) Times change. The truths we knew to be true in our time are no longer true today. Our children are in the thick of the action and often, they have a good gut feel of what the new requirements of the new world are. Over control on the part of the parent in secondary school... and even upper primary can actually be detrimental to results.

Example 1
DS asked many time to be taught ahead in P4. I refused because my mindset was still the old style \"Teacher will teach everything.\"

Example 2
I advised DD NOT to join the student council, until JC... and I advised her to goof off as much as she could in lower secondary (and do the sport she LOVED) because in MY mind, all that counts is the A levels. I regret giving her this advice. In today's system, we no longer operate on solely the British one exam takes all. Scholarships and university admissions are all done EVEN BEFORE A level results come out. The best scholarships have ALREADY been given out BEFORE A level results are announced... and these are given to students who were student leaders from lower secondary... and who never goofed off, turning in stellar results year after year after year. Consistency is now the name of the game... as we are becoming more like the Americans with the Grade Point Average.

In my time, there was no GPA.

Hence, our children do often know better. If you have not equipped them with independent learning skills by the time they hit Sec 1, it's just much harder to navigate the system later because you don't trust them to navigate and you dunno better than they. It is for this reason that I refused to give DS tuition, preferring to give him independent study materials and let him do the work with me as motivator/encourager. I also trained DD in independent study skills by P6. Come Sec 1, she took over.

[Funz]

For me,


1st line of defence, the child himself/herself
2nd line of defence, parents and older siblings/cousins
last line of defence, tuition

I have friends who hire tutors from the start of P1. But these same parents also soon realise it is not a tutor that they want but someone to take on the responsibility of making sure the kid does his homework, learns his spelling on top of coaching them on the subjects they are weak in.

[Chenonceau]

Funz, you have PM.

[Funz]

Chenonceau:

Funz, you have PM.

got it. and you're welcome.

[heyhoe]

Hi Chenonceau,


Can you share how do you teach your child to learn independently?

Thanks!

[alng]

Hi, I am not Chen but I can try to answer the question on how to teach a child to learn independently.


Basically, when a child has a question or doubt, do not offer the answer outright. Teach the child how to find the answer. Offering the answer outright is probably more efficient and less painful (to the parents) but definitely is a less effective way of learning.

Instead, spend more time to ask the child more questions and let the child think about his/her own question. Lead the child to self discover the answer. In this way, the knowledge/skills self-discovered by the child will be retained in the child’s memory for a longer period. In the process of self-discovery, the child is bound to make mistakes and this may mean that the results may slip. This self discovery process can be painful for parents. But look at the longer term, the earlier the child learns how to learn independently, the better it is for the child and the parents.

Teach a child to fish than to give the fishes to the child.

[DesertWind]

My boy now 4.5 yo, with speech-delay and needs one-to-one attention according to his kindy teachers. Therefore I have put him for once a week "tuition/therapy" now in K1. Mainly so that he gets one-to-one attention and learn something since in kindy he won’t get the attention and am afraid he may lack behind in his learning.


However, amazingly, I bought one Kumon workbook to try on my boy to get him to do writing at the beginning of this year and he took one look, second look, tried doing a couple of pages and now he is hooked! He has since completed 4 Kumon workbooks and now working on 3 others concurrently. What brings such joy to my heart is the fact that every morning now at about 10 am, he will pick up the workbooks automatically and sit down at his square Ikea table to do his writing. BTW, I am full time working which means my maid-cum-nanny is the one doing the supervision! And he can actually sit down about one hour occasionally even one and a half hours just doing the writing. I think he is really interested and am glad the Kumon works!

Due to the lack of time, seriously there is no way I could have sent him for tuition/enrichments more than once a week. So the next best thing is to do the teaching myself! Now evening time when I come back I will spend the time teaching him from wall-charts numbers 1-100 and words etc. Now the kindy teacher is telling me to teach him Jolly phonics! Gee…whiz…I feel pressurized already!

It gives me great joy to teach my kid except that he was usually quite uncooperative with me, much to my chagrin! Half the time trying to get his attention, the other half the time trying to teach him and hoping some of it will get into his head. Not easy man!

[smartmummy]

My son doesn’t like ti go tuition.he only attending English from k1.mummy coaching to all other subjects.now i asked him to go to Mt tuition, he refused.i said i don’t know how to teach, better u go to tuition.he said u learn from her and teach me.

I suspect does he depend on me?

[janet88]

smartmummy:

My son doesn't like ti go tuition.he only attending English from k1.mummy coaching to all other subjects.now i asked him to go to Mt tuition, he refused.i said i don't know how to teach, better u go to tuition.he said u learn from her and teach me.

I suspect does he depend on me?

My son didn't want tuition initially. It was in P5 that he realized he needed help. That \"teacher will teach\" is old school mentality...school teacher won't teach all and cannot be depended upon to
pass exams. He was resistant to tuition bcos his classmates told him tutors give alot of hw. For math, he does have more bcos it is a subject which requires practice. I will push him with science and english when he is free. He's ok but hates CL.