How much Assessment/Tuition Work?

[Skyed]

Have tuition on weekends instead?

[cowgraz]

Thanks Mel! Wah, poor kids. Doing homework whenever they can catch time at sch even.

[janet88]

Skyed:

Have tuition on weekends instead?

That's a good idea...bcos weekdays can be kept strictly for school homework and CCA. Try to schedule tuition on weekends and get all the homework done before the weekend is over. That's what I am doing with my daughter. Next year when she goes to P4, I dread to think of CCA and having to complete more homework.

I am training my daughter to write faster too...she writes too slow and also using correction tape too often.

[sundaymorning]

cowgraz:

thanks for your suggestion Sundaymorning!

Learning fr last year was that despite trying hard to juggle a full time job and ensuring her Homework is completed ... I still struggled with exam-time stress where you start to realise that her grasp of concepts/understanding is not as good as it should ... and that's where the plethora of anxiety, guilt, stress. helplessness all rolls in and hit you. But, I'm resisting hving her undergo external tuition, assessment books and soon you'd realise that you've grown a skeptical, cold kid.

That's where my struggle is right now ... finding the balance and hence I thought to get some views and sounding board fr other parents who've been there done that on this issue.

You are welcome dear
To manage it well, you can try also to do up a time table for her.
Let her do some revision and finish up hw during weekend and bring her out to have fun and build bonding together after she has completed her assignments. At least she has something to look forward to .

Most importantly uds what is her weakness of the subjects and work with her together hand in hand.
You could try to coach her that is the best plan, however if plan doesnt work out , you can try engaging a tutor .

[yeomaylin]

slmkhoo:

I have 2 daughters, now in sec school, who are very different in achievement. For the weaker one, we set moderate targets and did more drilling, and were happy when she met the targets. We felt there was no point piling on the work as she would get stressed and grumpy and perform even worse. The other girl has always found school work easy, so once she has satisfied us that she understands and can do whatever is required for her age, we let her do other stuff.

Simkhoo, when you said \"did more drilling\", what & how exactly do you do? Asking your daughter to mind map the concept for you or ask her qn pertaining to the topic or .......?

I always sit beside my girl (P5) during revision. In Sci, I'll read her guide books, explain to her the concepts and post her qn by 'twisting and turning' the qn to show her same qn can be asked in different ways. After that, she has to do Sci assessment by herself. In Chi & Eng compo, I gave her list of gd phrases and vocab. Go thru a few model compo (w different scenerio) to show her the sequence flow, content & phrases used. Afterwhcih, she has to write compo on her own.

My friend commented that what I've done is not the correct way of coaching, I'm actually spoon feeding my daughter. :yikes: i did find that my girl does rely on me too much on revision. If I leave her to revise by herself, most of the time she can't ans qn when I asked her based on the topic or subject.

Simkhoo, thru your experience, can you advise me the correct way of coaching kids in their studies? I have another DS in P1. To date, I have yet to coach him coz I dare not. I'm so afraid I will make him to become too dependent like my DD. DD asked me once \"mom, how do we revise/study effectively?\". Sad to admit, I'm not very sure too. My style of revising (背死书）will not work in today's modern world.

Pls help. :?:

[bebe]

cowgraz:

Dear Parents - I'm wondering what's appropriate amount of practices a kid of average academic ability has to do in order to survive P4 and above.


I'm asking as my DD is in P4 this year and with her schedule of CCA, Supplementary classes + school homework, she's almost flat out by the end of the sch day. And I've been letting her rest in the evenings ... but given all the hype over tuition and all, I'm also concerned of being too relaxed and in the end she'd hv to suffer. So, am struggling with the balance!

Would appreciate if parents can share any successes/smooth-way to balance school work, sanity and maintaining grades with your child pls? Thanks so much!

Lyn

Our gals are in the same school, right? This year I am totally hand off as I am busy with my elder gal who is in P5 (which is the real nightmare!!).
I have set target for her based on her P3 results - hopefully she can maintain the same - but I do agree that I need to teach her time management. She likes to spend time on computer - told me she has a class or school blog. I tried to restrict her to 20 min per session but she always tries ways and means to turn on computer when I am not around. I have just recently locked the computer with my password so that she can only access with my knowledge. And when she is not on computer, she will spend time reading instead of revising.
Come to think of it, I have not been seeing her Tingxie and Spelling as well as topical tests..must check with hubby if he has signed them..
SA1 is coming, Oral is end of the month..I am worried about her Chinese oral but will leave it to her Chinese tutor (she is afraid of her Chinese tutor than me) ..Other than making sure she has enough rest, completes her homework and tuition assignment timely, I can't do much except to wait for SA1 verdict and see... :xedfingers:

[bebe]

yeomaylin:

I always sit beside my girl (P5) during revision. In Sci, I'll read her guide books, explain to her the concepts and post her qn by 'twisting and turning' the qn to show her same qn can be asked in different ways. After that, she has to do Sci assessment by herself. In Chi & Eng compo, I gave her list of gd phrases and vocab. Go thru a few model compo (w different scenerio) to show her the sequence flow, content & phrases used. Afterwhcih, she has to write compo on her own.

My friend commented that what I've done is not the correct way of coaching, I'm actually spoon feeding my daughter. :yikes: i did find that my girl does rely on me too much on revision. If I leave her to revise by herself, most of the time she can't ans qn when I asked her based on the topic or subject.

Pls help. :?:

This is how I teach my P5 gal too.. initially I get her to read the science guidebook and attempt the assessment books herself, and then I will mark them. However I find that her answers were mostly not correctly phrased. And I had to go back to guidebook and pinpoint the key answers for her - she ended up frustrated as she kept having to do correction. So now, what I will do is to get her to read the guidebook, then I will ask her to tell me which are the key concepts. Then I will go through the MCQ and OE questions with her one by one, and let her know these questions are nothing new, is the same concept but applied differently. I will try to reserve some questions for her do do on her own. And I will do a refresh - go back and test her on the previous questions we did weeks ago. It is more time consuming, but I think now she can apply the keywords better..and we have a few science assessment books and we can identify which are the popular questions that are likely to be asked during the exam.
I guess there are different teaching methods..each child is different so we have to apply the method differently.
My P4 gal has no patience to sit with me to go through the question one by one..and I also have no more time..only can ask her to read the guidebook herself..

[sharonkhoo]

yeomaylin:

Simkhoo, when you said \"did more drilling\", what & how exactly do you do? Asking your daughter to mind map the concept for you or ask her qn pertaining to the topic or .......?


I always sit beside my girl (P5) during revision. In Sci, I'll read her guide books, explain to her the concepts and post her qn by 'twisting and turning' the qn to show her same qn can be asked in different ways. After that, she has to do Sci assessment by herself. In Chi & Eng compo, I gave her list of gd phrases and vocab. Go thru a few model compo (w different scenerio) to show her the sequence flow, content & phrases used. Afterwhcih, she has to write compo on her own.

My friend commented that what I've done is not the correct way of coaching, I'm actually spoon feeding my daughter. :yikes: i did find that my girl does rely on me too much on revision. If I leave her to revise by herself, most of the time she can't ans qn when I asked her based on the topic or subject.

Simkhoo, thru your experience, can you advise me the correct way of coaching kids in their studies? I have another DS in P1. To date, I have yet to coach him coz I dare not. I'm so afraid I will make him to become too dependent like my DD. DD asked me once \"mom, how do we revise/study effectively?\". Sad to admit, I'm not very sure too. My style of revising (背死书）will not work in today's modern world.

Pls help. :?:

How we revise - I believe that the most important thing is to check understanding before attempting questions. I don't like meorising and don't require it of my kids in most areas although there are some things which require memorising - multiplication tables, lists of characteristics etc. I always make my kids read the textbooks, guides, notes etc for themselves, and I only go through and explain if they show they don't understand. My main aim is that they learn how to learn by themselves so I can eventually leave them to do it themselves. We haven't found mind maps useful so we don't use them. My girls may underline or make notes depending on the situation. I will then question them to check understanding - if they can explain a concept to me, then learning 'how to answer' is relatively easy. A lot of kids find getting the form of answers right tough because they don't really understand the topic or question well. I tend to use topical assessments most of the year to make sure they have good grounding in concepts, but I don't give them much (we go through one or 2 books a year at most) and only if I find they are having difficulty with a particular area. No point doing more questions if they already know how. A few weeks before exams, we do some past papers to hone answering techniques.

As for dependency, yes, such intensive drilling by parents does lead to dependency, so you have to decide when and how to wean her off. You must be prepared for a drop in results as she learns how to do it herself, and she may never be able to do it as effectively by herself as with spoonfeeding. You have to ask yourself - are results more important than learning independence? Are you going to drill her through sec school, JC, university, working life? If you do, she may actually perform better at each stage, but when are you going to stop? When you start the weaning process really depends on the child. My older girl has learning difficulties and is late-maturing, so I resigned myself to helping and supervising her longer than I intended. I only started weaning her off my daily supervision in Sec 1, and still keep a distant eye on her work now at Sec 4. I have to be prepared that her results are not as good as if I supervised her closely, but I believe that learning to do it herself is worth the sacrifice of those extra marks. Some kids are able to be independent earlier, and for my younger girl, the weaning process probably began around P3. I trust her when she tells me that she understands, and so far she has always come to ask if she needs help. Hope this helps.

[vinegar]

janet_lee88:

Skyed:

Have tuition on weekends instead?

That's a good idea...bcos weekdays can be kept strictly for school homework and CCA. Try to schedule tuition on weekends and get all the homework done before the weekend is over. That's what I am doing with my daughter. Next year when she goes to P4, I dread to think of CCA and having to complete more homework.

I am training my daughter to write faster too...she writes too slow and also using correction tape too often.

correction tape? is she using pen now? my ds in p3 still uses pencil.

[vinegar]

i am now training my p3 ds to learn on his own too. I used to sit besides him to guide him. Now,he seems to prefer to do the homework himself coz he finds me nagging…


But getting him to "start" doing homework or revision is difficult.I’ve to keep calling him despite he knows he nid to do homework on certain time.

After getting him to sit still n start, i’ll sit wf him for a while,go thru the homework n chk wf him if he nid help.Then i’ll leave him alone n do my own stuff. If he nid help,he’ll come to me.

My ds is very impatient,so he finds me nagging if i keep explaining…