2012 PSLE Discussions and Strategy
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DS1 reads voraciously yet has not been doing well for comprehension, compositions and cloze passages. On the other hand, DD2 reads vey little, relies only on audio CDs and yet fares better for grammar, comprehension and compositions. I’ve been rather puzzled by this. I started to observe DS1, and realized that he reads alot for pleasure without really consciously noticing vocabulary, sentence structures, etc. Hence I’ve started to teach him annotation skills, drawing his attention specifically to grammar structures and teaching him explicitly how the English language is constructed. So far, he seems to be benefiting from this explicit unpacking of the language.
DD2 however, gets overwhelmed if I tried to unpack and teach her specific skills. She somehow has internalized the English language rules with little explicit teaching and has unconscious competence that enables her to deal with grammar tests and comprehension passages. Besides audio CDs, I haven’t been able to get her "read" physical books.
So I agree with 2ppaamm that you need to use these strategies for the right child. Our brains are very complex especially for language mastery and some of us need explicit teaching while others just need alot of immersion and exposure. -
You are all very welcome to the annotated pieces - just my very, very small contribution back to a community that has helped me so much since 2008.
Most definitely - different strokes for different folks and yes, some of us do this mining for meaning exercise subconsciously because it is second nature, while others are not quite at that stage yet. Some will benefit from this more structured method, and some will need other methods.
I shared what worked for DD to pull her grades for OEC up; she is an able reader but one who reads solely for pleasure – her love for reading was not translating into her better understanding of compre passages.
Yes, totally agree that reading is the key for both the languages too; both DDs are doing HMT now but I can see them really struggling because we speak none of it at home.
At the end of the day, as parents, I guess we all need to look hard at our DC, sieve through the sharings and decide what works best for them since each one of us knows our own DC best and have their best interests at heart, above everyone else.
Have a great week ahead! -
hshs:
Ok, let me try. Like I said, it is simplistic, so I am not sure if I can manage to describe it well here.
Hi 2ppaamm,
Would u able to share with us the simplistic method that u devised?
I get the child to break the passage into parts, look for words that look important (most of the time, my kids do not recognize or understand these words), guess the meaning and context of the passage. Then, look at the questions. Figure out which part of the passage fit into which question the best, using brackets (over bracket better than under).
Then, just copy the bracketed answers into the questions.
A bit hard to describe but I hope you know what I mean. Mostly because my children do not understand a lot of the Chinese comprehension, so I have devised this method. Surprisingly, all 3 of my older ones who took PSLE got full marks for their Chinese compre consistently from P5. Even their teachers found this 'phenomenon' so remarkable. Because most kids will do well for the MCQ, but not Compre. My kids score for compre but MCQ... erhm...
When you cannot understand, guess lor, I teach intelligent guessing. Two of them did HMT, and even got credit leh... :rotflmao: :evil:
Seriously, intelligent guessing is a very important exam skill. The higher you go the more important it becomes.
Even though I am very good at the language myself, I saw no point in forcing them to excel in the language as I believe it has to come from the heart. I also did not sign them up for tuition. There will be plenty of opportunities to do well, like now. My two girls are picking Chinese for their uni courses. :imcool: Better late than never. I teach them to skim through the system and use short cuts so that they don't hate the subject. Now they enjoy the culture, and can excel some more amongst ang mos...
I also teach Maths short cuts (I don't use those strange, long methods taught in schools). Heheh... all three got A* leh... I think I am the short cut mum, and I devise short cuts for my kids to handle exams. Only need one 1 hour session for Chinese, and 1 week for Maths for PSLE. I do this around P5. Results consistent leh. :rotflmao:
I did the same for my own O levels and A levels, and SAT. All ok and good results leh. I don't believe in just studying hard the whole year round lor... so got to study smart. :yikes:
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2ppaamm:
Err.....you might want to note there are some changes to Chinese Comprehension section....nowadays, kids are not allowed to copy \"wholesale\" from the text. In cases when they \"over-bracketed\" and answered more than required (basically without understanding), they are marked wrong for the answer. My DS experienced that in his prelims just last year, and the teacher informed them this was the PSLE standard marking!
Ok, let me try. Like I said, it is simplistic, so I am not sure if I can manage to describe it well here.hshs:
Hi 2ppaamm,
Would u able to share with us the simplistic method that u devised?
I get the child to break the passage into parts, look for words that look important (most of the time, my kids do not recognize or understand these words), guess the meaning and context of the passage. Then, look at the questions. Figure out which part of the passage fit into which question the best, using brackets (over bracket better than under).
Then, just copy the bracketed answers into the questions.
A bit hard to describe but I hope you know what I mean. Mostly because my children do not understand a lot of the Chinese comprehension, so I have devised this method. Surprisingly, all 3 of my older ones who took PSLE got full marks for their Chinese compre consistently from P5. Even their teachers found this 'phenomenon' so remarkable. Because most kids will do well for the MCQ, but not Compre. My kids score for compre but MCQ... erhm... When you cannot understand, guess lor, I teach intelligent guessing. Two of them did HMT, and even got credit leh... :rotflmao: :evil:
Seriously, intelligent guessing is a very important exam skill. The higher you go the more important it becomes.
Even though I am very good at the language myself, I saw no point in forcing them to excel in the language as I believe it has to come from the heart. I also did not sign them up for tuition. There will be plenty of opportunities to do well, like now. My two girls are picking Chinese for their uni courses. :imcool: Better late than never. I teach them to skim through the system and use short cuts so that they don't hate the subject. Now they enjoy the culture, and can excel some more amongst ang mos...
I also teach Maths short cuts (I don't use those strange, long methods taught in schools). Heheh... all three got A* leh... I think I am the short cut mum. Only need one 1 hour session for Chinese, and 1 week for Maths. I do this around P5. Results consistent leh. :rotflmao: -
Pen88n:
Err.....you might want to note there are some changes to Chinese Comprehension section....nowadays, kids are not allowed to copy \"wholesale\" from the text. In cases when they \"over-bracketed\" and answered more than required (basically without understanding), they are marked wrong for the answer. My DS experienced that in his prelims just last year, and the teacher informed them this was the PSLE standard marking![/quote]Don't know leh... DD2 took PSLE in 2009, used this method and still managed to get that A and merit. I'm just sharing, and don't know what MOE standard is. Her prelims was also ok (SAP school). I guess she didn't over bracket? Normally, her answers were about 2 to 3 lines, and most of the time, she does not know what her answers really mean, but she'll have a vague idea.
Ok, let me try. Like I said, it is simplistic, so I am not sure if I can manage to describe it well here.2ppaamm:
[quote=\"hshs\"]
Hi 2ppaamm,
Would u able to share with us the simplistic method that u devised?
I get the child to break the passage into parts, look for words that look important (most of the time, my kids do not recognize or understand these words), guess the meaning and context of the passage. Then, look at the questions. Figure out which part of the passage fit into which question the best, using brackets (over bracket better than under).
Then, just copy the bracketed answers into the questions.
A bit hard to describe but I hope you know what I mean. Mostly because my children do not understand a lot of the Chinese comprehension, so I have devised this method. Surprisingly, all 3 of my older ones who took PSLE got full marks for their Chinese compre consistently from P5. Even their teachers found this 'phenomenon' so remarkable. Because most kids will do well for the MCQ, but not Compre. My kids score for compre but MCQ... erhm... When you cannot understand, guess lor, I teach intelligent guessing. Two of them did HMT, and even got credit leh... :rotflmao: :evil:
Seriously, intelligent guessing is a very important exam skill. The higher you go the more important it becomes.
Even though I am very good at the language myself, I saw no point in forcing them to excel in the language as I believe it has to come from the heart. I also did not sign them up for tuition. There will be plenty of opportunities to do well, like now. My two girls are picking Chinese for their uni courses. :imcool: Better late than never. I teach them to skim through the system and use short cuts so that they don't hate the subject. Now they enjoy the culture, and can excel some more amongst ang mos...
I also teach Maths short cuts (I don't use those strange, long methods taught in schools). Heheh... all three got A* leh... I think I am the short cut mum. Only need one 1 hour session for Chinese, and 1 week for Maths. I do this around P5. Results consistent leh. :rotflmao:
One thing for sure, this is not for students who are already good at the language, but for those who would otherwise score only a few marks. Most of the time, when I read their answers, they sound intelligent. Only those were not their own words. But are they expected to use their own words, like in English? My method won't work for English. I venture to guess that if all answers must not be lifted for Chinese, many students will fail. In any case, if no lifting is allowed, I would have devised another method to go around that. :evil: Paraphrase lor...
There's no book about intelligent guessing for PSLE, but you can always find such books for other standardized tests at more advanced levels.
Caution: Don't use my method, because it is not tried and tested, and only worked for my kids so far... -
CA1 is round the corner…how are you preparing your kids for it ? Will CA1 be a wake up call?
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Will start today! Just told dd this morning, CA1 & SA1 are very important for her as she needs the result for DSA.
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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 ? -
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. -
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.
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