How do parents create opportunities for your child to talk?

A child's oral language skills are best indicator of how well they will develop literacy skills in the future. Oral language is the foundation for all literacy. Before your child learns to read and write they must have first developed strong oral language skills.

There are 2 types of oral language skills:

• Receptive (Listening)
• Expressive (Speaking)

World Leading Literacy Expert Marie Clay (2000) considered that a child's literacy education began with listening and speaking, then moved to reading and writing. In general, talkative children who have a wide vocabulary become successful readers and writers.

So, how do parents create opportunities for your child to talk?

There are a wide variety of settings:

• Home
• School
• Social gathering
• Enrichment classes
• On your way to school (driving/walking)
• Outings (parks, gardens)

Topics to cover

• The view (eg vibrant flowers, the swaying trees). Outings in a park.
• The feelings (dog-tired, on cloud nine). On the way home back from school

Role Play

• Magic show. Ask him to put up a magic show and explain the steps involved (plenty of magic books in the library)
• Cooking. Pretend that he is a cooking teacher and explain how to cook (recipe book comes in handy)
• Broadcaster. Give him a simple newspaper article and a toy microphone

Chinese is not Difficult

Some parents had been asking me to share how to teach Chinese. So here is my way:

I believe that children should not learn how to write if they are below 5. So, from the time Wen is three, I have only been teaching him to read.

Chinese is a beautiful language especially the Chinese characters. Each word is like a picture. There are a lot of meanings behind each word. When we teach Chinese to kids, we should introduce the word using flashcards. Wen learnt the words by memorizing the whole word like a picture. I started with 3 flashcards each day and increase gradually. When he was in P1, it was 15 flashcards per day. For words he could not remember, I have to introduce the cards to him again until he remembered.

A good material to use will be the 四五快读 books from China. It is a series of 7 books which you can get from Popular Bookshop or from sprees. There are flashcards at the back of each book. 

Test is good!

Many psychologists have reported that recalling information on a memory test can strengthen future memory for that information ( Roediger & Karpicke, 2006a; Wheeler & Roediger, 1992). It is often found that tests strengthen memory even more than do extra opportunities to study the material. (Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education 2008)

This is when the thick past year popular school test/exam papers come in handy. However, do this only after your child has covered the specific topics. I will normally ask Wen to do the SA1 papers during the June school holidays and SA2 during the December holidays.

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.

“Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.” - Louis L'Amour (1908 to 1988)

Most parents encourage children to read but not writing as writing is a really tedious job. One of the ways to encourage writing is to let them to take part in essay writing competition. It is the experience that counts – the children will feel important. NLB and several organisations do organise essay writing competition annually.

Book review is also a good way to encourage children to write. Discovereads.sg by NLB allows children to register an account and any book reviews done will be awarded with points and badges. What an awesome rewarding system! Below is one done by Wen in June:

Don’t be too quick to correct their grammar or sentence structure as too many corrections will put them off. Let them copy certain section from the book to build up their vocabulary.

Assessment books and past years exam papers for parents-coaching

Past year exam papers

This is very useful to assess your child’s standard and the results can be used as your teaching plan.

Assessment books.

Not any assessment books. Focus on those that he is weak in or areas you want him to excel.

Here are some the assessment books I used

English

The Write Way by Marshall Cavendish 

Chinese

阶梯作文by Marshall Cavendish 

Maths

Get Me Thinking Math by Visibile Maths

Visible Thinking by Marshall Cavendish 

Essential Problem Solving by On Sponge

Read A Lot but no improvement in composition

Most of my friends told me that despite their children’s vast interest in reading all kinds of books, there are no improvements in essay writings.

I consulted my friend, Serene, whose daughter managed to score 268 in her PSLE without any external tuition from Primary 1 to 6. What is her secret in getting her daughter to write ?

“Don’t follow model compositions,” that is her advice.  Wow! That is something different. As you know, most tuition centres will teach their students by asking the students to copy model composition and memorize them.

So, what should be the right approach?

·        Use the writing mindmap (the 5W and 1H – Who, What,                   Where, Why, When and How)

 ·        Checklist for a good essay: 

·        Tenses 

·        Spelling

·        Punctuation 

·        Paragraphing 

·        Wide range of vocabulary (similes, metaphors etc)
                                                       

·        Overall – Realistic storyline, missing links

What are similes and metaphors?

Replacement of common words

Encourage the children to be more descriptive and precise in their composition. Instead of flower, use rose. Instead of bird, use pigeon. If you can replace said with whispered, uttered, declared or revealed, why not use them?

Tips for scoring well in reading comprehension tests

Tense

This is the most common type of mistake made by students. Train your child to use the correct tense by giving the following type of question: "What did John eat for lunch?"

Answer

There are two parts to checking the answer.

1) Did the child lift an answer?

An answer is considered to have been lifted if it was copied and pasted word to word with no change at all. Unless the question requires a sentence or phrase to be given, please avoid lifting an answer.

2) Did the child answer the question?

Students need to check whether they have crafted their answers such that they had answered the question.

For example, same question as point 1 above. The answer should be "John had noodles for lunch." and not "John's mother cooked noodles for John.”

Punctuation

Omission of full stop, commas and missing upper cases are common. These are easy to rectify as long as the child is careful.

Spelling

Ask your child to spend a few minutes checking through the spellings before the work is passed up.

Infer 

To infer is to understand unstated ideas using logic. Inference is a vital skill for the Reading and Listening sections. However, you must be careful not to infer too much. Any inference must be supported by the passage.

Want better grades? Cut screen time

Extract from the The Straits Times:

Some parents believe that children should not watch television or play computer games at all. For me, I find that we should not take extremes. I think limited TV and computer time should be imposed but not banned at all.

Before Wen went to nursery, he was allowed TV times only on weekends, around 10 minutes of viewing time each time. From Kindergarten to Primary 2, he is allowed TV viewing time of around 10 minutes daily.

DVD

One of my friends, Penny, introduced me to this “You can Read” DVD years back when my Wen was just a few months old.  So, his learning journey begins at 7 months when he could sit and watch the DVD.  Every weekend, I will let him watch the DVD. By the time, he was 18 months, he was able to recognize and read out all the words presented in the DVD.

Other DVDs he watched are “Words World” series. Phonics are learnt in a fun way. You can borrow this series from National Public Library.

Computer Time

There are weekly computer lessons in the school since Wen was in Primary One. So, I have to let him have some computer time in order to avoid receiving complains from this IT teacher. However this is restricted to 30 minutes on weekends only.

He enjoys creating slides using powerpoint. ( I am surprise that he learnt powerpoint in school at such a young age!)

Recommended magazines

Primary School

• ASK (Art and Science for Kids) 

• Discovery Box ( you can subscribe through Nuturecraft)
• Young Scientist
• Whats Up newspapers
• +venture in Maths (you can subscribe through schools)
• 好朋友/知识画报 (you can subscribe through schools) 

Save for +venture in Maths, you can borrow the rest from National Library Board.

Recommended Books

If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads (Ralph Waldo Emerson May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882). 

We have always been told that reading is good. It opens up your world. However, do we need to spend a bomb to stock up our home library?

To me, no matter how big your house is, it will never be as big as the library. If you limit your children to only books you store at home, you are limiting their knowledge.

Singapore’s public libraries are quite well-stocked although the popular books can be quite worn-out

If you those that have to have fresh-smelling and crispy books, you may try to buy from amazon or book depository.

National Library’s book classification

·        P – Preschoolers

·        S – Simple stories (from 6 to 9 year old)

·        J – Junior (from 10 to 12 year old)

Following are the books Wen had read:

Nursery

·        Peter and Jane Series (Book 1 to Book 3)

·        Dr Seuss

·        Animal antics A to Z series

Kindergarten

·        Books by Anne Fine and Judy Blume

·        Peter and Jane Series (Book 4 and above)

Primary 1 to 2

·        Flat Stanley's worldwide adventures – 

          cultures and features of different cities of the world

·        Andrew Lost – 

          Science concepts like how earth is created and etc

·        Dinosaur Cove – Dinosaurs! Boys’ favourites.

·        A to Z mysteries – solving simple crimes

·        Switch series by Ali Sparkes – 

          learnt more about insects and reptiles in a fun way

·        Books by E.B.White

·        Books by David Walliams

·        Books by Roald Dahl

·        Horrible Science Series

A book is a dream that you hold in your hand

Whenever you read a good book, somewhere in the world a door opens to allow in more light (Vera Nazarian, 1966 - )

Reading should start when your child can sit independently. I start mine when he is 8 months old.  It is a good bounding time for your child and you. Just 10 minutes every night before bedtime is adequate.

Extract from The Straits Times:

How do we encourage children to read?

Most parents complained that their children do not like to read.

Why? This is because most parents just throw the books to their children and expect them to read by themselves. Even though this may work for some kids, it does not go well with lower-primary children most of the time. A better way is to read with them before bedtime. Kids are more willing to read if they do not read alone.

Spaced out studying time

Studying information across two or more sessions that are separated (i.e., spaced apart or distributed) in time often produces better learning than spending the same amount of time studying the material in a single session (Research article by D. Rohrer Department of Psychology, University of South Florida, Tampa, USA 2012).

Therefore, it is more effective to study or have tuition over 3 times a week (a 0.5hour session) than a 1.5hours weekly lesson.

This can be difficult if you attend class tuition. If you have one-to-one tuition, it may be feasible if the tutor is able to teach multiple subjects. It still work best if the parent is the tutor.

So much to teach, so little time!

Zoom in all the weakest areas

How well do you know your child? You may know he is weak in English but do you know which section is he weakest in? Grammar, Vocabulary, Synthesis or Comprehension?

A good way to find out is to give him the past exam examination papers to try out. Attempt at least 3 papers from different schools and focus on the weakest area.

Most parents like to set timetable for their children. 12pm to 1pm – English, 1pm  to 2pm – Chinese etc. This is due to the way the parents work in the office. In office, we are expected to work from 9am to 6pm. Our KPI are determined by the number of hours we worked including overtime.

However, a more efficient way is to set the task for the children instead. For example, he has up to 3 hours to finish English Page 3 to 5, Chinese Page 6 to 8 etc. This way, the children will have more motivation to finish their work within the time frame.

Study smart - translate learning into another form

Using different ways makes the learning more memorable and builds more nerve cell circuits to access and remember the information. (Dr. Judy Willis  M.D., M,Ed 2015)

So to revise a specific topic, the child could do the following:

·        Read the textbook

·        Watch a related youtube video

·        Do practice problems from different assessment books (most            common but most boring)

On your side, you can assist by:

·        Give him spelling on the key words (this is especially                       important for Science)

·        Ask him to summarise into one paragraph

Spread the above tasks into different days or even weeks. Use a timetable to keep track.

Study smart - Multisensory input

Guide your children to learn important material through multiple sensory learning pathways (hearing, seeing, touching). They can visualize the earth orbiting sun, imagine an electron orbiting the nucleus of an atom, mimic the buzz of electricity as it whizzes by, or feel a tingling associated with a static electric charge by rubbing a balloon against their arm and feeling their hair move (Dr. Judy Willis  M.D., M,Ed 2015)

Wen does not like to read Chinese storybooks. So, I let him “listen” to the stories instead. There are plenty of free Chinese stories in the China internet. One popular one is the 聪明豆系列. Although listening is different from reading, it is better than nothing.

Help! My child is hyperactive.

Parents are the best teachers for the children. Even if you are not highly educated, you still can be a wonderful teacher to your children.

There is this famous book from China which I think is relevant to our Singapore society: 好妈妈胜过好老师. Interested parents can google and see where to get it.

Some parents told me that they have the time, patience and passion to teach their children but their children are just too active, it is difficult to ask them to sit and do their work.

My boy is not those 乖乖 boy either. These are comments from the Form Teacher (nearly daily) in his pupil's diary:

So parents, do not be dishearted! If my boy and I can do it, I am sure you can too! 有志者，事竟成。

Behind every successful child, there is a hardworking parent

Mummy is my Tutor!

Behind every successful man, there is a woman.

To me, behind every successful child, there is a hardworking parent.

Friends have been asking me to share the secret formula of my Primary 2 boy scoring well in examination without outsourced tuition.

So, the million dollar question is: Can parents be the children’s tutors?

To me, it is possible! Well, at least in Primary School.

As you can see, I do not write fantastically. In fact, I only manage to get a B3 for English at ‘O’ Level. Although I did manage to get A1 for Maths, Science and Chinese in my “O” level. I am not an ex-MOE teacher either. However, up to now, my boy, Wen who is currently in Primary 2 in a neighbourhood SAP school, still manage to get top 3 in class with my coaching.

His most recent result:

The secret formulae:

The 2 Ps – Passion and Patience

Let me share more with you in the coming days…….