All About Your Child

Keatkeat is not an expressive child, in terms of words; but in actions, oh man! you can get all sorts of expressions! *laugh*

Whenever he wants to relate a scenario in school, we are often confused first, followed by questioning, before we could finally understand what he wanted to say. He does not fall into the ‘talkative’ category definitely and that hurts his composition dearly. He had his English composition paper on 21 September 2011, so that is over.

After 1 and a half year of home training on his English composition, I hope he would NOT write a story full of those below 6 words in a sentence kind of essay for his English composition exam; and I crossed my fingers and toes that he would REMEMBER to write that tiny dot at the end of every sentence: i.e. FullStop / Period.

Forgetting to write that tiny dot would then make him forget to write Capital letter for the first alphabet of the first word in the next sentence.*shake head*

As for Comprehension, all I can say is his concentration dies as he flips through each page of the exam paper. Comprehension is always the last section of the English paper, which is also the time when he would be losing his concentration at a racing speed.

When that happens, sentences like “Lily has not received the letter.” would be read as (in Keatkeat’s head), “Lily has received the letter.” Thus it affects the answer he provides in the question and answer section. *sigh*

Last but not least, he often thinks faster than he writes, so he would miss out words in his sentences, causing him to lose marks for poor grammer. For example, instead of writing “Snakes move on the ground by sliding their body.” He would write, “Snakes move on ground by sliding body.” *eyes rolled*

What kind of Common English Mistakes does your child make for English?

Common English Mistakes

At this moment, year end examination is in the process in many schools. Keatkeat’s first paper was on 13th September and his last paper would be on 1st November, which is one day before his birthday. *clap clap clap* Lots of breaks in between. Total 7 ‘examinable’ days.

Conversations between parents outside the school gate often includes,
“What do you do to your child during exam time?”
“How do you help him to prepare for exam?”
“No TV;”
“No Play;”
“Let him/her do past years examination papers;”
“Specially get past years examination papers from those Top Primary School for my child;”
“Let him/her keep practicing his/her weaker subjects, no time to waste;”

Then the conversation would change to,
“Kids nowadays are so pitiful. So much to learn and to do.”
“No choice. Have to do it. Or will fail exam then become a useless fellow in future.”

I am sorry.
For me, totally disagree.
Your child has lots of work to do because you gave your child more work to do on top of school work.
Your child does not need grades from school to become a useful human being in future.
There are so many millionaires and successful people out there who were school dropouts. So grades are NOT the ONLY determinant factor.

I know of a child who did badly in school and all that the parents know is ‘throw‘ the child in a tuition centre or engage private tutor, when in the beginning the parents did not play a good role in teaching.

Remember my previous post “Your Child is Not Stupid“, I said “Your Child Is Not Stupid, Its You Who Does Not Know How To Teach Effectively.”

Revision is not for examination only, but a daily routine.
I do not believe in cramming for exams at the eleventh hour. Because it creates unnecessary stress on the child and it causes the child to fear exam.

Every day, I would give my boys, Primary 2 and Kindergarten 2, worksheets for all 3 subjects; English, Mathematics and Chinese. Unless they have homework from school, then the revision for that particular subject will be missed. For example, if there are Chinese and English homework from School, then I will only give him revision for Mathematics.

After revising each subject, a 30mins break is given before the next revision for the next subject begins. When all three subjects had been revised, its play time all the way till lullaby hour. I am a strong believer in striking a balance between fun and work. Study time is just as important as play time. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy

Ever since I became a Mummy, I speak to my children in English because from Mathematics, to Science, to Geography, to History, to Literature, to Art n Crafts, to Home Economics, to Technical Studies, to Chemistry, to Biology, to Physics and every other possible subjects (except Mother Tongue: Chinese); ALL teachers teach ALL subjects using English language (except for Mother Tongue).

Therefore I strongly believe that English is more important than Chinese and any other subject. English must be the foundation. When your child’s English foundation is poor, it will affect every other subject that will come along the way throughout Primary and Secondary education.

Therefore to me, English should be emphasized the day my children were born, in order to build that foundation.

With that said and WITHOUT any conflicting emotions in me at all, when my children goes to Primary School, all 3 basic subjects: English, Mathematics and Chinese, should be given the same effort IN TERMS OF REVISION. Once the English foundation is built, time used on revision for all subjects should be equal.

Revision is not for the sake of getting good grades for exams. Revision is a lifelong process. What you see less, read less, speak less, you will forget. True?
Therefore, revision should be done on a daily basis and NOT for tests or examination period only.

When revision is done daily, your child will not feel unnecessary stress during exams or tests. Unnecessary stress causes more careless mistakes because the child tends to over-think when answering the questions.

Exams are NOT Stressful. The Stress on the child comes from the Parents. Its how the parents paint the ‘exam picture‘ to the child, that makes the child fear exam.

“I want you to get 90/100 for all subjects.”
“I don’t want to see any careless mistakes on your exam paper. I will punish you for every careless mistakes made.”
“Don’t fail this paper or I will NOT give you ________, which you want, as a punishment.”

Is the child studying for knowledge, or studying to please the parents, or simply to prevent being punished?

These unnecessary stress may lead to poor health, poorer concentration or may even lead to peeking/copying during exams.

Studying is not scary.
School is not boring.
Studying is not to find a good job but to increase knowledge.
School is a place to learn to handle different levels of human relationships and improve on discipline.
Studying in school is supposed to be Fun for children and not something that the child feels reluctant to go to.

I have said it before and I will say it again:
I LOVE EXAMINATIONS!
There are so much things to look forward to!

• During exams period, there is no proper lesson because all the curriculum had been completed.
• During exams period, there are hardly any homework.
• During exams period, there are so much more free time.
• And the best part is AFTER exams its SCHOOL HOLIDAYS!

*clap clap clap*

And I am instilling this ‘look-forward-to-exam’ attitude into my boy and that little fellow has no problem absorbing that! *laugh* ‘cos once the exams are over, he celebrates his birthday!

So to my son, exams or not, there is no difference and I would like to keep it that way. Without unnecessary exam stress, he is at his best. *Grin*

I have always believed in learning the smart way instead of the hard way.

When we were young, my sister and I have our own way of learning Multiplication 9, or more commonly known as 9 times tables, the easy way. My method works for me and her method works for her. So today we tried both methods on my son, Keatkeat.

The trick that works for my sister ~ the Finger Method

The concept is to use your fingers as a guide. This can ONLY be applied to 9 times tables.

Example 3 x 9 = 27

1. Tell your child to place his ten fingers down as shown in the photo below.
2. Since it is ’3′ x 9, tell your child to ‘hide’ the 3rd finger from the left. The hidden finger acts like a divider between the tenths and the ones.
3. On the left side of the hidden finger is the tenths. Since only 2 fingers are up on the left side of the divider, it represents ’20′.
4. On the right side of the hidden finger is the ones. Since 7 fingers are up on the right side of the divider, it represents ’7′.
5. So the answer is ’20′, ’7′ = 27

Just by looking at the fingers which are UP will help your child to determine the answer straight away.

From 9 times tables

The Slide Show below shows the 9 times table from 1 x 9 to 10 x 9.

I tried my method on my 7 year old Keatkeat, he can perform in written form but finds it harder to absorb.

Yet, the moment my sister shared her method with him and my 6 year old Binbin, BOTH understood immediately and could recite the full 9 times tables without a problem.

So I will not be sharing my method. If my sister’s method has proven to be easier for children to comprehend, I do not see the need to share mine. So ‘Thank You Sis’.

Is this how your child learn his or her 9 times tables too?

If you look back at my ‘old’ blog posts on the topic of teaching Chinese, my focus has always been creating an interest in the subject in my boys. Frankly, it is difficult to build an interest in something on someone else, when you, yourself is not interested in! *sigh*

Chinese is my weakest subject, has always been. Well, I used to blame it on my Parents because none of them spoke to me in Chinese. After I became a parent, I took the blame away from them and acknowledged that it was my bad mentality towards the language which resulted in my bad grades.

One needs to ‘Speak More, Write More, Read More’, if you want to master the language, or simply ‘Survive‘ it.

Then again, what do you do, when your child refused to speak in Chinese? Hates writing those Chinese character strokes? Take hours just to finish reading a short Chinese story?

Well, its a battle I have to go through with Keatkeat every single day. Yes, just Keatkeat. Binbin loves Chinese. Sad to say, words which the Kindergarten 2 child knows, his Primary 2 older brother does not or have forgotten.

Which is why I say, it voice down to the attitude of the child. The way I teach the both of them are the same, but why does one excel and the other struggles? ~ Interest.

Before I reveal my latest trick used on Keatkeat, please allow me to vent a little here by sharing what it is like to get Keatkeat to complete a Chinese homework from school:~

‘Mind Blocked’ is what I have to deal with every time we sit down for Chinese lesson at home.

For example, the words ‘Small Fish’, he would keep pronouncing these two words as ‘Small Rain’. When we separate ‘Small’ from ‘Fish’, he is able to pronounce individual words correctly. But when we put them back together, he will say ‘Small Rain’ again.

Doing motion without knowing what he is doing is another big hurdle for him and me to conquer.

For example, during ‘Zao-Ju’, which is sentence construction, he would ask, “Mummy, how to write ‘guo’.” I would open up his textbook, flip to a page where the word ‘guo’ can be found and suggest that he finds the word himself. Then after writing two more ‘Zao-Ju’, he asked again, “Mummy, how to write ‘guo’.” *faint*

The most annoying thing is, he is still on the same page where he WROTE the word ‘guo’! Simply raising his eyelids a little and roll his eyeballs slightly upwards, he could see the ‘guo’ which he wrote few minutes ago! As if it was not bad enough, the textbook where the word ‘guo’ can be found is still wide open! *eyes rolled*

Lets move on to reading a Chinese Story Book which does not have Hanyu Pinyin. We have began to stay away from Hanyu Pinyin because his school teacher suggested that we should, as Primary Three Chinese would not be focusing on Hanyu Pinyin at all.

Step 1: I would read the first paragraph with my index finger pointing each Chinese character as I read.

Step 2:Then I would ask him to explain what I had just read. If he misunderstood any section, I would then explain it to him in English.

Step 3: Step 1 is repeated.

Step 4: Now, its his turn to read. Whenever he cannot remember the pronounciation of any word, I would ask him to say out (without writing) the Hanyu Pinyin of that ‘difficult’ word. I would read for him again and ask him to repeat after me.

What happens next?

HE FORGETS AGAIN!!!

Yes! In just split seconds, he can just forget what he has just said! How Amazing!?

And after reading many times to him, when he finally remembers, he forgets another word which he Knew How To Pronounce Previously! *Scream*

My sis said I am really patient. Even she could not help but shook her head when she sat beside us witnessing the drama.

Throughout the reading or worksheet session, he would drop his pencil, flick his eraser, flip his ruler onto the floor. Then he will bend down, picks it up and forgets where he stopped! *Double Scream*

He will start looking for the question or the place where he has stopped and when he finally found it, ANOTHER THING DROP ON THE FLOOR! *Super Scream*

Alright enough of all these nonsense!

Ever since we tried this new approach, the above bad habits have changed for the better; but not completely though.

So what new approach?

Chinese Comprehension!

Yup!
That’s it!
Let me explain why it works. *wink*
Remember, my focus here is to let Keatkeat have interest in Chinese and correct his bad mentality towards the language.

Doing Chinese Comprehension is ‘Killing Many Birds With One Stone’:

1. One passage a day. So all he sees is one page of story and one page of questions to answer. Two pages seemed really easy for him to ‘swallow’. (Pressure/Stress is lessened.)
2. He will read silently on his own with a pencil in his hand, underlining words which are alien to him. (Cultivating Good Reading Habits)
3. After which, I will tell him the pronunciation of the underlined words. (Learning new/forgotten words)
4. I will read to him. (Training his listening skills and level of attentiveness)
5. Then he will read. (Reading Habit again)
6. He can move on to the questions ONLY when he is able to read the whole story WITHOUT asking me, “Mummy what word is this?” (Accomplishment)
7. Answering the questions. (Train him on his level of understanding and speed of finding the appropriate answer)
8. Writing down the answers. (Focus on correct strokes of the Chinese Characters, Writing speed and Forming proper Chinese sentences is put to practice)

Can you see?

One stone killed so many birds!

Ever since we started doing Chinese Comprehension regularly, Keatkeat’s resistance towards the language has decreased tremendously. There are many books, which focuses on Chinese Comprehension ONLY. You can get them easily from any bookshops which sells assessment books.

Keatkeat’s Chinese has improved much, but has he reached the standard which is acceptable to his Chinese teacher? Errrmmm… Nope! More work need to be done.

Anyway, one thing for sure, he no longer detest Chinese language now. *phew* So I would say its a great leap forward. *smile*

Is your child interested in Chinese language? How do you teach your child Chinese?

There is no school for my Primary 2 boy today. In fact, because of PSLE (Primary School Leaving Examination) oral examination today and tomorrow, there is no school for all Primary 1 to Primary 5 pupils, as the Primary 6 students need a quiet environment to get through their oral examination.

The school has thus declared today as eLearning Day for all pupils from Primary 2 to 5.

Their objectives of this eLearning Day is to provide pupils an alternative learning experience facilitated through technology, to enhance pupils’ and school’s readiness in the event of school closure and to enhance the life skills of pupils in the 21st century, such as independent and self-directed learning.

All P2 to P5 students are given specific assignments t to be completed from home and could only be taken from the school’s eLearning portal from 8am to 12.30pm.

They had to login with their Birth Certificate and school ID in order to begin.

So while I am getting this blog post up, he is sitting next to me enjoying his eLearning Day. For the first time, he would NOT hear me say, “Keatkeat you have spent too much time infront of that rectangular screen. Stop now.” *laugh*

With this introduction of eLearning Day, will there come a time whereby students no longer goes to school and all lessons would be taught through the internet? Oh no! Then teachers would become jobless!!!

Does your child school have eLearning Day too?