There and Back Again

The school term is ending and my son has received all his test results. You might have noticed that I said test and not examinations. Primary One students sit for tests that are spread out over the entire semester, and I guess this is the school's way of not stressing these young kids.  Overall, I cannot complain too much about his results. They are quite alright. I have to emphasise (especially to my dear wife) that having a great Primary One result does not mean anything. No teacher will ask for his Primary One results and no employer will ask for his Primary One progress card. My wife is in contact with some mothers who are ridiculously "kiasu". They will discretely ask around for test results. One of them was even checking if her son scored well for a health and physical fitness MCQ test in comparison with other students! Seriously. Anyway, back to my son's results. I am happy with his results, but I think he lacks basic examination skills. He is very car...

It's been a long time since I posted anything: it has really been very busy for me. But, I did take out some time to try to help my son with his composition. He has a test this week, and we have been writing. Anyway, I think it is crazy that Catholic High thinks that writing a full composition with details is something that Primary One students can do. But I try my best to guide him; here are some of the essays he has written. There are still some grammar and spelling mistakes, but I think it is pretty impressive that he can write such long essays. I swear I could not do it until I was at least Primary Two. Still pretty crazy expectations! This is a story about food poisoning. This is a story about a disruption in class. I think he should know this topic quite well. The very first one he wrote. Did you see improvements? He has issues with dialogue and keeps on forgetting to end his sentences with full stops. Not to mention past tense. But I will get him ready....

The start of the June holidays means that the term is over. This has been a very eventful term, with my son starting his Primary One journey. The beginning was tough, with his body adjusting to waking up early in the morning. The mental adjustment was even more arduous. His separation anxiety surfaced again despite having attended childcare. Catholic High was relatively easy as he had been looking forward to attending a bigger school. Adjusting to Student Care took a long process. He only stopped complaining around April. Of course, if you read my posts, you will know that there have been challenges along the way. Academic results wise, he is fine. I feel there is nothing much to emphasise. Afterall, when was the last time anybody brought up Primary One results to guage your ability? But I will just show you the comments his teachers made. Just a note, the teachers' comments are usually taken from templates. They judge the students, and then find the word template that ...

This looks like a comprehension passage he set about a Ryan Gowith and Caleb Xia. Please don't ask me who they are. Last night, my son decided to write some stuff. He proceeded to write all these pages, which I guess was based on what he did in school. I am not sure if these are considered good or bad; I have never seen samples of Primary One writing that has not gone through the eyes of an adult. Nevertheless, these are totally unedited and without any intervention. The only reason I am sharing these is that it amusing that he writes such things. It is something he did unexpectedly, and I think will never do again.  "Today we are learning math. This answers are easy. Try them. Good luck." Looks like he needs to brush up on his continuous tense and 'this' vs 'these'. And stop being so arrogant about his math. They are easy because he is only in Primary One! According to him, there are science lessons. The school never requested u...

This week is Catholic High School's English Language Arts Week. And the school has organised some activities for the children. The theme is 'Around the World in 80 days' - the classic book. It is indeed a classic book, just like what Mark Twain said, 'Classic - a book which people praise but don't read'. I have not read the book but roughly knew the storyline. So as to help him, we managed to borrow the book from the library even before the holidays. Anyway, on April 6, the kids were supposed to turn up in school in a costume, made up of recycled and scrap materials, based on the ethnic clothing of selected countries. We were quite undecided on what to make my son wear. He was also not very forthcoming with suggestions. This is very typical of him - he is indecisive when faced with almost unlimited choices. Eventually, we decided on a Chinese emperor's costume. To keep with the material requirements, we sacrificed a bed sheet and a Transformer toy box. But...

Cover Page of STELLAR Unit 6. STELLAR stands for Strategies for English Language Learning and Reading. The programme is designed specifically for Singapore children by Singapore teachers. It was rolled out in 2006 and after nine years, all the primary schools use for all levels. STELLAR is an instructional programme and not a syllabus, and therefore it offers materials and strategies rather than an outline of teaching outcomes. As a result, some parents complain that it seems unstructured. However, from what I can see, there is a certainly a pattern that only an experienced teacher can detect. There are elements of explicit grammar instruction (like the lessons taught traditionally). But wrapped around these basics are stories that interest the kids instead of the boring old textbooks during our time. How does STELLAR work? I will focus on STELLAR at the lower primary levels since that is where my son is studying. There are three stages - Shared Book Approach (SBA), Modi...

Next year, my son needs to go to a student care. I know many people disapprove of it, but I think it is the best option for us. There are many reasons for this choice - both of us are working and we do work late (I finish earliest at 8.30pm and my wife needs to take conference calls at night when projects are due). The only person that can take care of my son is my parents. But they will be unable to help my son much - the syllabus has changed so much from 60 years ago after all. I visited three student care centres around the Marine Parade and East Coast area, checking them out. One of them turned out to be a total disappointment. Despite advertising that they give help based on multiple intelligence, they just do baby-sitting services. They do not even pretend to follow their own marketing! It left two choices. Both seemed to have good administrators and teachers, but one of them really bugged me. They needed us to buy past years examination papers, and the story was that after...

Recently, a friend's blog mentioned about her trying out some audio books when she and her children were travelling in a car. That struck a chord with me. I am very busy with life, yet I want to read books. So what I have done is to subscribe to blinklist (a service that summarises books) and Audiophile (a audiobook seller). Thus far, I have been enjoyed my short summaries and listening to books being read out loud while I am driving. This friend's post got me thinking that since it worked for her, I can try getting an audiobook for my son so that he can listen to stories in the car. It is good for him to practise his listening comprehension skills, as well as to listen to crisp spoken English. The book I chose to buy was 'The Book with No Pictures' by BJ Novak (writer and producer of The Office). It was an excellent book and since there are 'no pictures', it works perfectly fine as an audiobook. The book was real good and my son was very tickled by the ...

Recently, Lucas' spelling marks dropped. From my own analysis, the problem is that I did not ask him to write it down. Instead I just relied on him speaking the letters out loud. Actually, it is pretty silly of me. Whenever I test my students, I always insist that they write down all the answers. They always protest, but I always tell them that it is for their own good. If the test is written, then the retrieval must be in written form. Then I always give the analogy that if all they want to do is to speak the answer, then it would be like a runner just imagining the race instead of really going for practise runs. The irony of it, not following my own advice. At the same time, I am still not happy with the school's theme-based spelling. After some research, some sources say that theme-based spelling lists must also include the etymology of the word. I am still not convinced. I am not sure that a six-year old really understands what is etymology. By the way, for the non En...

Lucas with his mum's iPad mini Recently, an article appeared in one of the Facebook pages I liked that I found disturbing. The author of this article (which I will not link to - call me biased, but I do not want such ideas to be perpetuated) was totally against the idea of handhelds for children under the age of 12. I was really surprised by this - I do teach in a school that has children under 12 and we do use the iPads in the classrooms. Nevertheless, I clicked the article and read it (I always force myself to read articles that go against my own beliefs because I think it creates a critical mind). I realised that some of the arguments she listed were actually false dichotomies - they did not allow for alternate reasonings. She argues that handhelds delay development probably because the children do not move and exercise while watching or playing games on the handheld. It is a good point, but in another part of the article, she notes down that children below 12 can safely ...

In my previous post about spelling woes , I talked about the three components of successful spelling - knowledge of phonemes & phonics, knowledge of spelling rules and memorisation & practice. This is a follow-up post in which I am going to introduce strategies for helping children spell. These set of strategies is actually based on Webb's Depth of Knowledge . The basic premise is that different activities are of different cognitive complexity. And the higher the cognitive complexity, the more likely the knowledge gets retained in long-term memory. It's actually very logical when you think about it. Who is going to understand or memorise a piece of information or concept better - one who has just read and understood it or one who has understood it and is able to rephrase and teach it to another person? Obviously the latter, who clearly has performed a task that is cognitively more complex. Enough of theory, let me give you practical advice! These activities are ...

The last weekend was spent at F1 with my son. My wife had refused to come with us, so it was just the two of us. It was my son’s first live F1. Actually it was mine too. I never really fancied watching F1 live – firstly, I watched the Macau Grand Prix before and motorsports was never my thing and secondly, I always thought that F1 wasn’t that exciting.  It only turned exciting when there was a crash.  Nevertheless, my son was quite enthusiastic, so I brought the tickets. Of course one of the objectives of bringing my son there was because of entertainment. He had always been fascinated with cars since young, despite the fact that his dad was not a car fanatic. So he was excited whenever he saw sporty cars on the road (he must be extremely disappointed that my car came original without any changes at all and looked like a typical sedan car). But back in my mind, I wanted to expose him to different experiences – travelling, exhibitions etc. From my own experience as a teache...

Some parents dislike their children using a smartphone or a tablet. They think that their children are spoiling their eyes, or wasting their time inside the house rather than going doing outdoor play. While their concerns are valid, I do believe that technology can play a part in our children's education. Technology, in moderation, and especially guided by an adult can be very useful in helping our children learn. Voice Changer There are two apps I found quite useful in helping my son spell. One of them is called Voice Changer.  What you can do with it is to ask your child to spell the word and record it using the app. Once it has been saved, your child can press the icons to modify his voice. Your child can make himself sound like a mouse, a ghost, with helium and so on. It is definitely lots of fun to experiment with all the different voices! The constant listening to the audio recording of the word being spelt in a fun way really helps him to remember the word. You can use...

The idea behind this blog festered at the back of my head for quite some time. It began when I started to think of teaching my son, Lucas. Now, I am an experienced secondary school teacher. Ask me how to write an argumentative essay or understand a difficult comprehension passage and I can give you some tips. But teach a 5 year old the basics of phonics, letter recognition, spelling etc... Truly, I can tell you that I was lost. As I did research on teaching my son, I came across many educational resources. I really learnt a lot. The research told me that childcare and primary school teachers needed to put in lots of efforts. Maybe, even a bit more effort than a secondary teacher. Secondary school teachers polish gems to make them shine. But childcare and primary school teachers create the gems. Anyway, I will be writing about my journey in learning how to teach really young kids. I enjoy researching and applying this knowledge. I hope you can all join me in this journey.