Conquering Comprehension

Most primary school students in Singapore will find "Comprehension" and "Composition" very challenging. To be honest, "Comprehension" is one area that my son loses a lot of marks in his school exam.

I have decided to coach him myself.   There are many good books out there. I chose this one because it was on sales when I went to Popular bookstore. This book teaches many good strategies, quite valuable actually.

I emphasised  on the following points:

(a) Underline the relevant parts in the passage:
At young age, kids tend to just write whatever they think is the answer.  So, the score is usually "whatsoever".  So, I insisted him to draw a line on where he thinks the answer should be.  This forces him to read and to consider the original passage. This makes him really answering the questions in details rather than simply write whatever in his brain.

In addition, if the same part of the passage will be used for 2 questions, I would ask him to think again. This prevents mistakes and lost of marks.

(b) Check that you have written enough:
Very often, the answers may have several parts. That's the reason more than 1 mark is allocated. Often, there are 2-3 lines allocated for the answers.  Kids just write one line with one part of the answer. Often marks will be missed. So, I asked him to consider again if he just wrote one line in the space having more than or equal to two lines.

(c) How not to miss?
I asked my son to read the sentences before and after the lines where he underlined, and considered the relevancy to the question. He should consider adding those if he has problem with (b) above. Also, I asked him to consider the reasoning.

(d) Go to the details!!!
Must always have patience , and dig deep to the details.  Do not generalise the answer.

(e) Practise! Practise! Practise!

It was quite painful with (e).  According to the teacher, kids may not fully develop yet at the age of P2-P3 and that they cannot cope. So, practise and patients are needed. I believe this had been painful remedy for my son. But outcome was fantastic.  His scores, improved from 2~5/10 to now, 9.5/10!  The score could have been 10/10 if not because of a minor careless mistake that he copied wrongly from the passage.

I  praise him for the good work. Now, I see a lot of self esteem and confidence in him in this section now. I believe that now he knows, HE CAN DO IT!

Supplements - Probiotic

Recently I benefited by taking Probiotic supplement. When the doctor prescribed BioGia to my child, I know what it is.  If you want to know more about the benefits, please click here, here or here. 

However, I am very surprised that the price we are paying for this in Singapore.
For 30 capsules each with 100 million counts of live bacteria, I have to pay almost S$45! This is charges from a public hospital.  A check on Amazon reveals that price is approximately S$32. Much cheaper! 

  

I wonder how much the shipment would cost. But unfortunately, this product cannot be shipped overseas. There are some other brands, but the shipment cost is really a lot!

I checked the company from whom I bought my Probiotic, Vitamin World. I always buy from them whenever I go to US, or when my close friends going over to US.  Their excellent customer service is really striking. When I called last month from Singapore about a product changing color, they just shipped me a replacement although they said that the product I had was fine to consume. That's how I come to know about their international shipment.

Ok, look at the following product from Vitamn World :

Yum V's from Vitamin World (Click for the link or Find from Vitamin World's Website)

 The price is USD9.99, or S$13 at most. Shipment is about USD$12 for two bottles, plus handling fee of USD1.95), and they do ship overseas. 

The benefits of the 'good bacteria' can be obtained by taking yoghurt drink or yoghurt, or some other fermented foods with naturally occurring live cultures. I don't think my kids need this every day. But I would let them take this when there are many people in school having flu or stomach flu.  One of the main way to stay happy is to stay healthy, right?

Start to Read, early reading program from School Zone

I seldom see products from the publisher School Zone in any of the local Singapore or Malaysia bookstore, but I came across the material of "Start to Read  Early Reading Program" last week at Popular Bookstore, Singapore. Check out the following links to learn about the products.

   

The price is about SGD10 per set, comparable with the price in US.  However, Popular Bookstore is having a discount of 20%- 25%.  Below are the 3 sets that I purchased. 

I started using the level 1 book today. Like all other sets, each set comes with 5 reader books, 1 CD, 1 activity comprehension book and a parental guide. 

I like the approach taken in this reading program, where the kids are supposed to listen to the audio CD first, to sharpen up the listening skill. I discussed the story with my 5 years old.  My daughter could not get some of the words when we listened to the CD, but that does not matter. I could not get some of those words too. :-)  But I can tell that roughly, she knows what's the story about. It's my hope that she can get used to the native pronunciation through this listening exercise. 

Then I let her read aloud and then let her listen to CD per instruction.  Again, the audio CD is very helpful for non-native speaker like me. After reading the books, we listened again to the CD. This time, we could almost gets everything. One more good point, the books are colorful with interesting graphic and certainly my 5 years old loves this very much. 

I was wondering  how to ask her more detailed questions... but the comprehension book saved my day. The comprehension book carries a few simple questions related to the stories.  

If you are interested, go and take a look at Popular Bookstore now!  If you read this much later date, well, you can always buy from Amazon. From my experience, the shipping is not that expensive. 

  

  

  

Another Good Math Book

My son loves Math. He likes challenging questions. So, we always find Olympiad Math book that provides challenging questions for him to think. We both think that this book has very high quality questions.

For example, one of questions is now my favorite question. If I have to conduct interviews for engineering positions, this will become one of my interview questions. The question is something like this:

"Banana Kingdom uses only two types of coins, i.e. 5-cent coin and 21-cent coin. Because of this, some numbers cannot be paid using only these two types of coins. For example, 6 cents, 7 cents, 22 cents.... etc. What is the biggest number that cannot be paid by using these 2 types of coins? Assume that there are indefinite supply of coins"

At a first glance, I would think the answer is infinite, but that's wrong. Answer should be 79. This question is difficult, but very doable.

To me, this book is among the best for this reason. Many people cannot do this just because they are impatient. If I show them and get them to list down the numbers that can be paid by those coins, most people can get the answer. My son understands after I show him the answer. However, he does not know how to explain this well to others. I encourage him to do so to sharpen his skill. Many of the questions here need analytical skill. Worth considering if you kids like Maths. I would like to thank the author, Ms Loh Cheng Yee, for her good work. I think Ms Loh's books are pretty good.

By the way, for those not familiar with Singapore, GEP stands for Gifted Education Program. This program is designed for top students in Singapore. I heard that some parents send their kids to tuition with hopes that they get into this program. I discourage such attitude because the kids will suffer and will drop out. Similarly, many parents buy Olympiad Maths book for their kids and even pay for expensive Olympiad Math Training with the hope that their kids will win in Olympiad Math competition. I disagree with such attitude too. I hope you don't do buy this book with such intention.

For me, I encourage my son to do this as a hobby. If he does not know the answer, he will look at the answer provided at the back and figure out how to get the answer. I am glad that my son enjoy thinking and analyzing. Usually he will share with me those difficult questions.

It is my hope that this book will help me to train my son to think and to analyze.

LeapFrog

This is one of the less successful item that I have bought.



The older version come with a pen. In 2005, I got this from my sister in law for my son. This kind of gadget certainly attracted attention and interest. It came with good contents, Thomas, Dora etc that were designed to attract attention. In this sense, I managed to let my son read and listen to native pronunciation albeit it's computer recorded voice.

I can see that the latest one comes with LCD screen. I don't like my kids looking at bright LCD screen. Also, I never think the touch pad is ergonomic. In that sense, I think Leapfrog is heading toward the wrong direction. I may be wrong but if I were to buy this, certainly I will consider Kindle or iPad 2.



However, unlike Peter & Jane, and Hooked on Phonics learning sets which are more systematic, the Leap Frogs content looks less systematic in the teaching approach. In my case, I do not see much effect in terms of learning except that the sets attracted my son to learn. I had to buy another reader 2 years ago for my daughter because the first one malfunctioned. I would say the Return of Investment of second set is almost close to zero because my daughter was not attracted to those characters my son liked.

In general to be fair to leap frog, I would say that this gadget helps in attracting attention and interest. I hope that Leap frog will look at the contents to deliver a full academic contents instead of using mere electronics.

A visit to School of Hard Knock (Selangor Pewter)

Refer also to website of Selangor Pewter about School of Hard Knock. The visit starts with introduction of company history and demonstration of how pewter is made.

The next part of the visit is self experience of making a pewter. I think the process is self explanatory from the photos:

The process starts from a pewter plate




Then they "stamped" their name on the plate.





Hammer all the way into the shape!





Here's the finished goods!


The price is RM60, no group discount. But the visitor can bring back the pewter as souvenir and a certificate. I think the visit needs about 2 hours. Considering the cost of maintaining such workshop, I would say the visit worth the dollar spent. Besides, it offers a very wonderful out-of-classroom type of learning and experience.

We went in a group. Kids needs to be supervised carefully as they may hit their own finger in the process. By the way, the visit is available in KL and in Penang.

Kids Invent Workshop

I came across the advertisement in Popular Book Store magazine. The contents looked interesting. Please check out their website for more details, here's the part that I find interesting :

"...The Kids Invent! approach to learning is a more engaging and natural way for kids to learn math, science, invention, and the process of transforming abstract ideas into tangible things. Through the inventing experience inherent in Kids Invent! Learning Activities, kids are faced with practical problems which they learn to solve through observations, thinking, and experimentation. As part of that process, they also learn how to use tools and materials, how to manage time and work with others...."

Unfortunately I did not have time to sit in through the entire workshop. I do not know the details but I would present a photo report so that you have a better idea what this is about. I like their approach to let kids do things on their own, let them fail, and let them try.

Straw Tower Game:

I played this in company's team building before. This simple game stimulates the kids to work together, and to explore what makes the tower stable.


Land Vehicle 1

I noticed that in this workshop, it's not so much about look, but self effort to make a functional toys.


Land vehicle 2

Look at the arrogant design of the land vehicle... the instructor did not teach step by step, but were shown basic step and kids just build per what they like


Aluminum Boat

Do you see the boat?

"Motor" boat

Yi Kai can explain why pouring water into the cup can make the boat move forward


Moving objects in the air... parachute

They experimented several parachutes and observe which one floats longest in the air



Another moving objects in the air

I am surprised that this cylindrical paper object can fly.


Paper Bridge

They experimented how to make a more robust bridge.



Preparation and Final presentation









The kids are free to make whatever toys they like and make presentation. They are supposed to sell their toys too!


Usually my son is always reluctant to go for this kind of workshop alone. However, he enjoyed this workshop very much and I can see that he always look forward to the next lessons.

Many people asked me about the price. And some people may have concern on transportation. The organizers are very helpful and they offered to transport my kids free of charge. I also obtained early bird discount. I know many of you will ask, but I paid SGD380. I know it's not cheap, but I would say worth the money. To me, it's not so much about learning how to make toys, but to cultivate the interest in learning, to have the ability to explore, to try, to fail, and to do things he likes. That is very rare in our education in this part of the world, right?


P/S : Photos are given to me by the organizer