5 Things I Wished I Knew About Careless Mistakes Before I Took The PSLE Exams

I am sure many parents are able relate the agony of careless mistakes with me. This is particularly common in young boys. They tend to be more careless and more resistant to change in this aspect.

In my tuition class, I share 5 strategies with my students to eliminate careless mistakes in Mathematics.


1. Write neatly and write big numbers

This is the most important strategy. First of all, it aids in the checking. If the child writes neatly, it is very easy for him to check his work.

Secondly, it eliminates the ambiguity of certain numbers. Can you imagine the teacher has a stack of exam papers to mark and still has to waste time guessing wheither a number is a '0', a '6' or a '9'.

You have to remind your child to write neatly at all times.


2. Time management

Time management in an exam paper will help the child to pace himself properly. How much time should be spent on each question?

The key phrase here is 'Don't linger. Don't dash." for each question. If you get stuck, move on to the next question. Do not waste too much time on one question.

It is also important to remind the child not to be affected by his peers during examination. When a child sees his friends putting their heads on the table to rest, he will be tempted to do so too. 

This is a type of peer pressure. It is a very misguided thinking that 'I am faster than you and therefore I am smarter than you'.

Highlight to your child that it is the marks that matters.


3. Test the answers

This is something that I practise often in my tuition lessons. After the student gets the answer, plug answer back into the question to see if it fits. 

---------------------------
Ali and Ben have 30 apples. Ali has 20 apples. How many apples does Ben have?

30 - 20 = 10

----------------------------

To test the answer, put the 10 back into the question. If Ali has 20 apples and Ben has 10 apples, they will have 30 apples altogether. This confirms that the answer is correct as the first sentence states that Ali and Ben have 30 apples.

Although this is a very simple strategy, it is not commonly taught in schools and hence it is not commonly practised also. You must practise this with your child. It is a very simple and yet very effective checking tool.


4. Watch out for transfer error

I see this very often in some students' work. When the question requires two steps, the answer from the first step is transferred wrongly to the second step. Take a look at the following example.

---------------------------
Ali and Ben have 30 apples. Ali has 20 apples.

(a) How many apples does Ben have?
(b) How many more apples does Ali have than Ben?

(a) 30 - 20 = 10

(b) 20 - 16 = 4

----------------------------

You can see that the student transferred 10 wrongly. It was written as 16 in the second step. Marks were lost for nothing.

To help your child in this, go back to Step 1: Write neatly. This will minimise your child from copying wrongly.

Another way is to teach your child to scan for all the transfers before handing up the paper.


5. Practise and practise and practise

Careless mistakes have something to do with accuracy. Ultimately, it is the lack of practice that contributes to careless mistakes. If your child practise enough, how can he get 1 + 1 = 2 wrong?

Help your child to practise addition and subtraction regularly. Test his multiplication tables often.


The key is to help the child practise enough so that they can create the habit and make it stick.


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5 Steps Of A Holiday Revision Program

Holidays are just around the corner! Do you have a plan to bridge all the learning gaps of your child? 

I recommend you to have a holiday revision program with your child. Rather than watching television programs or playing games everyday, it will give some structure and aim to his holidays.

There are 5 steps in coming up with a holiday program.


Step 1: Set a goal with the child

This is the most important step. Without the commitment of the child, it is almost pointless to do a holiday revision program. The way to start this discussion is to discuss the recent exam results with the child.

The two key questions to the child here is "How are you going to improve on your grades?" and "What are you going to give up for this improvement?".

Get the child's commitment and get him write it down on a Post-It note. Some examples might be:

"I will put in my best efforts to learn for 30 minutes a day for 20 days."

"I will complete a past year paper everyday for the next 10 days."

Paste it somewhere where the child will see everyday. Get your child to read it to himself everyday. Remember, you want the child to take over the ownership of this revision program.


Step 2: Teaching

The second step is to design the learning for the child. What type of gaps are you bridging? How are you going to teach the child? Some tools might be:

- textbooks
- guidebooks
- videos
- experiments (for Science)
- mini-projects
- mindmaps
- presentation slides

Do not skip this part. This is the visible input that your child will see from you. This is the portion that makes the holiday program a joint effort rather than an edict by a parent.

The key here is to have fun learning with your child.


Step 3: Deliberate Practice

After learning, we have to practice. For more information on deliberate practice, you can read my blog post at http://mrdannylim.blogspot.sg/2014/09/secret-art-deliberate-practice.html.

Some forms of practice are

- worksheets/assessment books/past-year papers
- online educational games
- process writing
- documenting an experiment (for Science)

Tell the child upfront that this is not going to be easy and it creates a chance to learn the character trait 'perseverance'. 

Encourage your child often that he is doing well and he is putting in effort. Some children require more encouragement at this stage.

Please don't praise your child. 'Well done!' and 'Excellent' mean very little to children.

Encourage them.

'You are almost there!'

'I can see that you are putting on your thinking hat here.'

'A lot of effort today. Giving up now means wasting all the effort you have put in. Come on! You can do it! Strive on!'

Be vigilant here. If the worksheet is too difficult for the child, the child will give up. Incremental difficulty is the key here. Read my blog post on deliberate practice for more information.


Step 4: Testing

Set a way to test your child after the revision program. It should be like a mini-test with marks. This is to measure the result of the program and to provide concrete feedback on how the child is doing.

Some ideas might be:

- past-year paper
- a writing test

Whether your child has done well or not, praise him on his effort. This is positive reinforcement and will set the pace for the next revision program.


Step 5: Reflection

At the end of the program, have a reflection discussion with your child to analyse it. Some questions might be:

- Did we get the results we wanted?
- What went wrong?
- What were the right things that we did?

- Was the length of study too long?
- Was the environment distracting?
- Were the worksheets too difficult?

If you want to guide the child to have a consistent study program during normal school days, ask the following questions:

- Was this revision program useful?
- Do we need to do this only during the holidays?
- Shall we have a plan for 'keeping up' rather than 'catching up'?

Explicitly tell your child that learning can be fun, but deliberate practice to level up can be hard work sometimes.


I will say this again. The success of the revision program hinges on the level of commitment you can get from the child in Step 1.

This incremental improvement can be addictive. If you can get your child to do this consistently, it will become a habit to him and self-regulated learning can be very near!

Have fun learning and enjoy your holidays!

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Top 3 Questions I Receive About My Tuition Class

When people look at my blog, most are tempted to engage my services. I received many queries everyday and most of them are valid concerns. Here are the top 3 most commonly-asked questions about my tuition class:


How can you guarantee results?

The truth is ‘I can’t’. 

There are too many factors involved. To tell the truth, I used to naively think I can. However, after six months into giving tuition, I realised that I can’t. 

I can raise the motivation of your child. I can teach him all the orthodox methods in learning. I can even set up homework systems to ensure he completes his tuition homework.

However, I am not with the child 24/7. I can only influence the child during the two-hour session. The fact is that the child forms most of his habits and values at home. I cannot change that.

I can promise you that your child will enjoy my tuition. I can promise that I can make learning fun for your child. I can promise that your child will see learning in a different light when he attends my tuition.

You can expect regular updates from me and how your child is doing according to my analysis. You can expect recommended strategies to apply at home for your child.

On your side, you need to grow values like resilience, self-control and integrity in your child. Only with these values, my tuition will be life-changing to your child.

Along the same line, some parents were concerned that they are going to pay a few hundred dollars per month in exchange for a service that is not guaranteed.

For your benefit, I am just telling the plain truth up front. I will try my best to motivate your child and grow self-discipline in your child, but I cannot guarantee that your child will be transformed overnight.

The younger your child starts tuition with me, the easier I can mould the child. When a child is younger, his values are not firmly formed yet and it is easier to influence the growth of his values.

Let me ask you a question. What is the worst case scenario if I should fail to meet your expectations?

It would be just one month of tuition fee.

But, what if I can influence your child and you let go of such an opportunity?

It would be the loss of the service of a good private tutor to help your child reach greater heights.

Weigh them and you will see which one is a bigger loss.


My son is not motivated, will he change after he attends your lessons?

I get this question a lot too. To jump start a cold engine, you need to warm it up first. The beginning is definitely difficult and tedious. I use mainly extrinsic rewards to jump start the motivation in the beginning. Then I transit into intrinsic rewards down the road.

To get to the intrinsic motivation part, it is a very long process.

In my tuition classes, I have not failed to motivate any student before. However, their motivation growth are not the same. Some have grown to become very motivated and self-directed in a very short period of time. Some are growing at a slower pace, but they are getting there. Improving even by a bit is also a victory, isn’t it?

My motivation strategy basically works in three dimensions:

- autonomy on their revision
- visual feedback on their level of mastery of the subject
- learning with a purpose


What differentiates you from your competitors?

If you are reading my blog, you will instinctively know how good I am.

How many private tutors maintain a blog and share their methods?

I share nearly all my techniques in my blog and all my resources in my newsletter. However, it is very not easy to copy what I do exactly.

This is my calling and this is my meaning in life. I teach not because I can. I teach because I must.

If you know me personally, you will know that I had my success in the corporate world. However, that was not my calling. 



My calling is to help children love learning.



In my free time, I read about

- child psychology (how children think)
- game theory (what makes gaming addictive)
- children's motivation
- learning and pedagogy
- habits/values creation
- deliberate practice

I incorporate some of the above into my tuition class to make learning more systematic and effective. My lessons are created at a macro level with a final goal and then are translated into individual lessons for each tuition session. 

It is time consuming and a lot of work. But, my students love my lessons and they are very reluctant to miss my tuition class.

Lastly, the greatest differentiating factor and your child will feel it:

I teach from my heart.


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Note: My Saturday slots are all taken up and there are only 2 available slots on Tuesday left. Drop me an email if you are interested about the Tuesday slot. Cheers!  

P1 Preparation

The year is ending soon and those born in 2008 will be going to Primary 1 next year. Have you prepared your child for P1?

Some parents may still believe that there is no need to prepare for P1. However, I beg to differ. P1 is a big change from preschool. Without proper preparation, your child will need to handle both culture shock and academic expectations.

My eldest child formally started his P1 Prep with me in September this year. He is going to P1 next year. There are mainly three key subjects and two non-academic skills I focused on.

The subjects are:

- English
- Math
- Chinese

The skills are:

- buying food at the canteen
- taking down notes in his handbook


English Prep

Basic reading skills are expected at P1. (Read that again.)

We are no longer in the era where the first few difficult words are 'one', 'two', 'three' and 'four'. Nowadays, they learn words like 'croak', 'scream' and 'paddled' in P1. If your child does not have basic reading skills, he is in for a shock. Many words will be difficult for him.

To help the child, I will recommend the following:
- basic phonic skills
- read with the child to boost his reading skills
- make spelling a common thing at home by giving surprise spelling (like in the lift or car)
- watch good children programs which teaches English words to boost his vocabulary (I recommend Alphablocks and Super Why. Search Youtube for them.)


Math Prep

Basic arithmetic skills are expected at P1. Counting to 10 is a very small topic in P1 and it is covered in one or two lessons. 

Your child is also expected to learn basic addition and subtraction quickly in the first semester. So, preparing them will help to relieve some stress when they are going through this topic.

To help your child, you can do this:
- use base-10 cubes to introduce counting and addition
- model adding by counting forward
- model subtracting by counting backwards
- make sure your child know what is the meaning of 'sum' and 'difference'
- other important keywords include 'altogether', 'more than' and 'fewer than'


Chinese Prep

For this I am not an expert, but I am very sure that learning Hanyu Pinyin before P1 is very beneficial to the child. So, prepare your child in Hanyu Pinyin for Chinese.


Canteen Skills

A small story here. When I was a teacher, I saw some children struggle to buy food at the canteen. They did not know what is the price of some food and insisted that they have enough money for it at the stalls. Or some were simply too scared to buy food.

Help your child in this by simulating a canteen at home. Prepare paper plates and bowls with cornflakes or biscuits. Put up some prices and give the child some money to buy the food. Do this a few times and your child will be ready to 'attack' the canteen in school.


Note-taking Skills

In my opinion, this was the most neglected skills I saw in P1 students during my teaching days. Most of the children were not able to take down notes from the whiteboard or require a long time to take down the notes.

Help your child by:
- giving him some instructions to copy into a small book everyday (Some examples are "Throw away the used toothpaste tube tomorrow." "Buy a present for Grandma on 30 October." "Bring socks to KidsAmaze on 20 October.")
- giving one-sentence dictation at home

P1 preparation is important and it will help your child tremendously to adapt to the primary school environment.



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Tuition Slot Available: Saturday 10am to 12pm

Hi all,

I am finally going to open another slot for tuition. It will be on Saturdays, 10am to 12pm. Location is my house at Toa Payoh Central. Group size is 5 students.

Tuition rates can be found at http://mrdannylim.blogspot.sg/p/tuition-rates.html.

You can contact me at http://mrdannylim.blogspot.sg/p/contact-me.html to book a slot today.

My tuition is customised to your child's needs and it is structured in such a way that it is fun to your child. I incorporated some character-building elements in the program to help your child know that studying is not all about studying.

Remember to email me at http://mrdannylim.blogspot.sg/p/contact-me.html if you are interested. 

There are only 3 slots left now!

Cheers!
Mr Danny Lim

Cloze Passage: Use The SAP Method To Score Higher Marks

Before I start on the topic, I want to share a story with you.

Last week, I was chatting with a friend on Whatsapp. He was lamenting that his son was scoring very low marks for the English written paper. He did not understand because his son loves reading. Basically, apart from watching the television programmes, his son spends most of his time reading in his room.

This was not the first case I came across.

The love for reading is very important. I ignited this love for all my children when they were very young. However, reading can be active and it can be passive too.

Many children read passively because the art of active reading was not taught in school. Grammar and Vocabulary were easy to teach. The skill of active reading requires a lot of time and a lot of effort on the mentor and the students.

I model active reading almost every week in my tuition and I will show you what active reading is in the cloze passage below and it is closely related to all the components of the English Language.

In schools, we break the English Language down into 6 major components:

- Reading
- Writing
- Listening
- Speaking
- Grammar
- Vocabulary

To improve your child's mastery of the language, he MUST practice all the 6 aspects of it. It is like growing a plant. The roots, leaves, flowers and stem all grow together. It is not good to have very big leaves and very small roots.

For my tuition class, I teach all the six components but focus mainly on Reading, Writing and Grammar. They are the most lacking in today's classroom.

To score well in the Cloze Passage section, I recommend the SAP technique.

- Skim through the passage
- Apply Active Reading Skill
- Proofread

Take a look at the following passage. It is taken from a P5 SA2 paper. Skim through it first without filling in the blanks.

The passage is about sea turtles. Some possible words that will come into your mind are

- lay
- tough time
- sea
- many eggs
- digging
- flippers
- crawl for long distances
- every year

At this stage, we are not looking for the right answer. We are activating the background knowledge. This will help to prepare the brain to 'connect the dots' and get ready to fill in the blanks.

Then, we go on to the crucial stage: Apply Active Reading Skill.

Active Reading Skill is the skill to identify the most suitable word class for the sentence before determining the word for the blank.

For beginners, I recommend identifying the are 6 main types of words first.

- Nouns
- Verbs
- Adjectives
- Adverbs
- Conjunctions
- Prepositions


The first blank:

I was walking along the moonlit beach looking for nesting turtles. Having to complete a project on it, I had to observe and record their habits and behaviours over a __________ of three months.

The clue here is 'three months' and we are looking for a noun to talk about the duration here. Hence, the word is 'period'. A period of three months.


Second blank:

I was watching the shore intently when my eyes suddenly __________ sight of one of these gentle giants emerging slowly from the water.

The clues here are 'watching' and 'sight'. What is the phrase that is similar to watching and has the word sight in it. The blank is most probably a verb phrase.

The phrase is 'catch sight of'. The passage is in the past tense and hence the correct form of the phrase should be 'caught sight of'.


Third and fourth blank:

I had accidentally startled one of them __________ my previous trip there and the sea turtle smashed some of its own eggs by __________.

The clue is the relationship between the action 'startled one of them' and 'my previous trip there'. Here, we need a preposition. The answer should be on my previous trip there.

Then we look at the the fourth blank. The author is trying to describe how the turtle smashed its own eggs. That means we are looking for something to describe the action, which is an adverb. By accident would be most appropriate here.


Last two blanks:

This time, I was cautious when moving towards the sea turtle so as not to scare it away. As I inched __________, I realised that its rear flippers had been completely torn off! __________ them, it would be painful for the sea turtles to dig its nest.

Next, we look at the fifth blank. The author is trying to describe the action of inching, which means, it should be an adverb. The other clue is the phrase 'moving towards' in the previous sentence. Combine both clues and you will most probably be looking at inching closer.

Finally, we look at the last blank. First, we look at the word 'them'. What is the author referring to? They were referring to the rear flippers in the previous sentence and there had been torn off. If the flippers are gone, that means the turtle would not have any flippers. Hence, the word here should be a preposition. The word without would be most suitable here.

Then, we apply the P in SAP: Proofread the passage. This will confirm the suitability of all words and help the student check his work.

After making notes, the passage should look like this.

By now, you will have a rough idea what Active Reading is. It is actually actively seeking out the relationships between the words and sentences. It is uncovering of the big picture before drilling into the details.

You can see from here that Cloze Passage is not about just filling in the blanks or doing a lot of worksheets. It is really about Grammar and Vocabulary. It is really about skill.

Linking back to my story at the beginning of this blog post, I told my friend that a child can read passively without thinking about the relationships of the words. Hence, it is not the quantity of reading that we should look at. It is the quality of reading that we should emphasise on.

However, Active Reading is a very time-consuming skill to teach and it requires the teacher to be first adept in the skill. Therefore, I won't be surprise if you have never heard about it until now.

Before I end, I leave you with a thought: Will Active Reading also help in Writing and Open-Ended Comprehension?

I will write more on it in my future blog posts. Stay tuned!


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Self-Discipline: How To Help Your Child Practise It (Part 1)

Today, I will be sharing on self-discipline. If your child has self-discipline, he will be able to make many good decisions. In addition, this trait of self-discipline is beneficial to him even after he grows up.

During my stint as a teacher a year ago, the children who did very well (top 3 positions in the level) were the ones who had a very high level of self-discipline. 

Self-discipline is directly proportional to achievement.

If this is the case, we need to understand what is self-discipline and how we can help our children cultivate it.


What is Self-Discipline

Truthfully, I read many books/blogs on self-discipline. Many did not define self-discipline properly and offers very hazy tips on how to build self-discipline.

In this blog post, I am going to define it very clearly to you and suggest 3 things you can do today to help your child instil self-discipline immediately.

Self-discipline starts with self-awareness. Then, it blossoms into self-control. From self-control, you will have self-management.

To be self-aware, you can try asking your child
- What are you doing?
- How much time have you spent on it?
- Why are you spending so much time on it?

To practise self-control, you can ask your child
- Is this the right thing to do now?
- What should we be doing now?
- How can I help you to start doing the right thing?

To practise self-management, ask your child
- How should we plan the revision for your exam?
- How much time should be spent on playing and studying?
- What are the results you are aiming for?

You have to ask yourself which stage your child is in now and then help him progress from there.

Before we move on, I need to clarify. Self-discipline is not obedience. To obey parents' instructions is an act of obedience and it is not self-discipline. Self-discipline is a higher level than that. The child does the right thing without being instructed to.



Biggest enemy today

The biggest enemy to self-discipline in today's world is instant gratification.

We are too used to having what we want immediately. This short term thinking is very permeated in our society that many people have forgotten long term planning.

This is very dangerous. It is always easy for the child to choose the path of least resistance. Without guidance, the child will continuously choose the easy way. And this will become a habit. Then, it will be very difficult to unlearn this habit.

Short-term gain can cause long-term pain.

To help your child face this enemy, I suggest 3 things you can do today.


3 things you can do now

1. Visual feedback
- take two empty jars
- ask your child to put one red bean in one jar for each minute spent on playing and one green bean in another jar for each minute spent on working
- you can count the beans before giving them to your child
- compare the jars everyday and ask your child what his thoughts are on the number of red beans and green beans

2. Plan and commit
- plan your child's revision/work with him (not for him)
- offer constructive advice (like a consultant)
- revisit the plan weekly to give feedback on what is working and what is not
- short bursts of work here is more advisable than long periods of studying

3. Tell a story
- tell a story on choosing the right thing to do, even when you did not like it
- Grasshopper and The Ant
- The one-legged football player
(http://elitedaily.com/sports/this-one-legged-soccer-players-story-proves-hard-work-and-perseverance-make-anything-possible-video/)
- The little red hen 
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smspKuKqt5c)
- Ask questions like
      - What was the right thing to do
      - Was it easy to do the right thing?
      - What will you do if you are him?
      - How can we apply this to our life right now?

Instilling self-discipline is not easy and it is a very long-term thing. However, it will help your child a lot in his life next time if he has this self-discipline in him.

I talk about self-discipline whenever I can with my tuition students. I share stories and hope they will be inspired to strive for excellence.

I believe all children want to seek out the best in himself. It is how we nurture and guide them to do it that is most lacking these days.



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Secret Art: Deliberate Practice

Sample Spreadsheet. Analysis deleted to protect privacy.

"It's 2 am. Please go to bed," my wife chided me.

"Soon, let me finish this analysis first," I replied.

"You have doing that since 10.30 pm just now. You can do it tomorrow," she threatened whispered.

"Five more minutes, please?" I requested as I went back to my spreadsheet.

My wife is often puzzled by the amount of analysis I do for my students. She often asked me if other tuition centres are doing the same thing. I am not very sure about other tuition centres, but I am very sure about what I want for my own students. To become experts (not only improve), they must have deliberate practice.


What is deliberate practice?

From Wikipedia:
"People believe that because expert performance is qualitatively different from normal performance the expert performer must be endowed with characteristics qualitatively different from those of normal adults. [...] We agree that expert performance is qualitatively different from normal performance and even that expert performers have characteristics and abilities that are qualitatively different from or at least outside the range of those of normal adults. However, we deny that these differences are immutable, that is, due to innate talent. Only a few exceptions, most notably height, are genetically prescribed. Instead, we argue that the differences between expert performers and normal adults reflect a life-long period of deliberate effort to improve performance in a specific domain."

My definition:
1. Break the practice down into different levels of difficulties and various skills.
2. Always practice at one level higher than current ability.
3. Immediate coaching feedback.
4. Practice everyday.


Why is it important?

Let me give you a very simple example.

Student A already mastered the addition "1 + 1 = 2". The teacher still gives 10 worksheets to Student A to practice on "1 + 1 = 2". Is this going to increase the level of expertise for this particular addition?

No, it will only bore Student A and Student A will slowly become unmotivated.

You will turn off the heat once the water is boiling. Any additional heat given will only be wasted. The water cannot be more boiled once it is boiling.

In the same way, if a student has already mastered the skill, he should move on to other skills or go on to the next level for the same skill.

Deliberate practice is the secret to improve the grades of a student. However, it does more than that. It motivates the student and gives the student a sense of accomplishment/satisfaction.


The 'How' in the practice is very important

If the child is practicing Math problem sums, there should be an escalation of difficulty.

Level 1: Simple problem sums from school workbook.
Level 2: Problem sums from past year papers from top 10 schools.
Level 3: Challenging problem sums from some assessment books.

Now, this is a very simple strategy to escalate the difficulty. For me, I further break the questions down into different skills/methods/topics and in each of these, I further break them down into different difficulties.

This is the planning. Next, you need to coach the child as well. Informative and positive feedback need to be given to the child immediately. This will motivate and guide the child in the correct direction.


Record the progress

The progress of the child should be recorded so that the same skill will not be deliberately practiced again. For me, I keep a spreadsheet and a journal.

It is good to read the spreadsheet and journal weekly and discuss the progress with the child.


As with my story in the beginning of this blog post, conducting deliberate practice is extremely tiring. However, I believe very strongly that this is the method to increase the level of expertise in each child because this is how I level up myself too.

(Please don't get me wrong. Past topics needs to be revisited regularly to reinforce the learning, but it should not be taught and drilled again. Back to the '1 + 1 = 2' example, this question can be slotted into a practice worksheet as a single question to test for reinforcement, but a single worksheet should not be crafted entirely on this skill.)

Coaching a kid in his/her work is more effective but it is a lot harder because a lot of analysis/planning need to be done. It is also a longer term process with a longer term goal.


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