Happy New Year to you!
This year, my eldest son is in Primary One and it is such a big jump from Kindergarten 2. For January, I am setting goals with him and I want to share with you how I set goals using LEGO as a platform.
First if all, I need to ask. Do you set goals with your child?
Goal-setting is important because it gives them an idea of what to aim for. Just like what Stephen Covey said in his book 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People, "Begin with an end in mind."
I strongly believe that all children need to be educated in visualising their goal and how to break the goal down into achievable milestones.
To make goal-setting fun, I use LEGO as an example. (If you have not noticed by now, I am a huge fan of open-ended play like LEGO blocks.)
1. Big Picture - Ultimate goal
Before you buy any LEGO set for your child, he will look at the cover of the box. Why?
He is looking at what you are buying for him. He is looking at what he is going to own.
For any goal-setting, the big picture is important. Are you going to aim for 1st in class? Are you going to aim to top the level for Math? Are you going to aim to pass your Mother Tongue?
Without setting the Ultimate Goal is like buying a LEGO set without looking at its box. It will be random and the end product might not be what you wanted.
Hence, the Big Picture is very important.
2. Why? Why? Why? - Reasons behind the goal
The next step is to ask why. Why are you choosing this LEGO set and not the other sets? What is the appealing factor?
This is usually easy for the child when he is choosing the LEGO set. The primary reason would be mostly he likes the set and that is why he chose it.
However, this is not so clear-cut when it comes to actual goal-setting. You have to dig deep and guide your child in this area. Some questions might include:
Why do you want to be 1st in class? Why is this important to you?
Note that this part is the most important part in goal-setting. At difficult times, revisiting these reasons will help the child endure the hardship and persevere to the end.
3. Planning - The Goal-Setting Process
You bought the LEGO set and brought it home. Do you just open the package and start building while you look at the box cover?
No, you look at the Building Instruction Manual and start building from Page 1.
Happy Lego Building = Big Picture + Emotions + Manual
In goal-setting, looking at the Ultimate Goal is useless if you do not have a plan. Therefore, you need to sit down and list down all the things you need to do to achieve your goal. Planning and creating the road map to your Ultimate Goal is important.
It gives us direction on what to do now and what to do next.
Good Goal-Setting = Ultimate Goal + Emotions + Plan
4. Small Parts - Breaking down The Ultimate Goal
For small LEGO sets, it is possible to build the whole model in one session. However, if you are looking at a very big LEGO set, you have to break down the parts you are building.
Thankfully, it has all been done for you when they packaged the set. Usually they have Packets 1 to 5 to break a massive model into different parts.
For your child, you have to break down the Ultimate Goal with him. If you are looking at 1st place in class, how much should you get for your CA1, SA1, CA2 and SA2? To get that type of marks in the major exams, how much practice should we have and what type of marks should we get for those practices?
The small milestones should be actionable and measurable.
5. Process Vs Results - Make it fun!
To the LEGO non-builders out there, you might not know. The maximum satisfaction you get from a LEGO set is not the end result. It is actually the building process.
While it may sound ridiculous to you, the ultimate goal to goal-setting is not to achieve the goal, but to acquire the skill to plan the process of reaching a goal. The planning and troubleshooting are very big lessons the child learns from this exercise that will follow him throughout his life.
With this skill, your child can get many '1st in level' by himself. Hence, I urge you to make the process enjoyable and peaceful. Encourage your child to keep trying.
6. Commitment - Follow the plan
Lastly, have your child build a LEGO set halfway and leave it there for at least 3 days. Then ask him how he feels.
We cannot finish building the set if we do not follow the plan.
When we begin building a LEGO set, we must be committed to complete the model. Any models abandoned halfway will become useless. It is not a toy and it is not rubbish. It is just unfinished.
Hence, teach your child that any goal without commitment will also become something like that. Ask your child for his commitment during the goal-setting process. Is it one hour each day? Is it two revision papers each day?
Get him to write it down and sign his name there.
7. Chaos - They are still just children!
Tackle one LEGO set at a time.
Imagine buying your child 5 LEGO sets and he started all of them together. He will most probably be overwhelmed and will not build all the 5 LEGO properly.
Set one Ultimate Goal with your child first. Track and troubleshoot along the way. Add one more goal when you see that your child is ready for the second one.
Focusing on too many things = No focus
Have fun setting goals. Leave a comment for me if you have found this post useful! Encouragement is always welcomed. :P
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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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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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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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(Sign up for my newsletter at http://eepurl.com/WDj6j for monthly tips on how to motivate your child to study. A free ebook on writing is included in the newsletter.)
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!
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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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
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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