Originally posted by alba:
where do u send kids for tuition, is it better @ community centre, home tution or private school like Julia Gabriel, Lorna Whiston...... (expensive) or just normal hometution, class @ CC good? i don't know where to enrol P.3 kids for creative writing, her compo, writing is horrible, how is she ever going to pass her P.6 pSLE, i got no confidence, anyway i've no time to sit and teach her, so she is all on her own from P1 till now, now i am shocked her handwriting is horrid, ugly. and i am getting worried now. 2nd language worse. i thinking sending her to Private school but very expensive, and what if i hve to stop working no money to send. so what choice is good? thks.
As someone had already said, reading is important.
1. Find out what interest your daughter has.
2. Get some books that is slightly below the level that she is capable of.
3. Do not dictate what she reads by putting your interest before her's
4. Ask her to set a realistic target on the books she's reading, ie, number of pages, or chapters per day/week.
5. Periodically, you will need to check if she understands the story, you may need to know the story.
6. Ask her for her opinion on what she thinks the story is going.
7. Note that these books may not even be novels, they may be comics, or non-fiction.
8. There are books in Popular bookstores that has very very short compositions by Singapore students, even at P3 level, you may start with this.
Going back to the cause of the problem, the fact that she may not have adequate guidance during the formative years can be the issue, but because we cannot turn back time, you will need to make up for the lost years of neglect quickly. By this I do not mean making her sit beside you all the time. I mean taking an interest in her likes or dislikes, opinions, thoughts, and personality. This will build up the child's confidence. Encourage lots of communications, by that, I mean try to do the things she likes to do, but this require commitment on your part.
Handwriting is basically practice. The more you write, the better it becomes.
Tuition can be good, but it is not the solve-all. In fact, personally, I discourage tuition because it can be financial burden as well as a major drainage of time.
To me the trick of good parenting is to become a mentor for the child, walking WITH the child initially and gradually giving more responsibility for the child to walk on his own.
I am a father of two boys who has never had any tuition. They are NOT top boys in a top school. Rather they are motivated boys in an OK school, doing at above average within their school. That's all I ask for.