What a long break

It sure has been a long break. I haven't been updating because there isn't much progress worth mentioning. This year DS's school has decided not to take the CA2 marks into account for the final exam. Don't know whether it's good or bad news.

The moment he knew that, he didn't bother to revise seriously for the CA2. So you know what to expect when the papers were back. The only comforting point worth mentioning was, he's scored 71 for his Chinese. I wasn't totally sure whether he's really improved since it's just one paper. I would prefer to look at the SA2 results to get a better gauge. His English, on the other hand, dropped quite badly to below 60. This is worrying, as unlike Chinese, I haven't got much idea how to coach him on English. Among the 2 languages, Chinese is my stronger one. I hope his results doesn't drop further in the coming SA2.

There are barely 3 weeks before his SA2 starts. In fact Chinese Oral will commence tomorrow. Time to plan his revision timetable again, a task which takes me much time to complete. I just hope he can complete the revision in time. He is really getting more slack than ever. Sigh.

It's been a long while

It's been a long long while since I last updated this blog. Not much has been happening since the Jun holidays and hence not much to write about. I do not like long holidays. The kids get too relaxed, I get too relaxed and everything will just go off track. All the momentum is lost. Believe me, it's easy to lose the momentum, but it'll take great effort to put it back in place.

In the end, we never complete the P3 Chinese revision during the Jun holidays. We're done with the P2, but only about halfway through the P3. And sad to say, I couldn't cover much of other subjects as well.

Term 3 has started for a while, but DS is still in his "holiday mood". He is taking forever to complete his homework each and every day. Most of the time, we aren't left with much time for revision. It can get pretty frustrating at times.

I am stopping the P3 Chinese syllabus to catch up with his current syllabus. The teacher is rushing through the text this term in order to have ample time for revision nearer the SA2. Fortunately, going through the text again with him gets easier this term. His teacher is now adopting similar way of getting them to write down the meaning of phrases in the text. I'll usually test him on those before I move on to explain the others. That cuts down at least half the work. Perhaps the teacher has been doing that in last term, I only see the scribbling in his text this term. Maybe he's been paying more attention in class now.

I hope I can pick up the momentum pretty soon. My engine is starting to move. The girls are back to their 基礎漢字 500 启蒙级. They're finishing book 4 and will soon be starting on the last book of this series. I have yet to find the series for the next level in Singapore though I know the publisher has already released them. If I can't get them here, my next best bet is to get them from Hong Kong at the end of the year when we go over for our holidays. As for DS, I'll need to fire up a bit more to get his engine moving too!

The June holiday is here

June holiday is finally here. As DS didn't do really well in his SA1, I've made a holiday timetable for him to follow. He needs to work especially hard on his Chinese (his weakest subject in SA1, as expected). Before the holidays, I had already made it clear to him that he'll need to do work this holiday. It would not be a "all play no work enjoying month". He acknowledged that his results were not fantastic, so no complain when he learnt about the plan (I must compliment him on that).

During the last exam preparation, I realised the problem with his Chinese language is really his weak foundation. I tested him on the words learnt in P1 & P2 using the word cards (字宝宝) which I still keep, fortunately. There was about a quarter of the words he didn't recognise. I'm sure there would be more if I had added the P3 syllabus. So back then I already decided to reteach him the P2 & P3 syllabus in this holiday. I went to Popular and bought the required textbooks. We had started working on the P2 books even before the school closed for holiday. I was busy with the dumpling festival the last week, so we slowed down quite a bit. Now that things are more settled, I hope to catch up with my original plan to ensure that I can cover the 2 years syllabus in this holiday.

There are lots of things to be covered, not just Chinese. I just hope I'm not distracted by other things and can be determined to keep them going. Since it's the holiday, I also allow him to have his fair share of time to play and for TV in between to motivate him.

Getting realistic

DS's exams have started this week. So far he hasn't been much confident in the few papers this week. As for the papers next week, his teachers have already "forewarned" that they would not be easy.

As much as I would like him to achieve the earlier targets set for him, I think it is a wiser choice to be realistic. He probably can't achieve most of the targets, especially his languages.

I could sense his disappointment after he had seen his results from doing the Chinese assessments. Although I had gone through the 10 chapters to be tested in the exams with him, he was still getting just over 50% for the few "tests" in the assessment books. Before he took the tests, he was quite excited to see how much he could improve. He probably had assumed he would show some improvements after studying for the subject. But, after seeing the results, you could hear sighs of disappointment from him. Poor boy. Although I had reminded him that results would not be so evident in such a short period of time, his disappointment could not be brushed aside as easily. It was only natural. I hope he would not give up on the subject yet.

I guess, learning to accept harsh facts, but not beaten by them, is probably one important but yet difficult lesson he had to learn here. My job would be to help him go through this as smoothly as possible.

What a day!

Today was supposed to be a perfect day for revision. DS need not stay back today and came back earlier since it was a Wed. After his lunch and shower, I told him to start doing his homework (writing and compo) so that I can start on my "already behind schedule" revision.

By the time I came back (DD1 had class today) at 4:30pm, he had not completed his compo. I was particularly tired today, age must be catching up with me. I went to take a rest on my comfy bed at 5+pm, only to wake up and discovered that I've slept for nearly an hour! It was near to 7pm then. DS also ended up sleeping on the sofa, with his compo at the same stage as where I had left him. Sigh......

In the end he had to continue all the way till around 10pm before he could finally finished up a proper compo. And there goes my good revision day. I ended up with more backlogs to cover. I really feel like a deflated balloon now.

华文作文

下个星期就得考作文了。儿子的文法有多好，大家可想而知。要他突然间能滔滔不绝地写出一篇文章，那简直是连做梦的机会都没有。

以前曾听朋友说，她常要孩子背诵好词好句，甚至有另一些是要孩子背诵整篇文章，我都不以为然。但最近我也开始用这一招。曾经在书局买了一本好词好句，但后来发现以儿子现有的程度，根本无法理解，更别说是运用了。我只好亲自动手，从模范作文、课本等，把好词好句抽出，再加以归类化，成为一份接近他程度的好词好句。我把每一类词句（例如，天气晴朗）写在一张纸上，方便往后加入新的词句，再把所有纸张用文件夹组合起来。这将陪伴他到小六会考，希望能助他一臂之力。感到幸运的是，今年的作文考试，学校允许学生们用字典，希望这样可以减少他写的错字，别扣太多分。

现在的小孩读书，父母还真是辛苦啊！我常对儿子说，不知是你在读书，还是我在读书。可是没办法呀，如果不插上一脚，实在看不下去。

The first milestone - SA1

The written exams for SA1 starts in two weeks' time. I went for the P4 briefing conducted by the school yesterday. In order for DS to continue taking Higher Chinese in P5, he has to pass all his subjects and attain at least band 2 (marks 70 and above) for both his languages. He is weak in his languages, so attaining band 2 is not an easy task for him. Especially when Comprehension Close is introduced in his English papers this year. He can practically score zero for that section and that would mean 10 marks gone. :(

Comprehension is another of his weak areas. His English teacher thought it was peculiar as he could speak in English. But when come to Comprehension, he would have problem converting the words in the passage to become his answers. Most of the times, he just copied the whole chunk of words which ended up losing marks. He also has problems with questions which requires him to infer.

Actually I worry more for his English than Chinese even though he failed his Chinese test in the first term. Probably because Chinese is something easier to teach than English. I have almost zero idea how to teach him English Comprehension and Comprehension Close though his teacher did offer some suggestions yesterday. It would not be easy for him to grasp it, especially in such a short time frame.

Earlier on, I had discussed the target score for each subject with him. These are the targets I've set for his SA1 this year.

English 71
Chinese 71
Maths 80
Science 80

It's probably a bit high for his current standards. But if he manages to achieve, he'll be able to fulfil his wish of having a party on his birthday. So, of course I have to set the target a bit higher right?