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Advice on long term prep for VR paper

Posted: Fri May 22, 2009 11:48 am
by Villagedad
Hi

We are based in West Kent and have a DS who wont be taking the 11plus for a few years yet but we wanted to pick your brain for advice on what activities are good for the long term preparation for the VR paper...

He currently reads most nights, does kumon maths and we play word games (scrabble, top trumps etc).

Any guidance greatly appreciated

Regards
Villagedad

Posted: Fri May 22, 2009 2:01 pm
by patricia
Dear Villagedad

Does your son read to himself or to you?

A child reading to themselves, will come across unknown vocabulary, will probably understand the paragraph as a whole but not the offending word.

Reading out to a parent will also help with the pronounciation of words, something many children struggle with for a long time.

Patricia

Posted: Fri May 22, 2009 2:51 pm
by Villagedad
patricia wrote:Dear Villagedad

Does your son read to himself or to you?

A child reading to themselves, will come across unknown vocabulary, will probably understand the paragraph as a whole but not the offending word.

Reading out to a parent will also help with the pronounciation of words, something many children struggle with for a long time.

Patricia
Thanks Patricia

Yes he reads aloud to us most nights. We also keep a dictionary close by, and we help with any hard words or pronounciation.

Is there anything else we should be doing with a 7 year old currently in year 2, or is it best to keep it simple at this stage..?

One thing he has found tough is that he'll read a whole chapter of say a Famous Five book, will read beautifully with no issues in pronounciation, but will find it difficult to summarise/tell us what happened..

We are thinking about stepping down to easier books with less words to help him with the understanding and comprehension aspects, although he can read the words fine.. What do you think?

Many thanks
Villagedad

Posted: Fri May 22, 2009 3:35 pm
by Milla
my advice for what it's worth with reading is never to be in too much of a hurry to rush them through onto a level they're not happy with. Not for a moment that I'm suggesting that you're doing that. But I'm sure that I, in my enthusiasm, did rather gallop when they wanted to walk. Sometimes they take comfort in a sort of assimiliation thing - my ten year old had read all 7 Harry Potters last year at least 8 times each. Sounds crazy to me, but he so loved them that he just kept re-reading them. Eventually we said he could read them each 10 times but then had to branch out and try something else (the poor books were knackered, complaining!). Each corner is turned down several times at words or phrases he enjoyed swelling the books to a massive splay and it's all because he was doing it all in his own time. When he was younger he tried things like Alan Garner and C S Lewis and so on and he read The Phantom Tolbooth at 6 but I think he was too young for them and should have been doing Horrid Henry or Jeremy Strong or more Michael Morpurgo really. Certainly his reading has given him an extremely impressive vocab. His brother (Y7), on the other hand, got into his grammar but looks on "book" as a bit of a swear word. I can hardly believe he's my child somehow!
The other thing is, being blindly into it all now in that last 6 months, don't let him forget to be a little boy, too!
all the best.

Posted: Fri May 22, 2009 3:42 pm
by patricia
Dear Villagedad

Reading and understanding are 2 different things. Yes I would step down to some easier books.

At the age of 7 my advice would be:

1] Reading as we have discussed, together with comprehension

2] Ensuring he is quick and understands the 4 basic maths operations.

3] The most important. Talk/discuss the world around him. Enrich his knowledge of life.

All can be achieved in a fun, no pressure atmosphere.

Patricia

Posted: Fri May 22, 2009 3:52 pm
by Villagedad
patricia wrote:Dear Villagedad

Reading and understanding are 2 different things. Yes I would step down to some easier books.

At the age of 7 my advice would be:

1] Reading as we have discussed, together with comprehension

2] Ensuring he is quick and understands the 4 basic maths operations.

3] The most important. Talk/discuss the world around him. Enrich his knowledge of life.

All can be achieved in a fun, no pressure atmosphere.

Patricia
Thanks Patricia

With regards to comprehension. Would this be just asking pertinent questions at certain points during his reading to us..?

Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 6:56 am
by patricia
Villagedad wrote:
With regards to comprehension. Would this be just asking pertinent questions at certain points during his reading to us..?
Yes.

With regard to scarabble, use the adult version and allow the use of of a dictionary. Only allow a set time to find a word in the dictionary, I used an eggtimer.

Patricia