help please !!

[pg19]

Hello,
My son is in year 5 ,sitting for his 11 plus this september.He is fine with maths and the punctuation bit of english.But, he really struggles with the comprehension.I am started to feel negative about the whole 11 plus thing already .Comprehension is nearlly 80 percent of the paper and texts like 'Bleak house' are quite difficult with complex words to understand.He can do the bond etc 10-11 pasafes but they are no where near the real paper passages.
Please suggest people ,you all have a wealth of knowledge,different techniques and strategies that you have found useful and helpful,please share.
M<y son looses it too quickly once he sees a big passages and does not feel motivated enough to read again.Also, time is an important factor here.
I dont know how to help him .
Thanks
pg19

[Daogroupie]

Firstly you need to reassure him that he does not have to understand the whole passage. There is a limit to the amount of questions they can ask and I am guessing that you are sitting CSSE as you mention Bleak House. Most of the questions are mc so the right answer is in there somewhere. Get him to read the questions first before the passage so then he knows what he is looking for and then when reading underline events and character details as these will be important. I write Comprehension papers and I am constantly amazed at how easy it is to trick 10 year olds with the questions. Tell him to read the passage with that in mind. They have many more applicants than places so they want to catch you out, with tiny little words in the question that change the meaning of it and therefore what the answer will be. I know a student who managed to get a good mark for an English paper where he did not know if the characters were male or female! English is the hardest nut to crack. If you look at scores for most entrance exams the Engilish score is mostly the lowest one so he does not have to get them all right, nobody will. He just needs to be among the people who do well or if his maths is very good he can even get an average score and still get a place. I know students who have got in to top selective school with 60& in English but with very high marks in Maths and VR. DG

[pg19]

Thanks Daogroupie ,thanks for your advise. I am definitely going to try doing passages with my son .can you advise me on the material I must not miss.any advise on creative writing bit will be appreciated.
Regards
Pg

[judy6]

With comprehension it often helps to identify the techniques that authors have employed. Identify when personification, onomatopoeia, metaphors, similes, alliteration and the other typical techniques are used. Fear of long passages can fade for some when they are eagerly focused on hunting down the techniques and their effect in the text.

[southbucks3]

With comprehension it often helps to identify the techniques that authors have employed. Identify when personification, onomatopoeia, metaphors, similes, alliteration and the other typical techniques are used. Fear of long passages can fade for some when they are eagerly focused on hunting down the techniques and their effect in the text.

I already tell them to spot key dates, names and places on first read, do it can be merged with that.

Thank you

[Ladymuck]

I don't think that the exercise helped in answering 11+ questions, but I took my son through the MI5 investigative challenge. They do an exercise to see if you've got what it takes to join them, and essentially this is a comprehension exercise - you have to read a couple of documents, and answer some multiple choice questions. Going through the exercise helped my son to realise that 11+ comprehension isn't entirely irrelevant, and also that he was really looking for clues in order to answer the questions. If nothing else I could persuade him that even James Bond had to master multiple choice comprehension! (MI6 have a similar exercise but it is about a cover story).

https://www.mi5.gov.uk/careers/investig ... lenge.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[VH73]

I started doing Tutor Master helps you with Comp. practice with my son, somebody recommended it here. He likes it better then the real tests (there are 2 texts but shorter). I think it helped him a lot.

[parent2013]

Depending on the test, be prepared for shorter or longer passage. Also there is no guarantee that shorter passage will be simple than the longer one. It could be other way round as well.