Diy or tutor for English writing and comprehension?

[RainbowDash]

I would appreciate any advice from parents tutors or anyone else with experience on the following topic: Can we realistically hope to diy our dc for English comprehension (not mulriple choice) and creative writing for HBS/Latymer/DAO or is it rather hard to achieve without a good tutor? This is considering our dd is clever but not exceptional.
I would be very interested to hear from parents who managed successfully to do so, how early did you start, how much practice did you do or how difficult did you find the journey.
I would be also very interested to hear from tutors: do you believe an average writer can be taught to write well enough to pass these tests, and how long/how much practice does it take on average in your experience for a child to be well prepared for these tests?
Thank you.

[piggys]

Speaking as a parent, it is entirely possible to DIY for the selectives if you feel secure in your own knowledge and understanding of the subject and how it is being tested. You would also need to feel that your dd has a realistic chance of getting through. There are plenty of past papers for DAO so you can use these to make an assessment. I DIYd my own dd and she was offered HBS and DAO. I have the advantage of being an experienced teacher though. The other thing is that sometimes teaching your own dc can work really well - other times it can be disastrous. There are many instances where there needs to be a degree of separation and professionalism in order for it to work. Some kids will not accept their mum/dad as their teacher as well!

Speaking as a teacher and tutor I have already said on your other thread that reading is the key here. If a child is a keen reader and of reasonable intelligence there is no reason why one hour weekly plus a bit of homework in y5 won't do it, but there needs to be a pretty strong level of inference there. You need to bear in mind the first round CEM as well. I would do some prep though and get your dd to start keeping a diary, write some book / film reviews, write some letters and so on.

HTH

[grgygirl]

Ds had a group tutor (although English wasn't a strong point). However the value lay in week after week of practising writing and handing in creative writing pieces from the summer before Year 5 and these being compared to other students work. It was formulaic, but this worked well for ds who really struggled with thinking up plots, description etc quickly. We also started by using the 'magic money' cards (available on Amazon) so ds knew what he needed to include in each creative piece. He was quite a good reader and often poached sub-plots from books in his writing just to get the ideas flowing. He started off by writing half a page in 45 minutes of fairly bland stuff and at the end he was a complete bard and knocked off good quality stories, descriptions, continuations etc in 30 minutes flat. It was very hard work though (for both of us!) as i'm not a teacher.

I would say that for the competitive schools you have named, I would recommend a tutor to at least give you some ideas of how to get started and also to compare your child to others in the group which is difficult if you are working in isolation. Daogroupie on this forum is an expert on these schools so can hopefully advise you in more detail.

[Stroller]

Speaking as a parent, it is entirely possible to DIY for the selectives if you feel secure in your own knowledge and understanding of the subject and how it is being tested. You would also need to feel that your dd has a realistic chance of getting through.

I agree with these points apart from the first use of the word "feel", which I'd replace with "are, or can become,".

The starting point must be a bright child who wants to give it a go. You need a willing adult or two, with a very good grasp of the subjects being tested and sufficient time to help. It's not about the adult's education level on paper, it's about the quality of it. There are (mostly old) people whose formal schooling stopped after primary school, but gave them an impeccable grasp of the three Rs- reading, writing and arithmetic. I've met (UK) university graduates who couldn't equal them on grammar, vocabulary and accurate arithmetic. If your current grasp of the content is flimsy, expect to put some time in to compensate.

That said, DIY is definitely possible. We did it. Good luck.

If preparation covers topics children do at school, no matter what the outcome of the 11+, there are always benefits as long as YOU manage your own expectations.

[Gloriousparent]

@Rainbowdash

This is a genuine question which addresses the parent's dilemma. My DC is preparing to appear in 2018 exam, and so far we have stayed away from the "rat Race" of other parents taking kids to the tuitions - some as far as an hours distance away. The only advantage of a regular professional coaching is - it is regular, systematic, organised . But, if parents can bring disciple among themselves ( not kids) to take organised sessions regularly with kids, I am sure DIY is possible.

Personally, for English, I have started making Flash cards for the DC for the vocabulary and the results are good although it does take a good amount of parents times as you literally have to sit with the dictionary/dictionary website to put details into the card. I do tend to put some other details like synonyms/antonyms with every word, which broadens the range of the DC. I would though accept that we haven't yet started on proper creative writing and comprehension session, as we have some more time remaining before his exams.

@grgygirl : Would be interested in getting link to the "magic money" cards, I tried searching on amazon, but the results were more related to magic related items

[grgygirl]

Sorry, they don't seem to be available on Amazon but if you google creative writing mmc that should bring up the website (it's headed by a photo of the young lad who created them). We found them useful as a starting point for story building and what should be included.