Tricks of the Trade - CEM preparation TIP#1
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Re: Tricks of the Trade - CEM preparation TIP#1
oh wow sonasona thank you for this!
Re: Tricks of the Trade - CEM preparation TIP#1
As promised, I'll talk about the best prep for children age 8+
- Your Year 4 child should be able to read children's paperbacks reasonably fluently (Dahl, Blyton, Snicket, Horowitz, Cowell, etc) , and to read very regularly and enjoy reading for pleasure. However, just because your child can read independently, please don't stop reading aloud to them and playing audio books, for example on long car journeys.
Now is a good time to ensure that your child has a good spelling ability. Most schools - but not all - have a regular spelling program.
Your child should be confident with basic spelling rules (for example making singular nouns plural) and should have basic punctuation confidence (commas, apostrophes, speech marks).
They might enjoy playing literacy-based games. There are many available now - not just scrabble!
Be careful with completing comprehension papers at this age - children can do these but only with a lot of discussion and support to bolster their confidence. Better still, stick to discussion around texts and poetry, noting the author's/poet's purpose/figurative language/poetic devices etc.
Build your child's memorisation ability (a useful skill for GCSE and later life, too) by encouraging them to memorise good quality poetry. This will mean they can learn future vocab lists with far more ease - as well as build a general appreciation of the rhythm and vocabulary of English.
- Your child at the beginning of Year 5 old should be learning vocabulary - not quite the words posted here yet, but more basic synonyms in order to build their general word power first. Playing online vocab games such as freerice can help, as well as using a wide variety of workbooks/resources to consolidate basic literacy skills. Before moving onto multiple choice comprehension work, focus on ensuring that your child understands the types of comprehension questions (literal, inferential, evaluative, predictive, sequencing, concluding, summarising, vocabulary in context) and how to answer in clear sentences, and has built their critical thinking skills, particularly with regards to inference in non-fiction, newspaper articles/propaganda.
I personally do not see a great deal of use in practising endless papers - in fact papers are for the spring and summer terms of Year 5, not before. In the same way that measuring a child's height daily will not make them grow faster, setting papers will not lead to improvement - unless very clear teaching, feedback and discussion is linked to them.
Remember that rattling through spelling and vocabulary workbooks will not impact a great deal on your child's spelling and vocabulary, unless they have the opportunity to discuss the words, weave stories around them, and, crucially, memorise and practice them.
By this time in Year 5 your child can memorise word lists weekly and begin practising for the cloze and CEM VR sections of the examination.
P.S. I recognise that I have neglected to give any advice on Maths/NVR. This is not an area that I'm so closely familiar with but I would say that children should be fingertip quick with their multiplication tables and general mental strategy skills by mid-Year 3 and parents should be focusing on wider problem solving skills in Year 5.
Hope this helps.
- Your Year 4 child should be able to read children's paperbacks reasonably fluently (Dahl, Blyton, Snicket, Horowitz, Cowell, etc) , and to read very regularly and enjoy reading for pleasure. However, just because your child can read independently, please don't stop reading aloud to them and playing audio books, for example on long car journeys.
Now is a good time to ensure that your child has a good spelling ability. Most schools - but not all - have a regular spelling program.
Your child should be confident with basic spelling rules (for example making singular nouns plural) and should have basic punctuation confidence (commas, apostrophes, speech marks).
They might enjoy playing literacy-based games. There are many available now - not just scrabble!
Be careful with completing comprehension papers at this age - children can do these but only with a lot of discussion and support to bolster their confidence. Better still, stick to discussion around texts and poetry, noting the author's/poet's purpose/figurative language/poetic devices etc.
Build your child's memorisation ability (a useful skill for GCSE and later life, too) by encouraging them to memorise good quality poetry. This will mean they can learn future vocab lists with far more ease - as well as build a general appreciation of the rhythm and vocabulary of English.
- Your child at the beginning of Year 5 old should be learning vocabulary - not quite the words posted here yet, but more basic synonyms in order to build their general word power first. Playing online vocab games such as freerice can help, as well as using a wide variety of workbooks/resources to consolidate basic literacy skills. Before moving onto multiple choice comprehension work, focus on ensuring that your child understands the types of comprehension questions (literal, inferential, evaluative, predictive, sequencing, concluding, summarising, vocabulary in context) and how to answer in clear sentences, and has built their critical thinking skills, particularly with regards to inference in non-fiction, newspaper articles/propaganda.
I personally do not see a great deal of use in practising endless papers - in fact papers are for the spring and summer terms of Year 5, not before. In the same way that measuring a child's height daily will not make them grow faster, setting papers will not lead to improvement - unless very clear teaching, feedback and discussion is linked to them.
Remember that rattling through spelling and vocabulary workbooks will not impact a great deal on your child's spelling and vocabulary, unless they have the opportunity to discuss the words, weave stories around them, and, crucially, memorise and practice them.
By this time in Year 5 your child can memorise word lists weekly and begin practising for the cloze and CEM VR sections of the examination.
P.S. I recognise that I have neglected to give any advice on Maths/NVR. This is not an area that I'm so closely familiar with but I would say that children should be fingertip quick with their multiplication tables and general mental strategy skills by mid-Year 3 and parents should be focusing on wider problem solving skills in Year 5.
Hope this helps.
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DIY Mum
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Re: Tricks of the Trade - CEM preparation TIP#1
Very useful reminders, um.
The importance of developing good language skills shouldn't be underestimated. It really makes a difference.
There was a lad who came to me at the end of Y5. He had clearly done very little prep on maths and nvr but he had a phenomenal vocab. I did assess him by giving him some vocab tests: on average, he'd score 45+ out of 50.
Now, this was largely due to the stimulating conversations he had with adults for years; his love of reading and having a curious, enquiring mind which was pleased at encountering anything challenging. Anyhow, despite not doing any work over the summer, he sat the test and scored over 240 which was enough for his first choice school, chb.
It's interesting to note, that as part of the new curriculum 2014, (ks1 literacy)- children will be given dictation exercises and poems to memorise and recite.
The importance of developing good language skills shouldn't be underestimated. It really makes a difference.
There was a lad who came to me at the end of Y5. He had clearly done very little prep on maths and nvr but he had a phenomenal vocab. I did assess him by giving him some vocab tests: on average, he'd score 45+ out of 50.
Now, this was largely due to the stimulating conversations he had with adults for years; his love of reading and having a curious, enquiring mind which was pleased at encountering anything challenging. Anyhow, despite not doing any work over the summer, he sat the test and scored over 240 which was enough for his first choice school, chb. It's interesting to note, that as part of the new curriculum 2014, (ks1 literacy)- children will be given dictation exercises and poems to memorise and recite.
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Turtlegirl
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Re: Tricks of the Trade - CEM preparation TIP#1
Good stuff um and DIY mum. Just to mention though - my boy was *not* a voracious reader of fiction. He is just not interested in plots, so we subscribed to First News and waved lots of magazines and fact books at him. He loves food, so he also reads cookbooks. And he adores poetry and jokes - much clever use of synonyms in jokebooks. And we're a Christian family and have studied the Bible with our kids since they were very young - lots of interesting vocab in there! And Bible study always starts with comprehension.
If a child is not a big fan of reading stories, there are lots of other ways to encourage a love of words. He was offered places at QMGS and KES.
If a child is not a big fan of reading stories, there are lots of other ways to encourage a love of words. He was offered places at QMGS and KES.
Re: Tricks of the Trade - CEM preparation TIP#1
Thankyou for the list sona ... It's brilliant !!
Re: Tricks of the Trade - CEM preparation TIP#1
Reading is over rated ; my ds hates reading including free newspapers, magazines etc. No need to force him to read if he doesn't enjoy it at all.
Re: Tricks of the Trade - CEM preparation TIP#1
sbarnes wrote:Reading is over rated ; my ds hates reading including free newspapers, magazines etc. No need to force him to read if he doesn't enjoy it at all.
Oh come on sbarnes: I will accept that reading fiction might be over-rated, but you can't say reading itself is over-rated - it is an essential life (and education) skill. With 50% of marks based on literacy skills, it is very important for both the exam, secondary school and life in general. Your DS might have hated reading but he must have had a natural flair for it to have passed without much practice. Most kids couldn't pass unless they have read a lot.
I agree with Turtlegirl's suggestion that it doesn't necessarily have to be fiction if they just can't get into it. DS3 hates reading fiction. He is very practically minded : he has a thirst for facts (mainly encyclopaedias) but finds stories rather pointless. I find it a shame but see no point in forcing it. Non-fiction can have more varied and complex vocabulary but you don't get the practice with inference.
Some great tips from um and DIYMum. I confess I find poetry rather tiresome myself - it is good to get them to appreciate the poetic use of language but I certainly wouldn't bother getting my kids to learn poems by heart.
UmSusu
Re: Tricks of the Trade - CEM preparation TIP#1
Sorry, meant in our personal household that is. I struggle to get my child to read, list cause. At best he puts the subtitles on when watching the tele. That's about the best it gets. He is a zero reader, almighty help us for the English exams and any other applied subjects. We found his lack of reading as no hindrance for the CEM exam.
Re: Tricks of the Trade - CEM preparation TIP#1
My DS 1 also got through without reading. Well, he did daily short comprehension, both written and mcq. On top of that we did daily vocab and cloze work. All that helped. I would have preferred him to be a reader. DS2 is the same as DS 1 and so I will adopt the same approach.
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DIY Mum
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- Joined: Wed Apr 25, 2007 10:08 pm
- Location: Not in a hole in the ground but in a land where once they dwelt-the Beormingas
Re: Tricks of the Trade - CEM preparation TIP#1
I bet he's a whizz at maths and nvr thoughsbarnes wrote:Sorry, meant in our personal household that is. I struggle to get my child to read, list cause. At best he puts the subtitles on when watching the tele. That's about the best it gets. He is a zero reader, almighty help us for the English exams and any other applied subjects. We found his lack of reading as no hindrance for the CEM exam.
2 very good areas and 1 ok in vr will do it for chb!I agree, non-fiction reading is really beneficial- research shows that most vocab is attained through newspaper reading, encyclopaedia's etc.
