Hello All,

Hope you have been enjoying snow this weekend and are all set for the festivities.

We need help in preparation for Colchester for my DD. My DD is an ok reader but we have to say her daily to read, it's not like she does not like reading as when she starts a book she does tell's us how the plot is building and shows interest till the book is finished.

Our approach has been that she marks new words per day (2-5 max) and then to understand their meaning and how they can be used in sentences/paragraphs which we are planning to ask her to write a paragraph every week incorporating words from her weekly list.

We are ourself not native english speakers and struggle a lot with grammar and vocabulary is not that rich. What is your suggestion in terms of preparing for these exams. I have got some ideas in mind which I will like your inputs please.

1. Daily reading - 1/2 hr - 1 hr or as much as she enjoys
2-5 new words and their meanings from dictionary - antonyms, synonyms , sentences/paragraphs

What approach do you suggest to help her use these words or be able to remember later?


2. Comprehension practise - We are using Bond papers

I am finding bonds ok but will like to know any other books which could be better ?

3. Creative writing

We have not started heavily on this yet, we asked her to try some piece about her experience at a leisure park, there are quite a few punctuations, grammer mistakes, how shall we address those ?


4. Puncutation & Grammer - what is your approach, recommended books/practise sets ?

Many thanks in advance for your response.

rgds,
Josh

Hi Josh,

Being aware of your previous posts, and seeing the word 'urgent' in your heading (along with listed concerns) left me wondering if you are expecting too much of your daughter? Such a potentially dogmatic approach runs the risk of turning her off prep.

Thinking about reading I guess it depends on how you think your daughter should respond to the daily opportunity to read? Perhaps consider abandoning the daily task of looking up words in dictionaries (we did as it seemed to not be helpful)-sounds rather uneventful for a young child, particularly after a day at school. Maybe let her read and seek out other sources to widen her vocabulary-vocabulary is a slow process. Maybe consider regular shared reading of a classic text.

Guess you also might like to consider your daughters age and the validity of your perceptions of her educational needs. Make sure she has plenty of free time and opportunities to live and do things that interest her outside of 11+ prep.

Hello Daddy cool

Thanks for your reply. I agree with you we do not want to make this learning a boring task, hence asking for recommendations/approach which worked for people here and as every child is different it may or may not work for my DD. In terms of finding meaning of new words in dictionary for building vocabulary we don't want it to be a daily exercise but more of once a week. We will be interested to know what other approaches parents adopt to build up vocabulary?

Also we are making sure she get plenty of time to enjoy than just 11+ prep. I don't want to be rude by I am not clear on your comment "Guess you also might like to consider your daughters age and the validity of your perceptions of her educational needs", what level she should be at in terms of educational needs?

Also what is the "shared reading approach" sorry if it's a silly question.

You said previously your daughter just turned 9, so Year 4?

In my opinion you run the serious risk of putting too much pressure on your child. Two years of doing grammar focused activities daily sets up massive expectations. Education should be fun and for the sake of self-improvement, not to pass a test two years in the future.

Are you 100% sure she would thrive at the grammar if you are having to put in so much effort now? There are lots of comprehensive schools which offer a superb education, private schools if you want to pay. After all this effort, it would be an enormous sense of failure for her if she failed to get in, it’s obviously very important to you and she will be picking up on that.

The internet is full of fun educational activities to do with your child that are much more enjoyable for a young child than work books and word lists. Save that for Year 5 if you must.

I would concentrate on finding books she loves to read, that she can’t put down, hit the library every week/fortnight. Find some word/ vocabulary games that she actively enjoys doing. Make sure she knows her times tables inside and out, gets all of her spellings right etc. Listen to her read, comment on what she is reading etc. See if she likes puzzle books, word searches, sudoku, arrow words, crosswords etc. Do them with her. Over the summer holidays get her to keep a holiday diary, with tickets, brochures stuck in, a couple of paragraphs of writing every day - I still have the ones I wrote from age 5 to 12, lovely to look back on.

Hi Colcmum,

Thanks for your reply. I think with my posts I am coming as I am on a full steam ahead with my DD on 11+, well to state the facts we are focusing on weekly activities not a daily routine, so in terms of books she is reading the ones we got on from the reading list, she does enjoyed couple of books she read and discussed with us plot of the story not as a routine but as and when she feels like.

In terms of grammar or not we are absolutely clear that whatever the result we will go with it, even if she does not get it then local high school is good as well and with the preparation she has done for 11+ she will be doing good at her high school also. She herself has in her mind that she will like to attempt that.

As I said earlier I am just after different ways of building english vocab because we being non native english speakers have not much idea about proper grammar or have good vocabulary and hence feel that we are not able to help/guide her properly.

From this thread I have got some approaches --

1. Start with books she enjoys, discuss plots informally while playing or when ever she likes, ask her what she liked about the book and didn't liked, will she plot the story in a different way ?

2. Shared reading - we have not done that and hence slowly when she comes to classic we will do that..i will probably try with the current book she is reading.

3. you idea of word games, puzzles, crosswords we will try if she likes that.

Sorry if i am sounding too heavy here but i am just after some good advice and as every parent want the child to be happy whatever be the outcome.

thanks

If you are concerned about a lack of exposure to a sufficiently broad/complex range of vocabulary at home make sure you have Radio 4 on in the back ground all the time, it might help familiarise you both with more complex language without involving any specific 'designated' activity and will be informative as well?

_________________
mad?

funny enough that's the channel i am on in car on daily commute, and they have quite wide selection, not sure if my DD will like to hear that

Hi inkspinks /Josh?

You asked what I meant by: 'Guess you also might like to consider your daughters age and the validity of your perceptions of her educational needs'.

Answer: Well in a nut shell it’s referring to giving appropriate consideration to what age your daughter is (I do not know) and the potential issues around starting her prep too early.

Secondly I think we owe it to our children to reflect on, and examine our own (sometimes distorted) anxieties/motivations, and how we perceive our children’s current educational level. I also think it’s equally important to consider what informs our perceptions as these often underpin actions.

It looks as though you already worked out what ‘shared reading’ implies (from point 2 in your follow up post) so does not require a response.

Hope that helps.

Thanks all for your messages/replies. I really appreciate bearing up with me and responding with your suggestions.

Daddy Cool, ColcMom - My DD is 9 yrs , year 4.

thx

just a thought , my DD has got Accelerated reader programme in her school, is it good to know what level she is at and what are the books recommended for current - future levels.

rgds