Advice on improving vocab and comprehensions

firsttimermum · Post by **firsttimermum** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 10:51 am

Hi all!! Not long to go, little DS is doing well, moving along slow n steady. You never know if its enough,just when you think they are doing well, and have been told they are in the top 20% or above, a new bright spark comes along who avhieves 135 plus in the scores.

We have mastered maths more or less, and in VR the only things he tends to get wrong are difficult words i.e. if he doesn't know what a word means rthen he can't find relevant synonym or antonym. Any suggestions on improving vocabulary?

In English its the same problem...ther vocab...and secondly Comprehension. He struggles in interpreting what the passage is implying or what the author is trying to say.

Any advice would really be appreciated.

Are the Bond papers relevanat to the Birmingham KECH exams and if not any suggestions.........

Kind regards,

FTM

yoyo123 · Post by **yoyo123** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 11:25 am

word games like scrabble and upwords are good, especially if you play using a dictionary.

A note book to write down unfamiliar words and look up the meanings later.

There is a list of useful words for verbal reasoning, which is a free down load (look on home page). Also a Method and Techniques Course for Verbal Reasoning by the Tutors, which is excellent

www.freerice.com , you have to correctly identify the meanings of words ( and they donate rice to developing countries for each correct answer)

There is a CD/Download by the Tutors , click on the interactive CDs tab above. There is a free demo, which is worth trying.

Comprehension

This link http://www.emaths.co.uk/KS2SAT.htm#English takes you to downloadable past Sats papers. They also have the Teachers marking scheme, which tells you how marks are to be allocated.

When he is doing comprehension exercises, make sure he is clear as to what he is actually being asked to do. I find highlighters are useful, to mark the key words in the question and in the text.

Rose petal · Post by **Rose petal** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 2:19 pm

I have the same problems with DD regarding the comprehension. She is going to do the Warwickshire 11+ and probably the King Edwards Camp Hill one as well (I say probably because even thought we have registered, I am not sure because of the travelling - bus leaves at 7.06 every morning!!!)

I have bought the Bond Secrets of Comprehension to go through with her. It seems quite good as it tries to get them into the habit of thinking about what they are reading as they read it. There is also a series of questions to have in their minds to be thinking about when they read a text. E.g. When is it set? How is it narrated? What type of text is it? Who are the main characters?..........

I noticed that just about to be released are new comprehension exercise books from Bond as well.

Mike · Post by **Mike** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 2:52 pm

For English comprehension it may be worth getting hold of some Key Stage 2 SATs papers

yoyo123 · Post by **yoyo123** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 2:55 pm

Mike wrote:For English comprehension it may be worth getting hold of some Key Stage 2 SATs papers

if you follow the link in my post above you can download them for free , with teh marking schemes too.

firsttimermum · Post by **firsttimermum** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 3:10 pm

Thankyou very much for all your responses. I have just looked at the Sats link, it seems to be really good I will give feedback once we have tried a few!

So everyone trying for the KECH following the Bond,NFER route....I ask because some people have said to me that it is a waste of time to go through all the bond books. Is this so , what is better to use?

Anyone been successful this year with the KE exams, care to share details of the route they took?

DIY Mum · Post by **DIY Mum** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 1:21 am

In my experience, my son struggled terribly with 'word meanings' and still to this day, I don't know how he won a place at KECH.

Anyhow, we didn't use the Bond books or Nfer. To boost his vocabulary, I used a website called vocabularya-z.com which he enjoyed and was very useful. It is an American site, so you'll have to watch out for the US words (which actually is a bonus as it tests their spelling too!

)

firsttimermum · Post by **firsttimermum** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 3:03 pm

Thanks for the website DIY mum, firstly congrats on your son winning a place in KECH!! We are very keen to go there alos, do you think you could give me some tips on which learning materials, preperation you took? If you didn't use Bond or Nfer then what did you do....and how much,(if any!) Work did you do over the summer hols. I would really appreciate a pm...you see thats exactly what my DS struggles on.

Thanks in advance,

FTM

DIY Mum · Post by **DIY Mum** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 5:22 pm

Hi FTM,

I've sent you a pm.

DIY Mum

KenR · Post by **KenR** » Sun Jul 26, 2009 7:13 pm

I have suggested the following techniques in the past:-

I haven't used the material myself but I thought that the The Tutors Vocabulary Builder CDs might be quite useful. (see link from Home page on this site)

Another technique worth trying is highlighting particular words from some of the articles in quality newspapers and then getting your child to give a precise explanation of the meaning.

Best to have dictionary handy so they can check up for them selves afterwards.

And of course, reading lots of articles but make sure that they really understand the meanings of key words. test them out from time to time.