Tips and Strategies to Improve Your Child’s English
http://www.goodenglish.org.sg/category/workshop-resources/tips-parents
Tips for Supporting STELLAR Curriculum at Home
http://www.stellarliteracy.sg/cos/o.x?c=/wbn/pagetree&func=view&rid=20795
Tips for Teaching Listening and Speaking at Home
This model moves through the steps of experiencing sharing, discussing and reporting – all of which provide rich contexts for listening and speaking:
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Step 1
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Experiencing
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Initiate further opportunities for listening and speaking through:
- reading a book,
- watching a film or
- providing any firsthand experience that stimulates your child’s sense, emotions and ideas (e.g., pets at home, cooking, child sharing personal experiences, child connecting with others, sudden weather changes, holiday or seasonal moods etc.)
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Step 2
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Sharing
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- Set aside regular times for sharing every day when your child is free to share anything of interest to them.
- Create sharing opportunities at other times, too, such as during book and media discussions, Science experiments, singing and music activities and visits from family guests.
- Seize spontaneous moments for sharing, focusing on current and media events, class or family problems or conflicts that need to be resolved, or suggestions from your child for special activities.
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Step 3
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Discussing
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Create guidelines to facilitate effective discussions:
- Be a good listener
- Contribute ideas
- Respond to what others are saying
- Take turns
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Step 4
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Reporting
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Encourage your child to express the results of experiencing, sharing and discussing by reporting in a variety of ways:
- Oral Reporting Activities (Responding to literature, media or storytelling and reporting the results of a science experience etc.)
- Writing and Drawing Activities (Self-reflection, Journaling/ Blogging, drawings, paintings, writing, illustrating and bookmaking etc.)
- Dramatization Activities (Story dramatization and puppetry etc.)
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Adapted from Teaching Language Arts by Carole Cox (2002). Page 166 to 169.
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Tips for Teaching Reading at Home
This model moves through the stages of before, during, and after reading that enrich the shared/ guided reading experience:
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Before Reading
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During Reading
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After Reading
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- Choose good literature
- Link to your child’s needs
- Set a comfortable mood
- Introduce book enthusiastically
- Make predictions
- Activate Prior Knowledge
- Create Word Study/ Word Wall
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- Shared repeated readings
- Observe reading
- Make predictions
- Confirm predictions and make new ones
- Talk about story: Aesthetic questions and prompts
- Connect ideas to print
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- Discuss the story/ Relive reading experience
- Reread
- Teach mini-lessons (e.g.: Word study)
Provide response options: Drawing, writing, art making, constructions
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Adapted from Teaching Language Arts by Carole Cox (2002). Page 286 to 296.
Suggested ‘During Reading’ Questions to Make Your Child’s Thinking Visible and to Encourage deeper Understanding of Text:
- “What do you think will happen next?”
- “What do you think … is thinking?”
- “Have you ever felt like … did when he or she …?”
- “Which character in the story would you choose as your friend? Why?”
- “What message do you think the author is trying to get across?”
- “What clues tell you that … was probably …?”
- “What other books have you read about a similar topic [theme, setting]?”
- “How do you think … and … were alike [or different]?”
- “How was … different at the end of the book? What do you believe caused this change?”
- “What effect did … have on …?”
- “What do you think was the significance of …?”
- “Which character do you feel you know the best? Why? Read the text again to see what else you can find out about that character.”
- “As you reread, think about the texhniques the author uses to … [create mood, portray characters].”
- “Have you ever been in this situation?”
Suggested ‘Post Reading’ Questions to Make Your Child’s Thinking Visible and to Encourage More Meaningful Discussion about books he/ she has read:
- “Was there anything you liked/ disliked about this book?”
- “Was there anything that puzzled you?”
- “Was there anything that took you completely by surprise?”
- “Were there any patterns – any connections – that you noticed?”
- “When you first sae the book, even before you read it, what kind of book did you think it was going to be?”
- “If the writer asked you what could be improved in the book, what would you say?”
- “What will/ won’t you tell your friends about this book?”
Adapted from How to Reach and Teach All Children in the Inclusive Classroom by Sandra F. Rief and Julie A. Heimburge (2006). Page 145
Books and audio/visual Recommended by NLB librarians
http://www.goodenglish.org.sg/category/workshop-resources/books
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Tips for Teaching Writing at Home
The writing process involves five stages – prewrite, draft, revise, edit and publish – each of which involves your child in a number of activities.
Terms like prewriting, drafting, revising, editing and publishing are useful for talking about the parts of the writing process, which don’t necessarily occur in a fixed order for individual writers in specific situations (Graves, 1994). Different aspects of the writing process can occur simultaneously and even randomly. Hence, parents should not think of these terms as comprising steps in a rigid linear fashion and should exercise caution about turning a personal and creative process like writing into a daily routine that must be followed.
With this approach, parents will be able to shift the focus of writing instruction from the product to the process. Parents can guide what their children do in the writing process:
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Prewrite
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- Draw on their own experiences
- Read or listen to stories read aloud
- Generate ideas
- Organise thinking
- Talk over ideas with others
- Choose what type of writing they will do: Journal, letters and expressive writing etc.
- Consider the audience they are writing for
- Brainstorm ideas: Make a list, cluster and quickwrite
- Rehearse: Draw, talk, map, plot, diagram, act out
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Draft
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- Put their ideas down on paper
- Focus on meaning, rather than conventions
- Feel free to experiment
- Understand that writing can change
- Try out different possibilities
- Talk over their drafts with others
- Rehearse some more
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Revise
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- Reread during and after writing the draft
- Rethink what they have written
- Share with others
- Change, add, delete or modify their draft
- Clarity meaning
- Expand ideas
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Edit
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- Proofread their revised piece
- Talk to the teacher in an editing conference
- Rephrase and refine
- Check: Spelling, punctuation, capitalisation, usage, form, legibility
- Identity and correct their own pieces
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Publish
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- Choose the form: The Writer’s Notebook, letter, ‘big book’, newspaper, posters, advertisement, electronic media, displayed in room, drama
- Share their published pieces by reading aloud
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Adapted from Teaching Language Arts by Carole Cox (2002). Page 322.
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Tips for Teaching Spelling at Home
The spelling development process involves three stages – before spelling, during spelling and after spelling –which involves your child in a number of activities:
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Before Spelling
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During Spelling
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After Spelling
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- Use word study, word sorts* and spelling rules* to reinforce the teaching of spelling words.
- Encourage your child to use Cover-Copy-Compare (CCC) Strategy* to practise spelling, obtain immediate feedback & engage in self-evaluation and self-correction.
*Word Sorts:
- Focus on the structure of words, analysing compound words; the number of syllables; prefixes, suffixes, and affixes; homophones and homographs and inflectional endings (e.g., -ed and –ing).
*CCC Strategy:
1.Provide a list of spelling words.
2. Encourage your child to studdy a word carefully.
3. Ask your child to cover the copied word with a sheet of paper and write the word from memory.
4. Guide your child in checking the word and comparing with the orignal word.
5. If the word was correctly spelled from memory, guide your chid in pacing a tic mark and move onto the next word.
6. If the word was mispelled, repeat steps 2-4.
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- Remind your child to be cognizant of the spelling rules*.
*Spelling Rules:
- Y rule: For words that end in a consonant plus y, change the y to i before adding –es or –ed (e.g., try/ tries/ tried).
- Final, silent e rule: For words that end in silent e, drop the e before adding a suffix beginning with a vowel and keep the e when adding a suffix that begins with a consonant (e.g., skate/ skating/ skates).
- Doubling rule: For words in which the final syllable ends in a consonant preceded by a single vowel, double the consonant before adding a suffix beginning with a vowel (e.g., hit/ hitting).
- Plurals rule: Most single nouns become plural by adding an –s or –es (e.g., cat/ cats; dress/ dresses).
- Q rule: The letter q is followed by u in English Spelling (e.g., quit, queue).
- V rule: Words in English never end in v.
- Rules for using periods in abbreviations, possessive apostrophes, and capitals for proper names and adjectives.
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- Administer spelling maintenance test periodically to reinforce and enhance students’ acquisition and retention in the spelling of English words tested.
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Adapted from Teaching Language Arts by Carole Cox (2002). Page 454 to 455. Action Research Paper ‘Improving Students’ Acquisition and Retention in the Spelling of English Words Through the Enhanced CCC Strategy’ by Diana Tan, Shobana Musti-Rao and Joanne Khaw (2010).
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Tips for Teaching Grammar and Vocabulary at Home
When practising grammar and vocabulary, it is important to provide opportunities to help your child to:
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Grammar Practice
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Suggested Activity
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Use analogy or metaphor
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- Horse and Cart (To notice how word order changes in affirmative sentences, negative sentences and questions: Sally is riding a bicycle/ Sally is not riding a bicycle/ Sally isn’t riding a bicycle/ Is Sally riding a bicycle?/ Yes, she is.)
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Relate parts of speech to colours
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- Coloured-coded Grammar Cards (To associate parts of speech with colours to help your child notice a variety of different language patterns and aspects of grammar. For example: red for Wh-questions, orange for auxiliaries, yellow for subject pronouns, green for verbs, blue for prepositions, purple for nouns and black for punctuations)
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Manipulate word cards
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- Sentence Scramble (To order words to make sentences by manipulating word cards; to develop awareness of word order in sentences)
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Use mime, movement and gesture
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- Physical Line-Up (To place the word cards in a line to show word order in sentences)
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Use logical deduction
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- Discover the Question (To guess or deduce a question from given answers)
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Develop classifying skills
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- To classify regular plural nouns according to the spelling. For example: -s, -es, -ies and irregular)
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Vocabulary Practice
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Suggested Activity
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Associate words and meanings and develop their recall of vocabulary
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- Learn with a Puppet (To recognize, practice and memories vocabulary by responding to a puppet) For example: Follow the puppet’s instructions, Repeat that they puppet says and Correct the puppet etc.
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Think about the properties and meanings of words
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- Odd One Out (To think about the meanings and properties of words; identify a vocabulary item in a sequence that is different; to say why it is different)
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Improve their recognition and spelling of vocabulary
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- Word Search (To prepare and do a word search puzzle)
- Key Word Crossword (To prepare and do a simple crossword; to think in a logical-deductive way)
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Reinforce connections between words
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- Sort into Sets (To sort and classify vocabulary into sets)
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Personalise vocabulary learning
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- Venn Diagrams (To classify known vocabulary in a lexical set using a graphic organiser, to compare and report back on the way the items have been classified)
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Develop strategies for inferring meaning
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- Nonsense Words (To infer the meaning of words from the context/ story)
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Develop strategies for conveying the meaning of unfamiliar words
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- Definitions (To define what he/ she mean without saying the word)
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Adapted from 500 Activities for the Primary Classroom Arts by Carol Read (2007). Page 86 to 110.