Readers are writing in to me to share their thoughts.

I am beginning to get emails from readers and the parents who visited my book website. Reading these emails just confirm the belief that parents want to be 'first hand' involved in their children's studies. One reader asked me whether my 'hand holding' would lead to a 'dependency mentality' in my child and this was my reply.

I was very worried that my 'hand holding' would lead to a 'dependency mentality' in my girl. It was a struggle for me to decide how much I should help her and how much I should let her do on her own. If it was not her final year (P6) I would have done things differently, I would still have time to teach her to be more independent. Since it was her final 10 months, we divided the pie, I would do all the 'dirty' work she just had to concentrate on pure learning and absorbing. Yes I was hand holding her, and this hand holding made her studied so much harder and faster than before, it did not make her life easier. One thing for sure she knew that behind a 'genius' (that was what some of her friends labeled her near end of P6) there were a huge amount of 'untold' hard work. She did not get her good grades the easy way and she definitely learned that hard work would paid off.

When my girl went to Sec 1, I knew I must stop my 'hand holding'. I did not turn off my help immediately, I still helped her in new subjects like history, geography, literature... but definitely not at that level of hand holding as before. Because she had seen the work/tasks that I had done while I was hand holding, she was able to pick up these tasks herself. She created her own schedules (examination preparation schedules, holiday study schedules..) and I would look and approved them. I would give her upper secondary school text books and she would mark out the topics and chapters she needed to read and practice. She is doing very well in her secondary school. I no longer need to hand hold her, I just 'nag' and push her to better herself each day.

PSLE Science Syllabus covers topics learned from P3 to P6

In my book, in Chapter 8 "Preparing for the Science Paper", I mentioned that the PSLE Science syllabus consists of topics from Primary 4 to Primary 5. This was a genuine mistake on my part and I hope that my readers will realise the 'mistake' immediately upon reading it. Our Primary School children start learning the Science subject from Primary 3. So the PSLE syllabus includes all topics from lower primary to upper primary, (Primary 3 to Primary 6).

The important point about these Science topics is that many of these P3-P5 topics are rather independent from those taught in P6. So if they are not properly revised again during the P6 year, most students would only remember the concepts in these topics vaguely and not do as well in their PSLE.

Make learning more effective and less stressful for our children

When I was helping my girl prepared for a PSLE, I realised that there were many things I could do to help her. Beside the teaching/coaching her on the technical contents of her subjects, I was setting schedules, teaching her about examination time management, introducing her to smarter ways of learning and remembering, pointing out short cuts & using fewer steps to solving problems... etc etc. These soft skills are not new to most parents, they are probably applying them at work. These soft skills are new to many primary school children and they have not acquire them yet. When I used these soft skills to help my daughter prepared for her PSLE, her learning pace quickened and she ended up with good PSLE results. The best thing is that she gradually picked up these soft skills and is now applying them in her learning in Secondary School. Children learn from watching their parents.

My book "A* and A: How I helped my child score in the PSLE " was written for Parents. Hopefully after reading the book, parents will realise that they are the ones that possess many 'adult know how'(soft skills) which can help make their children's learning more effective and less stressful.

In the Living Room, 938Live with Stanley Leong

This morning I was in the Living Room, 938 Live interviewed by Stanley Leong. It was a great opportunity for me to share my experience with listeners, especially parents of children studying in Primary School. There is a lot of tasks parents can do to help their children attain good results. Unfortunately most parents are not sure exactly what to do, so most of them take a passive role. Parents should play an active role for every hour they spend with their children during the study at home. The earlier parents start playing the active roles the easier it will be for their children when the time comes for them to sit for their final primary school examination PSLE.

I am starting to get feedback concerning the methods and strategies that I have shared with parents in my Book. It was interesting to note the different reactions from these parents and their children.

In Chapter 3 ''Setting Schedule'' of my book, I showed the Daily-Schedule (home studying hours) that Lin Ying(my daughter) and I had drawn up. It was an ambitious schedule involving 6 to 8 hours of studying (each day) at home from Monday to Sunday. When the parents (readers) saw the schedule they had some reservations on its applicability in their situations. Surprising it was their children(when shown the schedule) who were more acceptable to the study hours in the schedule.

One mother told me that her boy said he could do it (follow the same schedule) and she believed that her boy was motivated by the sizeable leisure hours (time for gaming, watch tv programme, ...) that were shown in the Daily-Schedule.

Another father said that the schedule would not be suitable for his Primary 2 child. Of course not, that schedule was drawn up for Lin Ying when she was left with only 10 months to her PSLE. At that time, her grades were mediocre and there were so much to catch up. We (mother and child) had agreed on a few ambitious targets and they were the reason that drove us to draw up an equally ambitious schedule. Surprising when that father showed his Primary 2 child the schedule, I was told that the child was open to the idea and immediately went about drawing up his own daily schedule.

It was definitely very pleasant to get feedback like the above. It is nice to know that my experience when shared with others creates some positive impacts.

Gave a talk on the 31st May at the World Book Fair

Last Sunday, 31st May 2008, which was the second day of the World Book Fair 2008 I gave a talk.

The title of the talk was "PSLE: How you can help your child reach his/her full potential". I saw a some parents busy taking notes as I was talking. After the talk, when I went back to the Pan Pacific Education Booth (my publisher) I saw a number of parents who were at the talk browsing through my book.

Well it was a good start. I will be repeating the same talk again on Sunday 6th June 2008 at the same fair. This time from 12pm to 1pm.

About nine more days to the launching of my first book

About nine more days to the launching of my first book. Writing the book was pretty easy, it was the entire process of looking for a publisher, going thru the editing ... that was tedious. I wrote this book back in Feb 2007 because I felt that there was a lack of self help book for mothers. Mothers who want to help their children prepare for PSLE and would like to know the most effective ways to go about doing it

In 2006 I took a break from work. That year was also the year my girl sat for her PSLE. My girl was a good child, she was very conscientious in her studies unfortunately her grades were mediocre. Initially I thought my involvement in her PSLE preparation would be to give her constant encouragement and moral support. It did not turn out to be that way. I was actively into teaching and coaching her. We were both very excited as almost immediately we started seeing improvement in her academic performance. I was always searching and trying out new methods and strategies to help her to learn faster, to remember and recall concepts better, to solve complicated problems quicker and correctly. My girl studied harder then she had ever done before. She was eagerly absorbing everything she could learn with my help. We both knew then that good PSLE results were within her grasp. The only constraint we had was time.

In the end, she got A* for Mathematics, A* for Science, A for English and A for Chinese in her PSLE results. I knew upfront that it would be quite impossible for her to get A* for English and Chinese because 'good language' skills need to be developed over the years and we started too late.

I have learned so much in this ten-month process of preparing my girl for PSLE and I want my experience to benefit others. I have written the book, it is now published, soon it will be released onto the book stores. All the effort would be wasted if these books do not get into the hands of the mothers......