Any parents of gifted children here ?

[tamarind]

EN:

Tamarind wrote: [quote]May be they already had tuition at home, and already knew everything in the subject very well.

If only tuition & enrichment helps, then there will be countless of gifted students in Singapore; given that society today depends highly on enrichment centres & tuition teacher.[/quote]I don't mean that the tuition teacher can turn a normal kid into a gifted kid. The role of the tuition teacher for gifted kids, is to teach them things which are more far advanced than what they learn in school. That is what I mean that the child already knew everything in the subject.

Even a highly gifted kid needs to be taught. Are there any gifted kids here who can read on his/her own, without being taught at all ? Even without enrichment classes, the mommy would have been teaching the child to read. How many gifted kids can understand fractions and algebra entirely on their own ? They also must be taught by tuition teachers or by their parents.

A gifted kid does not mean that he/she knows things from birth. They also must go through the learning process, but it is just that they learn very fast compared to other kids. For example, the 7 year old boy who passed O-levels Chemistry. Does he remember things from his past life ? Of course not. I don't believe he did it without any guidance, despite what his mommy said. He probably has photographic memory. But his mommy would have at least taught him how to read, and also explained things to him.

However, I believe many parents hire tuition teachers to drill their normal kids to try to get into the GEP. I am not surprised if some of them succeeded. The GEP selection process is not that fool proof.

[tamarind]

heutistmeintag:

I believe that there is still some form of grooming besides the GEP though I am not sure if this is a common practice. In my kids' (neighbourhood) school, the children are grouped into batches of 60-80. It means that the 1st 2 classes contain the top ~20% of that level (I guess quite like an unofficial EM1 class). These 2 classes are given tougher challenges and in most internal competitions, I see these students performing at a different level from the rest. Also, while other classes are having \"remedial\" lessons, the 1st 2 classes were having \"supplementary\" lessons. :roll:


Do any parents here experience this in other schools?

Yes this is happening in West Grove primary school. I prefer this model, because it is unobtrusive.

[mamachris]

breguet:

Sorry, this is completely outside of the thread. Poor you! A lot of the interns will do well to remember they're not hired yet. Guess it won't happen now!

Breguet,
Thanks for your understanding...

Sorry, I am aware what I wrote was a side-track. My point across to all parents is that no matter whether a person is gifted or not (at tender age), it does not secure his/her path in the future. Thus, it is important to focus on the right perspectives of learning- moral values, character building, EQ and AQ- which is harder to teach.

[wwcookie]

EN:

Hi wwcookie


In some top schools, since there are so many bright students in comparison to the weaker ones, opportunities to help the weaker students are lesser. Is that the situation that is happening in your son school?

Hi EN,

You are right - his class is full of bright students so there's really no opportunities to help the weaker students. Although the school does not rank the children, I can see from the statistics given out in their SA1 results that there are others who scored better than him..

[wwcookie]

wellness:

My son was 'recommended' to take a test at the GEP dept in June this year. I took up the offer as he is always quite reluctant to go to school and he finds Math 'very boring in class'. So I thought of taking the opportunity to see what GEP can recommend. In the end, it wants his class teacher to give him special worksheets to challenge him and then wait till he 'gets into the gep programme' as he is already quite accelerated (he's a mensa member).

I am really in a loss as to what best to do so that he could be challenged appropriately together as a group with his friends. I quite agree with the newspaper article regarding identifying some bright kids earlier so that they can be put together to 'enjoy their own pace of learning'.

cheers

Hi wellness,
How did your son get 'recommended' to take the test at the GEP Dept? I also find it important that they be put together earlier to learn at their own pace.

[en107rn.01056yahoo.01056com.01056sg]

Hi Wellness


Year of the dragon babies will mean that your child in currently in P2. Giftedness are tested only in P3. Same question as wwcookie. How did your son get to be tested a year earlier?

Hi Tamarind

The security guard who has a child in the gifted program comes from a non-academic family. He is the sole bread winner in the family as wife is not working looking after 4 kids. Tuition is a luxury which they cannot afford.

The other family that I know is my cousin. There was no tuition. Parents too busy. All 3 kids do very well in school & only 1 is gifted. Just like you quoted before about your brother, he does well on his own without any help right?

Hi heutistmeintag

A friend of mine, whose daughter is in Canberra is placed in the top 3 classes. Yes, they have supplementary classes to attend.

[wellness]

Hi wwcookie & EN,

Well he was crying about attending Math in class - sitting there, cannot move etc (he is in the top class of his level) - so the principal arranged for the school counsellor to talk to him. My son told the counsellor that he ranks school, especially Math, 4 out of 10. That’s when we decided to seek gep’s opinion and maybe recommend him for accelerated math (ie. let him attend P3 math class).

But the result was that he was ‘bright & should be given challenging work differentiated from his classmates. It will not help even if accelerated’ and therefore, no need for acceleration but just wait till P3’s gep test.

So sad. Don’t see any new learning for him in Math.

[tamarind]

EN:

Hi Wellness


Year of the dragon babies will mean that your child in currently in P2. Giftedness are tested only in P3. Same question as wwcookie. How did your son get to be tested a year earlier?

Hi Tamarind

The security guard who has a child in the gifted program comes from a non-academic family. He is the sole bread winner in the family as wife is not working looking after 4 kids. Tuition is a luxury which they cannot afford.

The other family that I know is my cousin. There was no tuition. Parents too busy. All 3 kids do very well in school & only 1 is gifted. Just like you quoted before about your brother, he does well on his own without any help right?

Hi heutistmeintag

A friend of mine, whose daughter is in Canberra is placed in the top 3 classes. Yes, they have supplementary classes to attend.

Actually my brother and I had tuition teacher to teach us English, since our parents don't know english at all. They really had to scrimp and save.

I am not saying that all gifted kids must have tuition teacher in order to do well. Those kids without tuition teacher will learn in school, from their teachers, right ? Of course they can still excel without tuition teacher because they can learn from the school teacher. They are probably more motivated to learn more advanced things on their own. But I think very few gifted kids can understand algebra, differentiation, integration etc by reading books on their own.

Those gifted kids with tuition teachers will know far more in advance in the syllabus. For example, a P1 kid will know the P5/P6 syllabus. Naturally he/she will feel bored in school attending P1 lesson. This is the point I was trying to make.

[breguet]

Hi all, this discussion is really interesting. A common thread seems to be appearing among the parents here - that some kids learn faster; as a consequence, they get bored in school, at least in the initial years. Like what Wellness was told, wait for the GEP programme.


I can imagine what the bureacrats are thinking - that three years (to P3) in the big scheme of things is not a long time to wait. But to parents who have to boot the kids up the schoolbus every morning and hear them groan like it’s the end of the world everyday, 3 years IS an eternity. The reality is that the number of gifted children in the population base is statistically very small to begin with. And not all develop at the same fast pace in the early years, so it may not make $ sense to have early screening programs. 9 could be the developmental age when most of these kids begin to hit their potential. Already, the GEP is causing a hue and cry among the general population because of its elitist implications, so I’m guessing the MOE will not consider earlier differentiation in order not to risk public ire as well.

BTW, this problem is again not just a Singapore one (although we’re worse off because our absolute numbers are even smaller). There are differentiated programmes in the US for young kids, but it is usually at the private school level, which costs an arm and a leg. Even then, getting differentiation, from what I gather, may require the parent to cry-father-cry-mother on top of paying the massive fees. Even then, the kids may not get the appropriate treatment.

That doesn’t take away the problems of parents who are affected however. My son is 5 and I can’t even get him to go to school. I think it’s ok in the early years, but I shudder to think of formal school. If he never learns to apply himself because things come easy, can he suddenly develop study skills when he has to, because school work will only get harder and he needs to apply himself at some point?

Maybe what could work is a club of similarly afflicted parents so we can muster our resources and help each other out. It won’t help with the school work, but it helps when we have more information.

[tamarind]

mamachris:

Sorry, I am aware what I wrote was a side-track. My point across to all parents is that no matter whether a person is gifted or not (at tender age), it does not secure his/her path in the future. Thus, it is important to focus on the right perspectives of learning- moral values, character building, EQ and AQ- which is harder to teach.

I totally agree. I think many parents are neglecting this aspect. Even if a child is gifted, he/she should still make friends with kids of lower abilities, without feeling that he/she is \"lowering\" herself. Why can't a bright kid make friends with not so bright ones ? In fact, helping weaker students is an important part of character building. It is also very important to teach the child to be sensitive to other people's feelings, to know how to say the right things at the right time. I think it is really up to the parents to teach the child.