Hi Insider

If your daughter intends to practise medicine in Singapore in future, she'll need to take note of the overseas medical schools that are recognized by the Singapore government. The complete list is here:-
http://www.smc.gov.sg/html/1153709442948.html

There is also the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School which seeks \"outstanding students who have completed their undergraduate (or Master's or Ph.D.'s) training in the life sciences, engineering, pharmacology, chemistry, physics\" fields. Some young friends whom I mentor have gone through the route of biomedical sciences/pharmacology studies etc before going to medical school, but it is a lot easier to get accepted into, say, U.S. med schools than NUS YLLSOM, since med school in U.S. is essentially a post-graduate degree.

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tamarind:

I also didn't place a lot of emphasis on individual letters, I started to teach him phonics before he could recognize all the letters. My biggest headache now is that he is not able to write all the letters and numbers correctly He is supposed to master it by this year, next year at K1, he will need to write in words

I was just thinking about this. Since your little boy can read very well, he obviously can recognize words very well too. So perhaps he will find it easy to write/spell words as a whole unit (at least to begin with), especially since you mentioned that he has no problems reading words containing \"b\" or \"d\" when the letters are put together like \"dog\". Does your son only write in reversal when doing individual letters or does it happen in words as well?

tamarind:

I wonder if it is because he does not understand what can be cut, and what cannot be cut. I went through a full list of things that he cannot cut, including my hair, and his sister's hair, etc. I also wonder whether it is because he cannot remember instructions. Sian....

Er, my daughter really DID cut hair with scissors, luckily it was her own and not her brothers' or they would have done something violent to her...
Tamarind, er, i can't help thinking the no-cutting list will just go on and on and on. I gave my daughter similar instructions, and was flummoxed when she asked me incessantly,\"how about THIS, how about THAT, are THOSE in the list?\" Drove me crazy. In the end I gave her books like the Kumon cutting books
http://www.whoopeekiddies.com/store/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=105
and told her she can use her scissors only on these. She listened!

Hi Tamarind

I had quite a lot of trouble teaching my middle child even the names of the letters, let alone reading and writing. Her learning abilities are poles apart from her two brothers (I didn't bother to teach my oldest how to read; he picked it up himself); I almost throttled her at times before I found what works for us. I'm impressed by your patience and perseverance in teaching your son how to read!

Ultimately, I had the most success when I made letters and words distinctive enough for my daughter to recall them effortlessly. E.g. for letter 'b', a bear looks for food (drew bear's image around the letter). Letter 'd' was a deer with another story, but not looking for food to avoid any confusion with 'b'. It's not conventional, but I also did not do the letters in alphabetical sequence in the beginning, because I figured it would confuse the heck out of her when she encounters 'b' and 'd' in quick succession.

So far it has worked pretty well for us, my daughter found it fun and easily remembered that the bear was looking towards 'that direction' when it was looking for honey. I can't quite recall now, was it zoo-phonics which talked about how a bear is always a bear whichever way you turn the letter? Anyway, that was sort of my idea, to use images to aid my daughter's recall. It also helped her to practise writing with different media. We had fun tracing letters in a big shallow bowl of table salt, we glued beans on paper to trace etc. Or try sand at the beach!
Actually I didn't place a lot of emphasis on individual letters; I'm very impatient so I moved on to words once she could recognize, write and sound out a few letters with ease.

ChiefKiasu:

I think there are little comments because St Nic's has already gotten everyone's mindshare that it is one of the top schools in Singapore.

Actually, I'm always a little puzzled when my friends tell me that St Nicholas is a top girls' school. It's my alma-mater and while it was a pretty decent school in my time (my PSLE score was 274, and there were hordes of girls with scores in that range) , imho its academic standards has declined quite a bit since then. If I were concerned about academic achievement only, I may not want to send my daughter there But I know that most parents are not that shallow!

Hi Cartoon

Does your little boy pull his stunts if he gets the attention first, before he has a chance to start?
Also, how do you/others react when he misbehaves? Sometimes kids do stuff just to annoy others if they get an interesting reaction the first time they do it. If they get what they want out of these stunts, they'll try again because it works!
As for being violent when he doesn't get what he wants, little children don't always know how to handle their emotions. My normally sweet-tempered kids go ballistic sometimes when they try really hard to get something and fail. To me, its natural that kids get upset when their best attempts don't get them anywhere and they feel helpless. My job is to teach them how to manage that boiling anger so that they don't end up hurting themselves or others.

I'm looking out for interesting readers as a gift to my niece. We don't use any so I'm at a loss :? - would very much appreciate advice, TIA!

happymom:

Understand the teachers are friendly and nice (based on past postings), so hopefully my gal can settled down fast, but do you all know how's the turnover rate of teachers, and how's their experience & qualification ? Haven't got a chance to see the teachers yet.

Hi happymom
In the one year that my ds was at NAFA (up to mid K1), I did not hear of any teacher leaving. I hear that a good number of them have been there since the kindergarten's inception. As for the art, dance and music teachers, they are definitely very qualified in their respective fields, so no worries there. I was very impressed in particular by my son's music teacher. By the way, your child will have six teachers altogether (2 class teachers, 2 for art, 1 each for dance and music), so budget some time for parent conferences hor.
I think there should be an orientation coming up soon; do take the chance and ask away.
Just remembered something. The kids change for dance class, so make sure that your dd can handle changing her clothes without much help..

Mandie:

Now she just turned 4, she is fluent in both languages, and able to do translation for her grandparents who come visit us once or twice a year. Right now, daddy continues to speak with her in English, and I speak Chinese with her most of the time. She has no problem switching the language alto she is better in English. I guess, as long she does not object it, she will be able to love the language and master it later.

Hi Mandie! Thank you so much for sharing. Wow, your little girl is very accomplished I don't know many kids who are fluent in both languages these days... Your constant work with her really pays off.
Oh yes, the waiting list for NY Kindergarten is really, really long.... Did you aunt manage to get her child in?