Hi,


Can any mummy advise for P5 higher mother tongue clasess, do they remain on every Monday (like during P4)
, or are they conducted on a different day of the week? I am scheduling my girls’ extra curricular activities. Many thanks in advance!

Dreamaurora:

sunshine4:

Hi Dreamaurora,


May I consult you on the following:
My son just started learning piano at age 5 and it has been 8 months. However, I noticed that he has a tendency to memorise fingerings and still have some difficulty reading notes. When I asked him, he told me that he needs to look at his fingerings as he does not know how to look at the notes and fingerings at the same time. May I know if you have any suggestions to this? I am not a pianist myself and I feel that his difficulty is valid. Thanks.

Piano students, regardless of age, will acquire digital (finger) memory of the piece once they practice the piece enough times. So it is natural that students afterwhile prefer not to look at the score so they can free up their eyes to coordinate the more tricky bits on the keyboard e.g. big leaps. Digital memory combined with other memories such as aural memory, theoretical memory, visual memory etc is quite essential to a sucessful performance. I normally encourage for my students is that they memorize their core pieces they are going to play for exams or performance. They can still use the score but the score is only used to remember important reference points.

So anyway, your son is still quite young and his pattern recognition is not that strong yet, that is why he needs to see his hands and the keyboards when he plays. This is because his mind had not linked the patterns on the score to the actual hand shapes requires to play the pattern. It's fine, let your son take more time to improve his keyboard geography. Typically, a student is only expected to be able to sight read pieces 4 grades below i.e. grade 5 students must be able to sight read grade 1 pieces.

Thank you so much for the enlightening advice. Its great to know so we know how to guide him along, instead of insisting that he has to look at the score at the same time. :thankyou:

Hi Dreamaurora,


May I consult you on the following:
My son just started learning piano at age 5 and it has been 8 months. However, I noticed that he has a tendency to memorise fingerings and still have some difficulty reading notes. When I asked him, he told me that he needs to look at his fingerings as he does not know how to look at the notes and fingerings at the same time. May I know if you have any suggestions to this? I am not a pianist myself and I feel that his difficulty is valid. Thanks.

aqeqiq:

sunshine4:

Hi, I am a new participant here. I have a query...wondering if any parents could advise. My daughter is transferring to RGPS p4 in 2012. Can any parents advise if there is any instructions on the books to bring on the first day of school?

Hi. I think you can just bring the text books 4A and a few English and Chinese exercise books. Don't worry about not having brought certain things. The teachers can't scold if there is no time table to follow. They will probably give out the time table and instructions about what to bring on the first day. I told my dd not to bother with the science text because we don't even know which one will be taught first.

Thank you so much for your prompt and sensible advice! Just getting a little nervous about the new school term starting in a new environment for my gal.

Hi, I am a new participant here. I have a query…wondering if any parents could advise. My daughter is transferring to RGPS p4 in 2012. Can any parents advise if there is any instructions on the books to bring on the first day of school?