Thursday, November 28, 2013

A scene from The Piano



Whilst watching the animated, Aniboom version of The Piano, a scene caught the imagination of one of my students. Grace went to the computer and produced this piece;

I reached the wall with a sigh of relief. A soldier was near me. My heart was pounding; my spine was shivering. This was a serious moment. We had to fight to save our country. Right this moment I am standing with a soldier, the horrible smell of smoke and dampness fills the air. Stones are all over the ground, I nearly tripped. The soldier was just about to leave. I had to give him the signal.
“Ready, go!” I shouted.
I could hardly hear myself talk. Suddenly, BANG!!!
The soldier on my team had just been shot. I ran to help. “Are you OK? Please be with me, I know you can make it,” I murmured.
His head flopped and I knew what this meant; he didn’t make it. It turned pitch black.

What makes this successful?
Reading it, you will note the style of using statements rather than long, complex sentences; this gives the reader the sudden, jolting, advancing of the action and gives Grace a level 6 for atmospheric creation.
The paragraphing and text organisation is, again, creating the mood as well as the darkness of the whole scene, gaining a level 6.
Her punctuation uses a full range, from full stops to semi-colons and therefore moves her piece into the level 5a/6 range once more.
Where does it not quite hold those levels is in the formatting of the adverbs, adjectives and connectives which are still at level 4, but this piece of work shows such promise and gives us all an idea of what can be achieved by a ten year old, especially when they have worked at developing their own style, language knowledge and of course, accuracy in using punctuation.
Well done Grace, I look forward to the next piece of work from you.

Thursday, November 14, 2013

All children should be able to verbally reason things out

Whether your child is sitting the 11+ or not, for a child to develop as wholly as possible, the skills found in Verbal Reasoning and Non-verbal Reasoning are important skills opening  up as many potential avenues as possible in their brain development.

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Let's think about this using an analogy; in new civic buildings it is becoming customary not to lay in footpaths, apart from the basic few, but to lay the rest to grass. There is a reason behind this, the developers are watching where the short cuts are being taken by the greatest number of feet. Once these well worn tracks are established and muddy, very often the landscapers will come along and insert paths following the lines laid out in the now well worn grass.
Brains are very similar, if the same methods are used over and over again, they too get worn into the 'grass' of the brain and these become the main way of solving the problem. But what if those methods are of no use to solving a particular problem? What happens if the child does not have a pathway established which could open up a possible solution? The child gets stuck, it has to look outside of itself, it learns a new strategy, 'rely on others to solve your problem', a well worn pathway in some. It maybe successful, but will it teach them?> Will it support them later on?
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I suggest the answer to this one is, no.

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So, where can we extend and create a greater network of pathways? That comes form the skills they learn through solving verbal and non-verbal puzzles, and this is where a group of people who have put a You Tube channel together, come into the equation. Their videos on how to do the various types of problems, together with a suitable verbal reasoning book, give the opportunity for the child to learn new ways of thinking and new skills which they can take into the classroom.
Chuckra Verbal Reasoning Practice has 15 videos each covering a different VR skill. The way they present the information is clear and concise and in language which is understandable by years 4, 5 and 6; although I would suggest a parent accompanies them as they learn so as to be able to re-inforce any work they do later.
I mentioned a book, and the best I have ever come across is one by Susan J Daughtrey M.Ed. She has produced a series of 4 books which include, how to do each type [a useful back up for the work they have watched on video] and a page of examples to try. I am not saying you HAVE to buy these books because they do not come cheap [about £5.50 each] but they are well worth exploring and if you can get them from Amazon then all the better.
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OK, that's the verbal but what about the non-verbal?

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That comes from puzzles and problems you find in many puzzle books, such as word searches, mazes, spot the difference, what is the next shape in a sequence and so on. They best way to extend their non-verbal skills? Buy some puzzle books and take them away when you go one holiday or get some in so on a wet and cold day when its no good to go outside, get out the puzzles and have a go at cracking them together. As you work with them they will be learning your strategies as well as their own; in the end they will be off on their own, and sometimes, just sometimes, they will be beating you.


Thursday, November 7, 2013

The latest on the 11+ arrangements

Scanning through Google as I do from time to time and keeping an ear open to what parents have gleaned, the following URLs should be of interest to those taking the 11+ this year.
The first article was on another BLOG called Tutors International where they commented on how it would be impossible for any council to make something 'un-tutorable', something I have been saying all along.
The next came in a report found on the KCC website; KCC announces contractor to run Kent Test
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The important sentence here is as follows; There will be two main tests, one assessing reasoning ability and one assessing pupils’ attainment in literacy and numeracy.

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What this will mean is the non-verbal reasoning paper will be dropped in favour of the verbal reasoning and the maths and English (new to Kent) will be incorporated into one exam. There will also be a timed essay and the whole test will be done in one day. 

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In some ways this is returning to how it was many years ago but the maths and English were separate exams then. Now, with the exams combined it means the whole test will be dealt with quickly and the children will get one sleepless night rather than two!

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The other thing which is interesting is the contractor - GL Assessment, the very people who have been producing the test papers up until now. This does give us some idea, therefore of the way in which the questions will be asked and the language the children sitting the exam will be expected to understand. A leap of faith then takes us closer to the way the test papers will be structured and people like me begin to sense what is expected even more than before.

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Escher: self portrait

What do I expect looking into the crystal ball?

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 I will expect maths up to and including level 5 with a lot of Problem Solving type questions which will be aimed at determining how the child thinks, creates strategies, organises the processes and then completes the arithmetic involved. 
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There will be algebra involved so as to determine whether the child has the ability to think abstractly and perform tasks in the language of mathematics. There will also be the standard decimals, percentages, fractions, ratio, shapes, triangles, perimeter, area, co-ordinates, graphs, averages etc.. 
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The English is going to want to be able to extract information from a written piece, know what are various forms of language such as pronouns, adverbs, statements, clauses, verbs, nouns (and the various types) etc as well as being able to create a story or factual passage which has a start a middle and an end, has good use of punctuation, uses languages to a high level, knows how to use the various skills such as paragraphing, speech, inference etc..
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What does that mean for my child?

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The work usually completed here at jobelltutoring will to a large extent remain the same with as strong emphasis on the mathematics through instruction, play and puzzles as well as raising the standards of the English through the Verbal Reasoning Manual AND, and this is a change already in force, an introduction of a stronger English/literacy element which will hopefully support what is being done in schools to raise the standards in this particular area. As you will see from some of the work created by students from last year, standards are high and the use of language, grammar and punctuation very important too.
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If you are worried about your child's standards in English, there are a  few very good books around which can support them. A very good one is by Bond and it is the 10 Minute tests in English. I like this one because it is just 10 minutes and then they are free of it. They could do one every alternate day and 10 minutes wouldn't make a very big hole in their time; I am aware of how hard it is to get children to do these tests especially English when they feel they aren't very good at it, but find a way even if to start with you do it together........some of it will be going in as long as you resist the temptation to do it all. There is a saying,
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"salience times repetition equals learning"
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Sadly when the salience is low, the repetition has to be high and when it comes to English,  this is often the case.
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