In this blog post, we will try to understand the role of parents in preparing a kid for selective tests.
To go the path of selective or not is a highly debatable topic and is discussed in another blog post. Hence if you are reading this article, chances are that you are already on the path of preparing your kid for selective school test.
- Relying solely on a tuition center or a tutor is generally not a good thing when preparing for selective tests.
- Parents should sit with the kid and try to do each and every question in selective school practice test with them.
- This way you work as a team rather than checking the status in a random manner when a child is preparing for selective tests.
- Many times you will find that the kid does not even understand the question. Some of the examples are questions involving “Spring balance” “Clock Tower” “Buying liquid in bulk and putting in smaller bottles” “Profit and loss questions” and “Renting a car in the airport and returning back to the rental company” “Mortgage payments” “Instalment payment”, there are millions of such examples in selective sample test.
- Hence as per the above comment, the duty of the parent is to find out such concepts and explain them to the kid with examples so that they are able to understand the context of the questions.
- Merely dropping and picking up a kid from a tuition center will not do anything unless the parent is fully involved in the selective school test preparation with the kid.
- In case you are doing prep from a book let’s say “Maths 1000” is the name of the book. Instead of working out the answers on a page, try to do it on a proper copy so that once you finish these 1000 questions, you can mark 200 which were wrongly done, and then next time you only do those 200 questions and then next time only 100 wrong ones. Doing on a copy will have full traceability. On the last day of the prep, you can focus on the most difficult 50 questions of the selective school practice test from the book.
- Make proper copies for all the workings so that full traceability is there.
- Make a separate copy which is called a cheat sheet, in this copy just write down only the concepts that you can revisit each week and on the last day of the prep.
- When you prepare with the kid, you will see very funny queries. Below are a few examples.
x-1=10 When -1 goes to the other side, why does it become +1?
Why 2*(a+b) is 2a + 2b.
Why 1+3/4=4 is not 1+ 3=16
These are very basic algebra questions, but you will find that the kid may not be able to understand it and needs you to answer WHY?
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- For English, you will find that the kids lack creativity and lack of content. Just think about what their childhood is like. Go to school, watch youtube, eat, and sleep. There is no life experience and no rich content with them, no memories, no creative content so they are bound to struggle in English writing. Try to watch meaningful movies with them. Something related to “Superhero characters” “Everest or mountain climbing” “volcano” “tornado” “Living isolated on an island – Castaway” or “going to the moon”. Try to enhance their life skills by watching such rich content movies.
- Try to share your life experiences with them.
For example “When you were a kid, there was no fridge and you used to buy ice from a factory and then had to put that ice in a jar of water to make the water cooler for few hours”
“When you were a kid, there were no mobiles, no tv and how did you pass your time”
“Or what do you think will happen in the future 50 years from now”
- For thinking skills, try to discuss what is a strengthening statement, and a weakening statement, and how are conclusions done for an argument. How are questions worked out? For example, if one has to buy 12 bottles of soap, if shop A sells them for 5 aud each and gives a 5% discount, shop B sells them for 5 AUD and gives a 10% discount, and so on. Then how to find the cheapest shop.
- Going to thinking skills, one very good trick is A->B, then B does not lead to A, but not B is not A. For example, “If a postman comes, I will open the door” does not mean “If I open the door, then the postman has come because a neighbor might have come instead” or “But if I haven’t opened the door, that clearly means that the postman hasn’t come”.
- Focus on accuracy first rather than time when preparing for selective tests.
- Then later focus on accuracy and time.
- Few questions require just common sense. Show them how to use common sense.
- If you have a private tutor, try to have visibility into it. Merely dropping the kid off to some tutor where the tutor is doing household work and the kid is doing some random questions sitting alone will not help.
- Ask a lot of questions to the tutor of selective tests, try to get insights, have monthly catchup with the teachers, and tuition centers, and try to get feedback regarding your kid so that you can take timely corrective action.
- Tell them that 1234453123 multiply by 123456, they don’t have to do the whole calculation, any answer that ends with 8 is the answer. Select it and move on.
- Preparing for selective tests is roughly 18 months program and the sooner a parent starts it, the better.
- Try to enroll the kid into some sort of active sports so that they become more active, less lazy, and have fast reflexes.
One great benefit of preparing for selective tests regardless of the outcome is that at a very young age, the kid learns that to get anything worthwhile takes a long consistent resilient effort. Also, it strengthens the bond between the kid and the parent and also prepares the kid for high school.
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Disclaimer: Articles in this blog are just the author’s or authors’ personal opinions.
It may or may not be correct. Please do your own due diligence and seek professional advice according to your own personal circumstances. The author or authors cannot be held responsible/liable for any content in this blog.
*all images are for illustration purposes only
