Budding Authors Give New Twists to Fairy Tales

September 25, 2009

What if Cinderella had a fairy godfather instead of a fairy godmother? If you believe the pupils from Kranji Primary School, well, she would have made a grand entrance at the ball in a gleaming Ferrari chauffeured by former Formula One world champion Michael Schumacher.

Or what happens if one of her glass slippers flew off and hit the prince's head - and he fainted? Perhaps, the pupils say, she panics and brings him home and hides him in a secret room to care for him - but might be arrested for kidnapping!

Delightful and ingenious, these are just a sampling of the many interesting twists that these came up with to spice up various fairy tales and fables as part of "The Book Experience" - an integrated project work assignment combining the subjects of English and Art for Pri 3 pupils.

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Winning Over Young Readers to Great Books

December 18, 2008

What are a centipede, a spider, a grasshopper, a silkworm, a ladybug and a glowworm doing on the classroom table at Casuarina Primary School? Don't worry - these creepy-crawlies are just cardboard characters created by pupils after they devoured Roald Dahl's children classic, James and the Giant Peach. And don't be surprised to see the pupils wearing funny top hats with colourful stripes while they pore over their books, for they are simply following the footsteps of the over-the-top feline in D. Seuss's tongue-twister, The Cat in the Hat. Thanks to the school's literature book club CCA especially for Pri 1 and Pri 2 pupils, even children who recently learnt English are reading and writing with gusto.

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LSCs Partner Teachers To Boost Reading Skills

October 17, 2008

My pupils can’t spell the polysyllabic words on their spelling list! My pupils can read, but they don’t understand what they’re reading!

These frustrations are common amongst teachers and parents with children who struggle, for a variety of reasons, to read with fluency and comprehension like the rest of their peers. These children seem “lost” in regular English language classes and unresponsive to teaching methods that work well with their peers. While the teachers might have the desire and conviction to provide these children with additional reading support, many are not sure how they should go about doing so.

For about 100 teachers, a solution emerged at the recent MOE ExCEL Fest, where Reading Officers from the Psychological Services Branch, MOE, teamed up with Learning Support Coordinators (LSCs) from six primary schools to share effective strategies for helping weak readers in lower primary.

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Visit the iCTLT exhibition!

July 23, 2008

From virtual world storytelling to electronic progress reports, schools in Singapore are using the latest in IT to take creative learning up to the next level. Parents keen on finding out more will have the perfect opportunity to do so next month. At the upcoming International Conference on Teaching and Learning with Technology (iCTLT), an exhibition open to the public will showcase some of the best education practices found in this digital-learning age. Schoolbag takes a quick preview of what some schools will be showing off during the exhibition from 5 to 6 August 2008 at Suntec International Convention and Exhibition Centre.

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A Sneak Peek at ExCEL Fest

June 23, 2008

Want to see what school life is like today, without having to step inside a school? Come to MOE’s annual ExCEL Fest on Saturday, 5 July, where there’ll be over 80 exhibition booths by schools showcasing their most creative teaching and learning activities. Classroom Experience activities will also allow visitors to sit in on simulated lessons, experiencing for themselves how innovative lessons are conducted today. Here’s a sneak preview of what some schools will be presenting at ExCEL Fest 2008 at the Suntec International Convention and Exhibition Centre.

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Words, Sounds and Books Give a Boost to Literacy

April 3, 2008

The word “television” is taped on the TV set, and around the living room, you see identification labels with “sofa”, “book shelf”, “window” and “curtains”. Step into the kitchen and there are more labels for “dining table”, “refrigerator”, “larder” and so on. This is Tim’s home and today he’s able to rattle off each name easily. But the situation was very different when he first entered Pri 1 a year ago. Then, he could barely read, and would stare in silence when a flash card was shown to him. How did Tim improve his reading skills so quickly?

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Teaming Up to Help Pupils Read Better

September 12, 2007

Adults may take the ability to read for granted, but it doesn’t always come easily to children just starting out in formal education. For primary school teachers who come across pupils who face problems with reading, there’s a certain urgency in wanting to help them before they get so demoralised that they give up on school altogether.

Enter the Learning Support Coordinators (LSCs), a specially trained group of teachers who carry out reading intervention strategies to help weak readers close the gap in their learning.

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“HoM” for Better Reading and Writing

August 8, 2007

Hear the phrase “reading comprehension exercise” and you’ll probably remember having to read quietly on your own. The scene can’t be more different at Changkat Primary School: here, when a teacher instructs a Pri 5 class to begin reading their comprehension text, the silence in the air is immediately broken by the pupils’ mutterings and the teacher doesn’t try to shush them at all. Why all the buzz? The pupils are actually thinking aloud - some pupils are asking themselves questions, others are trying to answer their own and all of them are also diligently drawing symbols on the text. This may seem peculiar, but they’re simply applying the reading strategies taught to them as part of the school’s “Habits of Mind” (HoM) programme.

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