Making maths fun with Murderous Maths

As you know, Lesley-Anne struggles quite a bit with math and I must admit I'm not the most diligent mum when it comes to educational help aids. A few assessment books and work dished out occasionally (usually close to exams when panic mode sets in) is the sum total of my involvement. Ei, give extra work still must find time to mark, you know! (I'm too busy blogging and playing Prolific on Facebook... apart from that little distraction of running my own business and all).

So when I was reading my friend Lilian's blog and came across one of her older posts, Thank you Kjartan Poskitt!, I immediately felt like running out to the bookshop and buying the whole Murderous Maths series. I don't think the books will turn my kids into mathematical geniuses (I think Lilian's kids are naturally gifted in math) but I'm hoping they will at least help generate interest in the subject.

I think it's very clever how the author manages to turn seemingly intimidating math concepts into fun, everyday life applications. Lesley-Anne has a few of the Horrible Science series books and the cartoons are very engaging and concepts explained in a simple, kid-centred way. We never bought the Murderous Maths books because her interest was always in science, but she did say she has read one at her school library and it was pretty interesting. I showed her a summary of the different topics covered in each of the books in the series and she said they've practically covered all those topics in GEP. I should have introduced them earlier, then maybe she would have struggled less. Alamak, Lilian, you're showing me up as a sotong mum!

So I will probably get these books some time in the near future. With the cartoons, perhaps Andre will also be interested in them, since the only books that he's keen on reading at the moment are Tin Tin and Asterix (he told me yesterday he's Cacofonix - the noisy one - he can be quite astute, that boy!)

In the meantime, if anyone has any first-hand experience of the Kjartan Poskitt books, let me know!

UPDATE: I have since posted my evaluation of the books here.

Badminton, a Chinese coach and a sore loser

I've finally finished blogging about our family trip to Tokyo and it has brought back so many good memories that I have an urge to run out and book air tickets to Japan. Alas, not going to happen.

So for those have been patiently lurking on this blog waiting for the next post, I'm baaaack!

Every Sunday afternoon, we go to a nearby Community Centre to play badminton. It started innocently enough back in October last year when Kenneth decided to book a badminton court during a public holiday for some family fun. After the first game, the kids decided that it was rather enjoyable since they could actually hit the shuttlecock (versus tennis where it was usually a case of *swing!* kid misses the ball.... ball goes bouncing down the court... kid runs after ball... repeat 10 times... daddy starts shouting... kid declares game "not very fun". The only variation is where kid actually hits the ball but ball goes into net.)

Following that successful first badminton game, Kenneth proceeded to book the badminton court for the next Sunday and we've been playing every week since. It was clear from very early on that Andre had a natural affinity with the game. He cuts quite a comical figure on the court actually, as he's pint sized and the racket looks too long for him. Yet, after a few games, he started being able to return shots quite naturally and even winning points. By middle of this year, he was playing a decent game.

It therefore didn't come as a surprise when he came home from school all excited one day with a form and said he wanted to join the badminton CCA in his school. Although children usually join CCAs only from P3, the school badminton team wants to train school players early so they do a recuitment at P2. We let him sign up and as part of the CCA, he attends badminton training for 2 hrs once a week by a China coach.

The first few sessions were hilarious - the coach would give instructions in Mandarin and most of the kids (typically bad in Chinese coming from a mission school), would look blank. Andre actually tried to guess what the coach was telling him and did random actions like raise his arm, put his foot out, put his other foot out, hoping one of them was right. In exasperation, the coach said "I should charge all of you extra for Chinese tuition!"

It has just been 3 months of training so far, but the results are evident. Having learnt the right stance and right techniques, Andre can now play a reasonably good game and his smashes can be deadly. Here he is with a smash and follow-through.
































However, Andre is all power, less strategy. Lesley-Anne, being the ever intellectual, knows she cannot beat him at the power play so she mixes up the game with net play, which annoys Andre because he hasn't quite mastered the art of anticipating shots.

Which brings me to the point that Andre has a lot to learn when it comes to sportsmanship, ie he hasn't any. He hates to lose, full stop. Whenever he misses a shot, you can bet an excuse would come next: "The light was in my eye", "I wasn't ready", "I thought it was out".

Yesterday, we went to my sister and brother-in-law's place and they had just bought a Nintendo Wii set. Andre clammered to try it - wah, the ultimate video game! He tried out the tennis game and you should have seen the concentration and determination on his face. Every time his shot was out, his face would turn thunderous. He started moving nearer and nearer the tv screen until I was afraid he was going whack it. When it became clear that he was losing, he started shouting, "You're distracting me!" (meaning we caused him to lose lah, because we broke his concentration by breathing). He lost the game and it was time to leave, but you could see in his maniacal eyes he was dying for a re-match.

I know the prices have dropped significantly, but I don't think we will be getting a Wii set anytime soon.

The Travel Bug - my new travel blog

I haven't posted here in a couple of days because I was, guess what, busy writing another blog! *gasp* I've become a blogging monster.

That's right, I've started a travel blog. I thought it might be fun, first to capture all the experiences so I can relive the great times over again. Second, quite a few friends have asked me to share tips and views on my recent trip to Tokyo, so I thought, why not just capture it all in a blog?

So there you go. My travel blog is focused on travelling as a family, especially with kids. I don't know about other parents but holidays with kids for me is a challenge as it's hard to find a suitable destination and activities that excite everyone. So hopefully some of my experiences can help shed light. Please check it out!

You can't bring spiders to school

Before we know it, the one week school holidays is over! Lesley-Anne lamented today in dramatic fashion, "It's heart-breaking." Andre, less eloquently, "Yah lor, not fair."

So tomorrow is the start of the last term of the year. After that, Lesley-Anne would have finished her primary 5 and Andre primary 2. How time flies! Especially for Andre, I don't know whether he has matured an iota in the past year. For him, school is about friends and fun. The rest of the time in the classroom passes in a blur. Everyday when he comes home from school, I'll ask, "How was school?" His reply: "Ok." "What did you do?" Long pause. "Dunno." At most, I get an irrelevant fact: "Kelvin was not feeling well, he vomited in class." His mind automatically sieves out events or information that are unimportant to him. I still recall after his school orientation before his entry into p1, I asked him what he had learnt. He thought about it for a while and said: "I cannot bring pets to school like spiders." That was all he could remember of the entire 4-hour orientation programme.

I guess I should have seen it coming. Even in pre-school, Andre had a natural aversion to anything he deemed as "work". And we're not talking rocket science, we talking about something as simple as colouring. He would carefully lay out the picture he has to colour on his desk, take 10 minutes to do all the peripheral activities like turning on the light and looking for his coloured pencils. Then he would take another 10 minutes to arrange his coloured pencils and choose a colour (apparently a very complicated thought process). Finally when he's ready to start, he would proceed to conscientiously colour a portion of the picture... for about 5 minutes before he would heave a huge sigh and declare that he's "so tired".

Even today, whenever he has to do his homework, you can expect that after 10 minutes, he'll inexplicably need to use the bathroom. Throughout the entire process, he'll need to drink water, sharpen his pencil, find his eraser, cut his nails, and use the bathroom again. It's clockwork. Often during his Chinese tuition lesson, I can hear him trying to negotiate with the tutor, "So much! I cannot do it. How about if I do half." Every time I need to fill in a particulars form for Andre which states "Allergies", I'm tempted to write "homework".

But God is always fair. While Andre may be not wow his teachers with his academic prowess, he sure more than makes up for it in charm. Unlike his sister, he's very affectionate, always generous with the hugs and kisses and "I love you Mummy." (Yes, I am aware he may be manipulating me, sucker that I am, I always fall for it!) Aunties regularly give him sweets and tell me how cute he is. Unfortunately, he knows it too well and has no qualms about using it to his advantage, especially his grandmother whom he has wrapped around his little finger. Once, when his piano teacher, whom he calls Uncle Peter, brought him sweets, he called him "Handsome Uncle Peter".

When we were in Tokyo this year for a holiday, all the elderly aunties would turn around to look and smile at him in his Indiana Jones hat and his raccoon backpack. As they spoke Japanese among themselves, Andre said "I think they're saying I'm cute." It was probably true but still! That boy has no shame.

Well, they do say you have to work with what God gives you, so I've no doubt Andre will charm his way through life.

What's your parenting style?

I mentioned the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator in the last post as an assessment of learning styles in GEP. This basically a personality test except it's not so basic. Measured on four dichotomies (or scales), it places you in one of 16 different personality types. Everyone I know who has done the test has found it to be highly accurate. Knowing what "type" you are is very useful in many areas but the reason I'm writing a post on it is because it can be extremely helpful for parents.

Not every parent is the same, just as not every child is the same. There is no one "right" way to be an effective parent. If you understand your personality type and your child's type, you can see better how to use your strengths to cater to your child's strengths. It is definitely more productive and constructive than trying to change your personality traits or your child's!

In essence, the four dichotomies are:

Extraversion (E) vs Introversion (I)Sensing (S) vs Intuition (N)Thinking (T) vs Feeling (F)
Judging (J) vs Perceiving (P)
In each dichotomy, one letter describes you more than the other, so eventually, your personality consists of 4 letters, eg. ENTJ. 16 possibilities altogether. I did the test at a church parenting workshop and I am an INTP. What this means is I'm classified as a:

The love-of-learning mother (INTP)Intellectually curious and patient, the INTP mom relishes learning things together with her kids. Whether they're at the zoo or a store, she answers their "whys" with in-depth responses. She is objective and introspective. She listens to their questions and ideas as she would those of a peer, fostering self-esteem. Open and non-directive, she allows kids the freedom to do for themselves and quietly encourages them to believe they can. Her highest priorities for her children are independence, autonomy and intellectual development. An avid reader, she naturally imparts an appreciation and love of reading.
For the most part, this is very true. I tend to subconsciously turn everything into a learning activity. My kids were watching a Tom and Jerry cartoon on tv one day and Tom was playing a piece of music on the piano. I said, "Do you know the name of that music? It's the Blue Danube, it's a very popular waltz by Johann Strauss." And Lesley-Anne went "Mummy! We're just watching tv."

In the full personality test, it contains a much longer list of characteristics. For me, it says I value intellect, and I'm a problem-solver, I love puzzles. When Kenneth first saw my characteristics list, he exclaimed "Unbelievable!" That's because he knows I commonly stay up till 2am in the morning doing logic puzzles, something he considers really eccentric (I subscribe to Dell magazines to get my fix). Haven't you noticed that my blog so far tends to feature some learning element?

Kenneth on the other hand, is an ESTJ, which means he is a terrific administrator, always planning and organised, comfortable with well-defined boundaries and consistent routines. It explains why he is such an impatient and harsh teacher to our kids (they don't learn according to his scheduling!) Ask any of my kids and they'll rather learn from me than him any day. But since we now know our traits, I leave the administrative tasks to him, like keeping track of and paying the fees, noting down the different activities and timings the kids are scheduled for in the week, etc. Things which I never remember and are so mundane to me.

It also helps to know your child's learning style. At the parenting workshop, I learnt that clashes occur most when parent and child are very different personality types. Eg. if your child is I (Introversion), he needs time to reflect on what he has just heard or learnt. If you are an E (Extraversion), you learn by talking things out and may wrongly read your child's silence as non-understanding. While you keep explaining, your child is probably getting increasingly frustrated by the onslaught of information! What you then need to do is to give him time to be by himself and digest the information.

Lesley-Anne is a P (Perceiving) learner, which means she tends to be easily distracted and wait till the last minute to do her work. The problem is, I am also a P, which means I'm the worst possible person to help her plan (I can't tell you how many times we've scrambled about like mad hamsters the day before her project is due, with me shouting "why didn't you do this earlier??") So now, she tells her dad her deadlines and he, the efficient administrator, will plan the schedule and ensure she keeps to it. Well, at least that's the plan, it doesn't always happen. But at least we have a plan, right?

The Myers-Briggs test is not free, you have to pay to do it which is a very comprehensive series of questions. But you can find a good explanation and summary of the 16 types on the official site here. I also found an article which translates the Myers-Briggs into mothering styles, you can check out which one you fall under.

A day in the life of a GEP kid

Since there appears to be considerable interest in the Gifted Education Programme (GEP), I thought I'd share a little more about the programme itself and the curriculum, based on what Lesley-Anne has gone through over the past 1½ years.

Obviously, as you know by now, I'm generally pleased with the programme. There are many plus points, some of them being:

More individual attention
The class sizes are small - max 25, compared to 40 in the mainstream classes. This means the teacher is better able to cater to each child's needs. At the beginning of each year, the kids take a test to assess their learning styles, developed from the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. From there, the teachers and the kids know what sort of learner they are, and try to tune in to their strengths.

The teachers also look out for any problems, like inability to cope or social issues, and these kids are then sent to the GEP counsellor for help. (Although according to Lesley-Anne, most of the kids feel uncomfortable at being scrutinised and try to avoid being called in for a session). Lesley-Anne was sent to the counsellor last year because all her teachers reported her as looking "tired and sleepy" in class and were worried that she wasn't coping well. She came home and protested "but my eyes naturally look like that!"

Lots of teamwork and independent learning
Many kids find it hard to adjust initially from P3 into P4 GEP because the learning concepts and assumptions are completely different from what they were used to. Instead of focusing on learning content given by the teacher and doing copious amounts of exercises and drills to perfect their abilities, suddenly they are told to find things out for themselves. Lesley-Anne does a lot of research on the internet for practically every subject.

They also do a heck of a lot of projects. In a year, they have two English projects, one research study, a few science and math projects, and a social studies project. Some of these are individual but many are team-based. This is great preparation for teamwork. Through these projects, the kids quickly discover who the skivers are, who don't put in their fair share and who are the terrific team players. There are many phone and email exchanges between Lesley-Anne and project mates, from the research to the division of labour. I once heard her on the phone with classmate who was part of her team presenting the next day (and obviously not the most on the ball individual): "Did you write out the script? The notes are with you. I gave them to you yesterday. Are you sure you wrote it out EXACTLY? Ok, read it out to me now." (Hmm... sounds like she'll make a great mum someday.)

Focus on presentation skills
I think the GEP realises that many of these gifted kids are great thinkers but when they open their mouths, they mumble or stammer and can hardly get any point across. As we all know, in the world today, being able to speak well is terribly important. I have personally come across many people with absolutely zero substance that have managed to wrangle their way in life by being eloquent and convincing speakers, while their brainy but reticent colleagues are being glossed over.

Presentations are a huge part of the GEP curriculum. Most of the projects require presentations in front of the class. This needs not only preparation of the script but also accompanying props like powerpoint presentations, models and sometimes even role-play. Last term, all the P5 GEP kids had to undergo a compulsory six-week course on public speaking. For Lesley-Anne, this focus is very beneficial and has enabled her to come out of her shell (somewhat).

These are the plus points. There are also not-so-plus points in the programme. (Of course there are! What, did you think it was all sugar and spice and all things nice?) I wouldn't say these are disadvantages per se, they are more like trade-offs, which come hand in hand with what the GEP is trying to achieve.

Long, long hours
This is inevitable, I guess. With all that they're trying to teach the kids, you're not going to be able to fit everything within half a day. Lesley-Anne has lessons on average till 3.30pm three days a week. On top of that, they often have ad-hoc additional activities, like the public speaking course or service learning (giving tuition to younger kids) which takes up another day. Once you throw in the compulsory CCA, they're basically clocking eight hours in school almost every weekday. This can be tough on the kids, especially as most Singapore children don't just go to school, they still have to fit in other outside activities like piano lessons, ballet lessons, sports, etc. And not to mention, homework. (Of course they have homework!)

Less practice in mainstream topics
The breadth and depth of subjects explored under the GEP is truly mind-boggling. Lesley-Anne tells me she learns things in maths like Fibonacci numbers and Pascal's triangle. I know there are some very conscientious GEP parents out there who will then quickly rush to research these and give extra coaching to their kids. I'm not one of them. I go "huh?" and then "as long as you understand what the teacher is saying." The only time I googled these words was two minutes ago, to provide the links above, haha.

It also means that less time is spent teaching mainstream topics, which are tested at the PSLE. So if your child is not as fast to catch on in certain subjects, like Lesley-Anne with maths, he or she might have a problem when it comes to the national exams. Although the teachers did assure me that they devote an entire term in P6 just coaching for the PSLE. So we'll see.

Funnily enough though, Lesley-Anne finds it less pressurising in GEP than in mainstream. I realise this statement is contentious and not necessarily true for all GEP kids, but this is just from her experience. In the mainstream classes at her school, the children are ranked by class and standard in their report books. From P3 onwards, they are streamed each year by classes according to these rankings. What happens then is there is the inadvertent pressure, usually by parents, for the kids to get into the better classes or to achieve a higher ranking. When Lesley-Anne was in the top class for P3, she felt the pressure of not falling behind and it was very demoralising for her when she performed less than stellar in her mid-year exams.

In the GEP, there are no rankings. Last year, the kids were asked to list the pros and cons of GEP. One child wrote (for pro): "No need to get first in class!" (Parents, what are you doing to your kids??) There is only the prerequisite baseline that the kids need to meet, 70/100 for all subjects except English which is 65/100. Even then, if the child doesn't meet the baseline, he or she gets sent to the counsellor and is helped to improve. They consider all other factors, including attitude, which is regarded as more important than the actual grades.

Overall, I find that the camaraderie among the GEP kids is strong, partly because of the class size. I think the removal of the competitive aspect helps.

Specs for Andre - carrots don't help!

Today, we brought Andre to the optometrist and alas, he needs glasses (those darn computer games!) In March, he was diagnosed with myopia but only 25 degrees, so we put off making the specs. In six months, it has shot up to 100 degrees. Makes you wonder how he managed to see the whiteboard in class. (Hmm... might explain why he keeps "forgetting" his teacher's instructions.)

We were trying to hold off for as long as we can. Afterall, Kenneth has perfect eyesight (even though he spent his childhood glued to the tv). I, on the other hand, was blind as a bat. Not any more, thanks to the miracle called Lasik! The first week after I got "Lasiked", I kept walking around in a state of wonder, annoying everyone around me by saying "hey, I can see the time! I can see right over there! I can see in the dark!" I was still instinctively pushing up the non-existent specs on the bridge of my nose, a habit cultivated from almost three decades of myopia.

Anyway, both our kids went to the ophthalmologist to check for myopia, something I highly recommend to all parents. You might think that it's a simple procedure, checking if a kid is short-sighted, any optician should be able to do so, right? WRONG. When Lesley-Anne was in P1, I suspected she was myopic as she kept squinting in front of the tv. When we did a basic eye check at the GP (using the usual eye chart), she was not able to read some of the letters that a regular 6/6 should.

However, since Kenneth had an ex-schoolmate who was an ophthalmologist at the Singapore National Eye Centre, we thought we should just do a proper check. Thank God we did. Lesley-Anne was found, surprisingly, not to be short-sighted but slightly long-sighted, which according to the doc, was normal for kids her age as the eyeballs are still developing. She didn't have to wear glasses and managed to maintain this until end of last year when at her annual check at SNEC, she was finally found to have myopia. If she had just gone to an optician at P1, she most definitely would have been prescribed glasses, which would have caused the degree to rise every year. As it was, we managed to delay it for five years. Today, she's only about 75 degrees myopic.


The difference is in the diagnostic tests. At the optician's, they rely on the eye chart and the machine where you rest your chin and they look into your eyes. Apparently, this alone is not very accurate especially for very young kids. At the eye doc, they do these two tests first, then they dilate the pupils and do another series of eye chart tests. This is so that the eye muscles are relaxed and the true vision can be checked.

In March, when Andre had finished the first two tests, I thought he was a goner as he couldn't even see the very large letters. The preliminary result was that he was short-sighted by about 100 degrees. Then after the dilation and final tests, he was found to be only 25 degrees myopic. The doc explained that the muscles in his eyeballs contract involuntarily, making him seem more short-sighted than he actually is. Again, I would never have found this out at an optician's. Makes me wonder how many young kids were put in glasses at an early stage when they didn't really need them!

Anyhow, Andre really needs glasses this time and I can predict that it's going to be a hassle making him look after them. I had a coupon from a magazine for a $49.90 pair of glasses from Optic Point and we went straight there to make them, with the prescription from SNEC. When choosing the frames, the guy at the shop was saying we could top up the difference if we wanted a more expensive frame and I kept insisting "I'm not topping up! We'll choose from the available price range." Knowing Andre, the glasses have a high likelihood of being broken, bent or lost within a month. And from experience, he'll need new glasses with higher degrees within six months anyway, so he's just getting the basic! I'm a cheap mum! Doesn't he look just like Chicken Little in this pic?

My new nickname for him, inspired by one of his favourite Ben 10 characters "Four Arms", is "Four Eyes". He thinks it's hilarious.

Maths and a girl who's afraid of failure

An old school friend of mine, Lilian, just linked me up to her blog. Like me, she has two kids and her elder child, Brian, was actually in the same school and level as Lesley-Anne in P1 (we also lived in the same condominium). Brian was accepted into the GEP but switched to ACS, although the whole family was already by then not in Singapore. Lilian's husband works for SIA and they were stationed in Germany, London, and now in exotic Moscow. Borsch soup, anyone?

Lilian is amazing, she flew Brian back all the way from London back then just so he could sit for the GEP tests. And her instincts were right, he was accepted into the programme. Lilian thinks I'm a laid-back mum, but actually, I'm more kan-cheong than she thinks (how to be in Singapore and not be kan-cheong??) True, I don't do extensive research on the GEP, talk to GEP parents and find out which school is more stressful than others (naively, I thought they were all the same, afterall they all use the same syllabus, right?) It is also true that I think the GEP kids are well looked after and don't need their every step to be supervised by parents.

But having said that, the GEP is a demanding programme. I may have inadvertently given the impression that if the kids are gifted, they will sail through. Let me kill that assumption right now. It is a curriculum designed to challenge and like all challenging tasks, it requires a lot of work.

I mentioned before that not all gifted kids can ace every academic subject equally. Lesley-Anne's strength is in her languages. As a child, she learnt to read on her own. I was a young, blur mum who pretty much thought kids should be left to play, so never deliberately went about trying to teach her. All I did was read to her a lot, which she enjoyed. From there, she picked it up, plus learnt a little in pre-school (very little, that school was a disorganised mess which frequently were missing teachers for months at a go). Stupid me therefore took it for granted that was how every child learnt to read and was genuinely surprised when Andre came along and had to be taught everything! In school, Lesley-Anne always enjoyed English and composition. By P2, her grammar was better than her teacher's, she was pointing out the mistakes to me. Again, it wasn't taught, she just had an intuitive grasp of languages. Her chinese is not as good since we don't use it at home, but she still manages to do reasonably well.

For Lesley-Anne, her Achilles' heel is maths. While she is able to grasp basic concepts pretty quickly, she often struggles with application, especially when the sums require a different outlook or a less obvious application of the concept. This is compounded by the fact that she tends to make a lot of careless mistakes. Ok, I know ALL kids make careless mistakes. But I do believe she makes way more than what is to be expected. Her term 2 maths exam this year was the worst to date. She flunked the test and scored one of the lowest in the entire cohort of GEP kids. When I saw the paper, I flipped. Every other mistake was a careless one, as basic as "7+8=10". The others were just concepts that went over her head. Granted, they were doing things like permutations and computations, topics that I learnt only in Maths C at 'A' levels, but still, like all Singaporean parents, I was concerned that she couldn't even pass the paper. By the way, in GEP, the base mark is 70/100, which means that is the standard you should try to meet for all subjects to stay in the programme. (They don't kick you out if you don't, but it's a guideline to assess how you're doing). For this test, Lesley-Anne didn't even hit 50.

So at the parent-teacher review (they have this twice a year), I brought up my concerns to her math teacher. Her teacher admitted being surprised at the result as she seems to perform ok in class. His observation was that she might not be "focusing" and that she blanks out during the exam, as some kids do. Following that, I had a long chat with Lesley-Anne about her frame of mind during the exam and it was very enlightening. I realised that she had a phobia of maths, fueled by her sub-par performance in the past. Lesley-Anne is very much a perfectionist, she doesn't like to attempt things that she feels she may not be good at. Once, in school, the kids were told to say what they were afraid of. She stood up and said: "I'm afraid of failure." (I do see the value of her recognising the problem, but still, it did perturb me to hear this from a 10-year-old...)

Anyway, I digress. So it turned out that because she feared maths and didn't like it, everytime she sat for a math paper, she would be extremely nervous. This would affect her concentration and ironically, cause her greatest fear to come true - that she would do badly.

It was like a lightbulb was switched on in my head. From then, I started to work on her psyche, trying to raise her self-belief and confidence. In the past during the holidays, I would sometimes give her some assessments to do, to help build her skills. We would usually both end up frustrated because the tests would be riddled with careless mistakes. This time, instead of giving her a whole section or paper, I asked her to do two sums. The first time I did that, her eyes lit up. "Just two?" And instead of the usual grumble, she shot off to do the two sums. Both came back correct. The next day, I gave her another two sums. And so this went on for most of the holidays, by which I had increased the sums to six.

I found that without the daunting prospect of having to finish a whole section, and having it broken down into manageable bits, she could wrap her mind around the problems. She also made much fewer mistakes and everytime she got them right, I would shower her with more encouragement and praise. At the recent 3rd term test, she scored 39/50 and told me she liked those topics. It's still only an average mark in the class but I think it has been a tremendous achievement on her part to overcome not only the intellectual but also the psychological hurdle.

It's still early days yet and it requires LOTS of patience, but we're taking it one step at a time.

How to tell if your child is intellectually gifted

This is a follow-up of the post I wrote on my experience as a parent of a child in the Singapore Gifted Education Programme (GEP). Crucial to effectiveness of the programme is whether the child is truly gifted, which of course, begs the question, "how do I know if my child is gifted?"

First, I want to state up front that the info I have is mostly taken from this book "A Parent's Guide to Gifted Children" by Webb, Gore, Amend and DeVries. This is truly an exceptional book - it is a must-have for all parents of gifted kids. It's well-researched and answered all the questions I had clearly and comprehensively. I've read other books on gifted kids, but none even came close to matching this one - it gets the gold star.

Some basic information (and common misconceptions):

There are many types of giftedness.
Gift in the arts, in sports, in leadership, etc. For purposes of the GEP, we are refering specifically to the intellectually gifted. However, while as a group, these kids have high IQs, they are not necessarily super in every academic subject.

Giftedness is generally inborn.
In other words, you're either gifted or you're not. However, environment does play a role. A supportive and nurturing environment up to the ages of 7 or 8 can increase IQ scores of 20 points or even more. But generally, test scores for giftedness will remain pretty much stable by the time the child is 8. Because of this, the recommended age for intelligence tests in schools is 8 or 9, otherwise time would have been wasted with gifted kids having their talents unidentified and untapped (The Singapore MOE has probably read all the research, that's why they do the GEP tests in P3!)

Being gifted and being "smart" is not the same thing.
People have often argued that the GEP is discriminatory because there are late bloomers who do pretty well later on in life. I think this arises because there is a confusion between being gifted and being smart. It's probably safe to say that all gifted children are smart, but not all smart children are gifted. Research shows that in general, about 1% of each cohort is intellectually gifted. Again, MOE follows this closely, the top 1% of each P3 cohort who take the selection tests are offered the GEP.

Those are the basic parameters. So we go back to the question, "how do I know if my child is gifted?" Here are but some of the common characteristics as listed in the book mentioned above, and my own experience with Lesley-Anne (ala how I was finally convinced she's gifted).

1) Strong verbal abilities from a young age. Many gifted kids start talking and reading early. Some on the other hand, start later but when they do, it's with astonishing maturity and complexity. Lesley-Anne didn't speak until she was way over 2 years old, but then she spoke in whole sentences and her understanding of instructions was very good even at age 1. In pre-school, her teacher commented that she "spoke like an adult". Gifted kids also usually have large vocabularies and can distinguish between similar words like "angry" or "irritated".

2) Overactive imagination and creativity. Gifted kids tend to like experimenting and can flit from one interest to another. They can live in an imaginary world with imaginary friends and imaginary pets. When she was 5, Lesley-Anne told me she had a new best friend in school called Sally. I got curious when she told me Sally was the same height, same weight, had the same haircut as her. I called the school and found out there was no such person!

3) Extreme sensitivity and intensity. This one really hit home when I read about it. I was despairing over Lesley-Anne because she was truly the most sensitive child I had ever come across. Every word could be deemed a criticism. She would be hurt by seemingly harmless gestures and any sort of unfairness would cause an intense reaction. When she was about 3 and watching Bambi on video, she burst into tears when Bambi's mother was shot and kept asking me why the hunter had to shoot her. From then, everytime she watched the cartoon, she would fast forward that scene. Even today, when she has learned to reign her emotions better, I would get comments from her piano teacher: "Aiyoh, just told her what she played wrong and the tears started flowing! I can't bring myself to scold her."

4) Super learning ability and memory. The difference between gifted and smart children are that while both can learn new things quickly, the smart child tends to learn age-appropriate things. Gifted children, on the other hand, have been known to grasp concepts way beyond their years. One of Lesley-Anne's classmates had finished reading Tolkien's Lord of the Rings several times over by age 9 and at 10, was poring over adult astronomy reference books. They also tend to have great memories. I remember watching Jumanji on tv with Lesley-Anne when she was 7. Before the next scene, she would tell me what would happen and even spout the exact words the actor would say. All this she remembered from watching the show ONCE when she was 4.

5) Need for reasoning and rationality. Gifted children tend to question everything and they need to have answers that satisfy their intelligence. The worst possible thing I can say to Lesley-Anne when she questions my instruction is: "Because I said so." This sort of autocratic answer with no logic upsets her, she needs to see the reasoning behind it. Once, she accidentally scalded her fingers on hot soup. When the pain had not abated after putting ice on her fingers, I offered to give her a dose of paracetamol. She immediately asked to know how paracetamol would work since it was to her, a medicine for fever. When I said it numbed the pain sensors, she questioned how it would know to numb the ones in her fingers and not anywhere else. All this while she was in pain. Basically, gifted kids are unlikely to take anything at face value, they will question you to death if necessary.

There are several other characteristics, but it would be too long to list everything. This is a summarised version. If you want to know more, I really recommend you get the book!

Finally, I just want to stress that giftedness is a blessing. If your child has it, embrace it. But he cannot claim credit for it anymore than a child born into a rich family can boast about having earned his wealth. And at the end of the day, it's not about possession but what you do with the giftedness that counts.

One parent's experience with the Gifted Education Programme

My daughter, Lesley-Anne, now in P5, is in the Gifted Education Programme (GEP). When she first got the news 2 years ago, I was truly surprised and had some misgivings. She had generally done well in school, but I had always attributed it to her being conscientious and hardworking. The GEP doesn't have a great rep and like many other parents, I had heard horror stories about how the kids turn out to be elitist brats, how some kids can't cope with the syllabus and become overly stressed, etc.

So my husband and I tried to find out more (we weren't given a lot of time, basically about a week to decide). The MOE talk was very enlightening. It gave a lot of info on what the programme tries to achieve and why it was necessary to create a different type of education for this group of children. We thought it sounded quite promising, but we left the decision to Lesley-Anne, and told her we would support her whatever she decided. She decided to give it a try. And we knew that if it really became too much to take, she could always opt out of the programme and return to the mainstream curriculum. There wasn't too much upheaval as her school offered the GEP anyway.

So two years on, what are my thoughts? I would say unequivocally, it was the best thing that could have happened to Lesley-Anne in terms of education. Before GEP, she was a painfully shy, introverted child afraid of taking a wrong step. In P3, she was in the top class in the school, but she was miserable because it focused on drills and exercises, all designed to sharpen the exam skills. She was never remotely near the top of the class, in fact in one exam, she came in 4th from the bottom.

Today, she enjoys school because the work is focused on exploring concepts beyond the normal curriculum. For example, they examine patterns in maths, the historial evolution of maths in different empires. Projects feature greatly, instead of say, just going through grammatical skills, they have to do analyses of different genre types and even try to write them. For instance, this term, Lesley-Anne had to write a detective story after reading mystery books and discovering the unique aspects of this genre. The emphasis is on discovery, not on exams, which explains why GEP kids don't always have the top scores in the PSLE. She has also opened up considerably because the programme encourages expression. Although she's still an introvert, she's much more confident and is better able to express her thoughts.

Oftentimes, I feel the views on GEP are very blinked. Parents who have all their kids in the programme tend to laud it, parents without tend to slam it. Many views are given with very little knowledge or just anecdotal evidence which supports what they want to believe. I have one child in the programme and another whose chances of getting in are as good as winning the $3.2 million lottery. So I do feel I have at least some objectivity in this. I don't believe one programme is superior to the other, it should be, let me stress this, according to the needs and abilities of the child.

So here's my take on the GEP:

1) It is not a programme just to make smart kids smarter. The GEP is a programme which caters to the learning needs of the intellectually gifted child. It is like a sports regime tailored to suit a kid talented in sports. Or an arts programme for artistically inclined kids. The ambiguity arises because "intellectually gifted" tends to be associated with "smart" so people commonly mistake it as a special, intensive booster programme. Ironically, the same people who tend to call the programme elitist are the same ones who will turn around and criticise it when the kids don't top the PSLEs to say it has failed. It hasn't. It simply isn't the goal of the GEP. If you want your kid in the programme because you think it's an enhanced tuition programme for 4 A*s, then think again.

2) It is not for everyone. The majority of gifted kids do enjoy the programme, mainly because it is specially designed for them. But the caveat is that the kid needs to be truly gifted. While I think the sorting tests are quite reliable, I do believe it does occasionally slips in a few kids who are "smart" but not gifted. Because it has been shown that you can improve your scores slightly if you do a lot of these types of tests (not much but maybe enough to squeak by). If the child is not really gifted, the programme can be a nightmare simply because the concepts it teaches can be completely beyond the child's ability to assimilate. Again, this sort of ability is mostly inborn, it can't be taught. It took me a while to be convinced that Lesley-Anne was not just "smart" but gifted. I will elaborate on the differences of the two concepts in another post.

3) The programme will not determine how your child will turn out. The GEP has been blamed for churning out elitist snobs. My take on it is, it's a combination of factors. If you keep telling your child how wonderful she is because she's in the programme, treat her like a special jewel better than other kids and wait on her hand and foot, of course she's going to be a brat! Don't need to be a psychic to know that. Under the GEP, the students have to do a service learning project every year. Lesley-Anne has given tuition to P2 kids (with worksheets that she prepared), and prepare math lessons in a group to teach other classes. Studies have shown that upon adulthood, a higher percentage of ex GEP kids continue serving the community as compared to their mainstream counterparts.

What I like about Lesley-Anne's school is that although it has a great academic reputation, it's still a neighbourhood school in the heartlands. No hordes of merces or beamers, many kids cycle or walk to school. (This is not a judgement against other schools, this is just my personal observation and preference). I have met parents of GEP kids who are simply obnoxious - they adopt an attitude of entitlement and behave like everyone else is beneath them. With parents like that, it's not hard to see why some children turn out the way they do.

I just want to stress again that as parents, it's important to do the usual check as with any other child - check out the friends they hang out with, the type of activities they do and so on. Keep them grounded.