[Review] Vitamin M Let's Score! PSLE Chinese Listening Comprehension Practice

 

https://vitaminm.sg/product/pslechineselisteningcompre/

Newly released Vitamin M PSLE Chinese Listening Comprehension Practice.

This package consists of 5 practices, each practice consists of 7 passages and 10 questions.  First 2 sets are thoughtfully broken down into smaller parts for practice, and 3 sets designed like an actual exam.

Suitable for P5 & P6 students.

The practices are arranged in the order of difficulty. I have tried all the questions myself and find some questions really tricky. Practice 5 is the hardest and you really have to listen and consider each option carefully. I appreciate how the questions are designed and believe with more practice, students can improve on the listening skills and get the difficult questions right.

It is priced reasonably at $15 so it's definitely worth every cent!

Here's a sample you can listen to get a feel of it.

Also, remember to check out their best selling PSLE Chinese Video Oral Practice -- review here.

Price is $38, and you get to enjoy additional $5 OFF if you use this promo code SGPSCH5

[Review] Vitamin M Let’s Score! PSLE Chinese Video Oral Practice

 Vitamin M had recently launched their new product, Let’s Score! PSLE Chinese Video Oral Practice 一起考好！PSLE 录像口试练习 

Features included:

– 10 High Quality Video Oral Exam Questions

– Suggested Video Answers for modelling

– 10 Reading Passages with Teacher’s Reading Sample

– Interactive Vocabulary Practice Related to Oral Topics

– Downloadable Notes to Revise Answering Techniques

– Discount code to book mock oral sessions

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The 2 things I'm most worried about for J exams -- oral and compo. 😬 I have been trying my best to source for suitable resources to help her. 

Last year, I signed her up for Vitamin M's Vitamin Hour. The package came with 1 hour online lesson + 2 interactive videos (GamiStory) per week. During the lesson, teacher would guide the students on how to tackle oral questions among other things like watching videos and playing vocab games. She had so much fun attending the lessons and playing games and competing with her classmates!  I also introduced the course to my friends and all the feedback were positive!

The interactive videos (GamiStory) are of high quality and the contents and concepts are so interesting! I always watch them together with J because I enjoyed as much as she did. Side note, if you are keen on the GamiStory, they do have a package with GamiStory alone without the online lessons.

Now that I've tried out this new oral package, I can't wait to show J! As with the GamiStory, the videos in this oral package are interactive and of quality. Although the fun element is sort of reduced (because, how fun can a oral topic be? 😅 ), I can see that it is a useful tool to help the children in tackling oral questions.

There are 10 lessons in total, all the common oral topics which have high chance of coming out in exam. E.g., 公路安全， 环保，公德心   Sharing some screenshots of the first lesson here to show you how it looks like:

Every lesson begins with a passage for reading. There is a feature for you to record your own reading. Playback and listen to your own recording helps to identify problem areas.

Following that, you can play the video of teacher's reading sample. The sentence being read is highlighted accordingly.

Next will be the video of the oral topic.

Tips and answering technique is shown here, that can help you to form your own answer.

Now, this is the part I like most. For each of the questions, there will be a video that shows teacher asking student questions, and student answering the teacher. I believe this will help our children to visualize oral exam settings better, and to get used to the questions and answers. The feeling of reading model answers from text, compared to listening to the model answers coming from a child of similar age is very different.

The record feature is here as well, so that you can do a comparison and see if you missed out anything.

And of course, what is Vitamin M without some games and fun? The last section is a game that requires you to match the English definition to the correct Chinese term.

Second part of the game is slightly harder, which is to click on the words to form the Chinese term of the given English definition. Remember to scroll down further if you can't find the word you are looking for.

The lesson ends with a colourful PDF lesson notes. Although some of the pages are wordy (which is actually necessary), I think it's a great tool for parents who are helping the children to practise for their oral exams.

Price is $38, which I feel is very reasonable for such a unique package! 

And, you get to enjoy additional $5 OFF if you use this promo code SGPSCH5

Upon signing up, you get a discount code ($15 off) if you would like to sign up for their 45mins 1-to-1 mock oral session.

[Review] SG Primary App

 UPDATE: It seems like they are no longer in operation. But I have found another platform that works better and faster -- Pitaya Check out my review on the platform, or head over to sign up a free account. Yes they are totally FREE!

Let's talk about SG Primary app!!

Do note that this sgprimaryschool.com is not affiliated to SG Primary.  😊

I am referring to...

It's an app that provides top primary schools exam paper questions, in a quiz format -- automarking the MCQ and fill in the blank questions. Some of the questions comes with explanations too (pretty sure they are working on that to provide more explanations and solutions).

They have 3 types of plans, Basic Plan, Plus Plan, and Pro Plan, ranging from $29.98/year to $89.98/year.

You can also play (with limitations) as Guest without having to sign up or login.

It used to be a free app, and I had been using it for 1-2 years prior. When they rolled out the paid plans, being a Kiasu mum, I signed up for the Pro Plan. And here's my review:

(Although it is an app, it actually has a web version, and I am taking the screenshots for this post using the web version. Weirdly, they don't link to their web version on their homepage, but here it is, the link to the web version: https://sgprimary.org/convert-account)

What I like about the app

It's an app! I travel with J on public transport quite a bit (to go to enrichment classes), when she request for some screen time, I will ask her to do some questions on SG Primary. If I bring extra phone with me, we will do the questions separately and challenge our scores.

All the questions done and the results are tracked, so you can revisit them again, especially the wrong ones.

It also provides performance tracking reports

Honestly, I have never really looked at the reports. Because all I wanted is for J to do the questions. Depending on your needs, it may or may not be a useful feature. But I like it because it's a visual representation of what has been done. 

What I don't like about the app

It crashes pretty often. It gets very frustrating when you are half way through the questions and then it crashes. The app just closes by itself and you lost whatever you were doing. So I will not encourage you to set your number of questions more than 10 per session. In fact, 5 questions will be a safer bet.

Another thing that I hope they can improve on is the errors. I don't fault them because it is really a lot of questions and options to work on. 

Minor typos are ok as we can figure it out. But there was one questions that made us scratch our heads recently. 

It says correct answer is "hammers". J asked me why and I couldn't answer her because I don't know what "hammers more energy from the sun" means.

My English is not exactly good, so I thought it was my problem. I googled for the definition of "hammer" and still didn't understand why "hammers" would be an answer for this question.

Finally, I went to download the actual past year paper, and realised that the word was not "hammers" but "harness". 😂 I have reported the error a week ago but it's still not updated. We shall see.

Apart from that, I think it's a pretty helpful app, especially for people like us who are on the go. It saves the hassle of marking the physical paper. 

Should my child take up Higher Chinese?

We have almost come to the end of term 4. Our kids are currently getting back their exam results, and for some of the parents with Primary 4 kids, there's one decision to make..

Should my child take up Higher Chinese at Primary 5?

I have compiled a list of  P1-P6 Chinese vs Higher Chinese 识写字 (words they are required to know how to WRITE) . Just click on the link or image below, it will bring you to the download page.  

[DOWNLOAD]

And the gif below shows the difference between Chinese and Higher Chinese at each level.

*number of words required to know how to write

Do note that the above are only 识写字 words that they are required to know how to WRITE only, NOT inclusive of the words that the are required to know how to READ.

For P1 to P4, the amount of 识读字 (words students need to know how to READ) is the same for both Chinese and Higher Chinese.  For P1 to P3 识写字, the difference is not significant.

At P4 and P5, students taking Higher Chinese are required to know how to READ and WRITE much more words than students taking standard Chinese. Therefore there will be a learning gap to bridge for students taking standard Chinese at P4 and Higher Chinese at P5.

It is also worth noting that there are 2 extra units for P5 and P6 Higher Chinese respectively. 

Perhaps you can go through the 识读字 in the Higher Chinese Character List provided by MOE with your child, to have a feel of whether your child is ok reading them all (P1-P4).  Also from the list I've compiled, you can go through the P1-P4 words highlighted in grey (words that are required to know how to write for students taking Higher Chinese from P1). 

If you are undecided, according to some tutors suggestions that I've come across, they suggest taking it up and monitor, because there's nothing to lose. If the child is unable to cope, they can always drop the subject after a year.

Keep in mind that Higher Chinese grade will only come in useful if the child is applying SAP schools, and does not have any other extra benefits for the rest of the secondary school posting. 😊

Hope the above helps!

[Assessment Book Review] 看图作文一本通 Effective Guidebook for Picture Composition

Buy online at Victoria.com.sgI bought this Chinese compo guidebook from Popular: 看图作文一本通 Effective Guidebook for Picture Composition

While browsing at Popular, I thought it looked good, so I bought it. When I was going through it with J, I realised it's really really good!  Each story comes with the compo pictures, helping words, guide, and 2 versions of compo: a simpler one and a "upgraded" version.

I read the shorter one, and made J read out the longer one. We always read aloud compo to practise her oral as well.  

After reading both versions one after another,  we compared and discussed on how the compo was improved and what she can do if she's writing similar compo.

It's definitely a good buy!! 

Here are some pages of the book: