Of Oral, Comprehension and Writing

These few days, I am trying to source for information to improve P's prowess in comprehension, oral and writing. When I was young, English was a "soft" subject which was rather difficult to grasp. My English teacher would teach us the basic - rules of grammar, synonyms, vocab etc. As I progressed into doing writing and comprehension, it was more of a self-exploratory work. The teacher would tell us to write a composition with the title and left us alone. Likewise with comprehension.

Argh, I know not if such methods are still prevalent in the current era. But one thing is for sure, it does not work for me! Surely, there have to be a better method. Right now, I am researching on more interesting ways to teach P. This is what I have done thus far.

Improving Oral

For oral, I am teaching him to add in feelings and intonation in reading. One thing I discovered in him is that he lacks confidence in reading more diff=
icult words. So the next course of action is really to boost his confidence - starting with easily passage and slowly progressing into more advanced ones.

Challenge in Comprehension or What

Next in line is comprehension, right now, I have assigned two to three comprehension passages for him to practise when he is in student care. When I found out was that his vocabulary bank is too shallow at the moment. That helps as now I know that the problem does not lie in understanding the passage but in the words. Hence, the course of action taken is very different. What I am doing now is to pick up the words that he does not know and explain to him.

Next Challenge - Writing

As it is school holiday, we are able to have more time to spare with the kid=
s to do more fun activities. One of which is library visiting. Writing is closely linked to reading. And I am glad to see the two boys so engrossed in listening to me reading books aloud to them at our Sunday's library sessions. 

The above is just the tip of the iceberg, I am still in the hunt for creative ways to teach the boys. Also in my next course of action is to get them to set goals and targets, to give them the direction of where they should be heading.