questions – SJB Teaching

October 22, 2015September 7, 2017

Q is also for … questions

Asking questions is an important part of learning. Some children think that asking questions is wrong, or that they will get into trouble if they ask a question, but your teacher will be much happier if you put your hand up and ask her to explain again than if you sit looking at your paper and not doing any work because you don’t understand.

There is no such thing as a silly question – just relevant and irrelevant. What does that mean? Well, a relevant question is one about what you have been learning, and an irrelevant one is about something else. For example, if your teacher has been showing you how to do short division and you put your hand up and say “I didn’t understand what to do with the remainder, please could you show me again?” that would be a relevant question and your teacher will be happy to explain again. However, if he has been showing you how to do short division and you put your hand up and ask “Is it true that bees have five eyes?” he will probably say, “That question is irrelevant!” and won’t give you an answer.

So, next time you are stuck in class, take a deep breath, put your hand up and ask a relevant question and see how much more quickly your understanding grows.

And just for the record? Yes, it is true that bees have five eyes.

Related posts: P is also for… R is also for….

January 30, 2014September 7, 2017

Beast Quest Comprehension

I’m not a literary snob, really I’m not – I’ll take a ‘thumping good read’ over a ‘short-listed for the Booker prize’ any day. Even so, when I began working with a child who hated reading but who said he was prepared to give the Beast Quest books a go, my heart sank. How on earth was I supposed to find anything of merit in Beast Quest?

The book Daniel* chose was Nixa the Death Bringer from the Avantia series. I decided to work on one chapter per one hour session, so I wrote down 10 questions for each one, which left time to read the chapter at the beginning of the session, and to make a prediction at the end as to what was going to happen in the next chapter. And so, with a sense of despair, I started reading it with a pen in my hand to write down questions.

Well…it surprised me!

Obviously I managed to write some retrieval questions – they were the easy ones. I hadn’t expected to be able to come up with much more than that though.

In fact, I was able to write a whole range from technique (Why did the writer use italics for this section? What is the purpose of the ellipsis in the 2^nd paragraph), to working out the meaning of difficult words (sliver, stifle, pinnacle), and inference (How is the character feeling at the end of this chapter? What makes you think this?)

There were opportunities for Daniel to give and justify opinions (Do you think the title of this chapter was a good one? Why (not)? Do you think the main character made the right decision at the end of this paragraph? Why (not)?) and also to pick out other people’s view points in the text.

There were chances for him to show his understanding by explaining what various pronouns referred to, some of which referred to things in the last or even last but one sentence.

I found examples of alliteration, similes, homonyms….even anthropomorphism!

As Daniel got quicker at answering the questions and at finding the evidence in the text to support his answers, we started to have a few spare minutes at the end of the sessions where we could look at short snippets from other books and even answer a question or two about them. The result? Daniel realised that not all books are boring…he has even started reading for pleasure at home! Last session he proudly told me that the previous evening, instead of spending all his time playing on his Xbox he had read the first 34 pages of Harry Potter.

I’m really glad I took a gamble on basing reading comprehension tuition around Beast Quest instead of just dismissing it out of hand.

* not his real name

For English tuition in the north Birmingham area (Great Barr, Hamstead, Kingstanding, Pheasey, Perry Barr, Streetly) get in touch via my contact page.

May 30, 2013

How can I help my child with their maths homework?

As a private maths tutor, I often get asked by parents, “How can I support my child with their maths homework without doing it for them?”

In the short-term, the best thing you can do, is to read through it first to make sure you understand it yourself, and then break the problem down into a serious of questions like this:

What’s the first thing you need to work out?
Which operation (ie + – x or ÷) do you need to use?
If your child is unsure, you may need to ask supplementary questions:
Will the answer you get be bigger or smaller than the numbers used in the question?
Which two operations will give you a bigger/smaller number? (If necessary, try both of these to see which answer looks more sensible)
What’s the second thing you need to work out?
Which operation (ie + – x or ÷) do you need to use?
What’s the third thing you need to work out?
How can you use the answers from the first two steps to help you?

In this way, you are helping your child to see that there are lots of small steps to be taken before the final answer can be worked out, but they still need to do the work for themselves. Think about it like a building job – the scaffolders always come first so that the builders have a safe environment to work in, but they still have to carry out the building work themselves. My worksheets for breaking down word problems into simple steps is available for download from my free resources page.

In the long-term, make sure that your child is confident with everyday maths such as times tables, and number bonds as this will help them in the rest of their work.

If you live in north Birmingham (Great Barr, Hamstead, Kingstanding, Pheasey, Streetly, Sutton) and would like to book a private maths tutor for your child, you can contact me via my website.

May 21, 2013

How can I help my child with their English homework?

As a tutor, one of the questions I get asked most often by parents is, “How can I help my child with their homework?” They understand that they shouldn’t be doing the homework for their child, but are not sure how to go about supporting. My recommendation is to read through the homework yourself first, and then give your child a series of questions to answer.

For example if they have been asked to write a recount of an exciting day and they don’t know where to start, try breaking it down as follows.

Where did you go?
Who came with you?
What did you do in the morning?
What did you do in the afternoon?
What was the best bit of the day?

If their task is to write a review of their favourite book, you could break it down like this:

What is the book called and who wrote it?
Who is the main character?
What sort of book is it (adventure, mystery, horror, fairytale, etc)?
What’s the best thing that happens in the book?
Is the ending expected or a surprise?
Who else in your class would like this book?
Would you read another book by the same author?

In this way, you are giving them a framework to support their writing, but they are still having to think about how they will answer the questions for themselves, so the homework will still be their own work.

If you live in north Birmingham (Great Barr, Hamstead, Kingstanding, Pheasey, Streetly, Sutton) and want to book a private English tutor for your child, contact me via my website.