It’s easy to blame your child for the bad results he received.
“Why didn’t you pay attention in class?!”
“You don’t know and you didn’t ask?!”
“What were you doing when the teacher was teaching?!”
These might have been your first thoughts but it’s really unfair for you to blame your child for her bad results simply because:
Let me give you a simple example, which of the following is correct?
a) An FBI agent
b) A FBI agent
If your answer is “a”, you are wrong. Because “F” is read as /effe/, which is sounded with an /e/ at the beginning thus you use an “an” in front of it (It’s actually not about the spelling but the sounds of the first syllable.).
If you got it right, good for you, you are one of the lucky ones who had gotten a great English teacher when you were young.
Now try this:
____________ more dustbins in school ___________ in reducing littering?
1) does, help 3) do, helps
2) do, help 4) does, helps
The answer is option 1). It is a real examination question picked out from a Primary 6 SA2 examination paper. This kind of question is not something that you will know how to answer without the guidance of a good English teacher and definitely not something that is taught actively in the textbook or even in class. However, they do, somehow, find their way into the test papers.
To help your child, start them young. Be reasonable in your expectations of your child’s results. Right from Primary 1, do not scold them for the bad results. I’ve seen so many children who have tried forging signatures, hiding test papers, crying in school because they didn’t want to go home to their parents with their bad scores. Don’t give your children the undue stress that they are already facing on a daily basis. It’s not their fault to have done badly, they don’t know what they were not taught. Even if they were taught, they are not experts of the topic yet and therefore failure is simply one of the paths they had to walk on in their learning journey.
When you receive your child’s papers, look into it, analyse it, see what the problems are, be understanding and seek help for him/her. That’s only fair for your child.