Parents often approach us asking how and when they can start to prepare their Year 1/Year 2 child for the 11+ examination process. Many of these parents have already had experience of their older children going through the process and have seen and understood how heavy and challenging the workload is. How can they make it easier for their younger children, and how can they help to give them a greater opportunity for success?
So here at Tutology, we have put together some advice for you.
English Priority: Read to your child regularly to enhance and elevate their vocabulary and comprehension skills
First and foremost, reading to your child every night (where possible) is one of the most important activities you could do with your child. Note this is a separate activity to your child reading to you where they are developing their reading skills and building familiarity with words and spellings.
A parent reading to their child can select books that are slightly above their child’s vocabulary range, books that their child might not be ready to read independently due to their reading level. The benefits of this is manifold:
You will be exposing your child to a wider range and more advanced vocabulary than they would otherwise access in their daily lives.
Your child will become familiar with varied and more complex sentence structures, absorbing them subconsciously thereby being in a stronger position to use these complex structures when that time comes.
You can introduce classical children’s literature to your child relatively early. We find 11+ comprehensions can be geared more heavily around classical literature due to the complex vocabulary, sentence structures and themes. It can be difficult for children to understand some of the phrasings and language as they are no longer a common part of modern English speech. Exploring classical literature earlier helps the child bridge the gap between modern day speech and old-fashioned colloquialism without a concerted effort.
You can help accelerate your child’s comprehension skills. Asking well-placed key questions about the text can encourage discussion with your child to help draw out deeper meanings within the story and strengthen their inference skills.
Roald Dahl books or C. S. Lewis’ Narnia books are fantastic for drawing children in with their engaging storytelling and superb use of vocabulary and varied sentence structures.
Maths Priority: Speed and accuracy with Multiplication tables opens the gateway to advanced maths
For the mathematical side, one of the greatest priorities at this age is for your child to learn their times tables solidly and be able to answer spot tests on them with speed and accuracy.
As soon as your child is strong in their times tables, they can start speeding through foundational topics such as fractions, decimals, percentages, ratios etc.
Learning the times tables at this age is all about consistency in repetition. Even spending five minutes a day, five days a week throughout the year will really help achieve this goal.
Other Skills
Some suggestions of other skills to work on with your child can be found below. All of these can and should be done outside ‘official study/homework’ time. Try to make it part of a bonding/conversational/relaxed time.
English
Play with new vocabulary – take turns in creating fun amusing sentences with new vocabulary you come across during reading time. Eg. My baby sister is very eccentric – she keeps trying to eat uncooked rice!
Play with similes – get your child to become familiar with using similes even for describing day to day thoughts. Eg. It was as hot as the inside of an oven today.
Play with metaphors – similarly, the more your child gets used to constructing metaphors for fun and amusement, it will easily become a habit to incorporate in their creative writing almost instinctively. Eg. The wind howled with rage today.
Create exaggerated sentences using multiple adjectives and adverbs – Eg. The beautiful, rainbow-coloured butterflies danced happily in the soft breeze.
Maths
Strengthen mental math skills in addition and subtraction – ask your children slightly challenging questions for their current level. If they can answer the question with ease, always take it up a notch to the next level.
Demonstrate mathematical patterns/tips that will make mental maths easier. Eg. Demonstrate how you can quickly add 15 +9 by first finding the answer to 15 + 10 and then subtracting 1.
Strengthen their skills with halving and doubling numbers. If they find it easy to double single-digit numbers, then start training them to double two-digit numbers. Always create an achievable challenge for them – it should not be so hard that they feel frustrated
Enhance their mental and written division skills. Speed and accuracy in division exercises is also a pivotal skill to learn early for the 11+ preparation.
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