The boy who dislikes reading.

One of the greatest concern I have with Little Boy in the GEP is the extensive reading required by the curriculum.  Little Boy has no patience to read chapter books and long novels.  His favourite books are The Adventures of Tin Tin and Diary of the Wimpy kid or any book with little words and lots of pictures.  So, imagine the 'heart attack' I had when I chanced upon the P4 reading list for the Extensive Reading Programme (ERP).  60 storybooks in the reading list!  It was a bit of a relief to know that the students are not required to read every book in the reading list.  However, I still need to get Little Boy to read some and I gather it's best to be done during the holidays when he has much free time on his hands.  

After a trip to the library and pulling out some books from our own bookshelf, here's the pile for Little Boy's reading 'pleasure'.

As expected, Little Boy moaned and groaned the moment he saw what I had in store for him.  To motivate him to read, I exempted him from doing his regular Maths, Science and English assessments. That thrilled him a little and he did start reading immediately.  It didn't matter to me that he went for the thinnest book first.  His wonderful elder sister (who is 2 years his senior) 'accompanied' him by reading the same book he's reading and, together, they did a character mind map on this particular book 'The Cat Who Went to Heaven'.  Though there were some disagreements while doing the mind map, they still had much fun working on it.

It's great having the siblings discuss the books they had read and Little Boy has slowly warmed up to the idea of reading chapter books.  Till date, Little Boy has finished reading 4 books from the pile and is currently into his 5th book.  Looks like he won't be able to finish reading all the books by the end of the holidays but that's fine with me as this is already a great achievement for a boy who dislikes reading.

Surprise! Surprise!

It came as a surprise when I received a call from Little Boy's teacher congratulating me on his selection into the Gifted Education Programme (GEP).  None of us expected it.  Even Little Boy was shocked!  Once the shock passed, I started to feel doubt and uncertainty.  Is there a mistake in the selection process? Is my boy really gifted?  I have never thought my boy is gifted as he has not shown any obvious signs of giftedness during the 9 years of his life.  He was not even top 10 in his Primary 3 mid-year and end-of-year examinations.  I contemplated against taking up the offer as I was worried that Little Boy will not be able to survive the programme if the selection result was a fluke.   Little Boy was uncertain himself but he was curious enough to want to find out more about the programme.

What changed my mind?
9 out of 10 people I spoke to encouraged me to let Little Boy take up the offer. Afterall, it is a much covetous offer desired by many.  How foolish to give up this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I was told.  Finally, I had a change of heart and felt more certain after attending the briefing conducted by the GEP branch.  First, I was assured that the selection tests are established tests and no child is selected by mistake. Next, I was enticed by the small class size of 25 (mainstream has a class size of 40) and the more hands-on curriculum with more field trips and projects (compared to the pen and paper drills in mainstream curriculum). Little Boy attended a different briefing from mine. His was targeted at students. I did not know what went on during his briefing but he, too, was excited and eager to join the GEP after the briefing.

What's next?
After we had decided to take up the offer, we had to choose a GEP school to go to as Little Boy's current school is not a GEP school. There are 9 GEP primary schools in Singapore. After reading up on the various schools and much discussions, we narrowed down our choices to 2 schools. Though our first choice is school X but Little Boy was posted to school Y due to availability and distance. Generally, we are still very happy with school Y and look forward to embarking on an exciting journey into the GEP in Jan 2013 together.