We’ve witnessed several cohorts of Primary 6 students graduating over the years. We are proud to announce that a majority of them have gone on to clinch stellar grades for their PSLE English Oral & Written Paper.

Parents, you’re in for a real treat! Our team of experienced teachers, who have amassed quite a few tips and strategies to ace the English exam, is just about to share their VALUABLE knowledge with you! Hopefully, this will allow you parents to pave the way for your children to ace the PSLE/ Primary English paper.

Parents, you have an important role to play!

Before we delve into the specifics on how to nail down the individual components of the Primary/ PSLE English Paper, here are some things that you can do to encourage your child to improve:

• Get them to read extensively to expose them to the various narratives and literary styles. This will also help to firm up their literary foundation
• Support your child in building a habit of writing. You can encourage them to begin journaling down their thoughts and feelings
• Teach them how to take note of new vocabulary when they come across it. When they have free time, they should search up the word, find out how to use it and practice what they’ve learned
• Inspire them to learn and speak proper English language
• Like any other skills, English is something that must be refined through plenty of proper practice. So, get your child to practice, practice & practice!

Read also: PSLE English Composition – Emotions Cheatsheet (FREE DOWNLOAD)

 

PSLE/ Primary English Paper Components ranked by ease of improving score:

Components in the PSLE English Written Paper:

1. LISTENING COMPREHENSION

Before the passage is being read:

Your child should take a quick glance through the questions. This will allow them to frame their mind around the questions as they listen attentively to the piece being read.

1st Recording:

Listen to the passage with a calm state of mind. Try not to be distracted. Underline key words in the questions as you listen actively; annotating key words as the passage is being read. Mark out a response.

In Between Both Recordings:

Find opportunities between recordings to scan through the question.

2nd Recording:

Listen attentively to catch what you may have missed out and grab this chance to confirm your response.

2. LANGUAGE USE AND COMPREHENSION

This is made up of 2 key components: Booklet A & Booklet B.

Booklet A:

1. Grammar MCQ

Get your child to read through and scrutinize the question in its entirety. They should annotate the clues in the question as they go along, paying special attention to these:

1. Tense
2. Singular/Plural
3. Subject/ Object

Cancel out options that are clearly incorrect and choose the accurate response from the remaining choices. Read the entire question again with the chosen response.

2. Vocabulary MCQ

Get your child to read through and scrutinize the question in its entirety. They should annotate the clues in the question as they go along, noting if the connotation is positive or negative.

Cancel out options that are clearly incorrect and choose the accurate response from the remaining choices. Read the entire question again with the chosen response.

3. Vocabulary Cloze

Get your child to read through and scrutinize the question in its entirety, and not forgetting to read the sentence before, the actual sentence, and the sentence after in order to gather the context of the sentence. They should annotate the clues in the question as they go along, noting if the connotation is positive or negative.

Cancel out options that are clearly incorrect and choose the accurate response from the remaining choices. Read the entire question again with the chosen response.

4. Visual Text Comprehension

Your child should read through the entire visual to gain familiarity. As you attempt each question, eliminate what is not a possible response.

• For questions that asks to ascertain ‘True’
  • Cancel out the statements which are false
• For questions that asks to ascertain ‘False’
  • Cancel out the statements which are true

Booklet B:

1. Grammar Cloze

In order to minimise mistakes and ease the checking process, you should encourage your child to develop the habit of writing the response’s alphabet and the response itself, for e.g. (A) under.

Tick off options that have already been chosen (Note: ticking it off does not mean that it cannot be used again in a later question. It is a signal that you might have made an error previously)

Pay close attention to prepositions (Tip: imagine the placement of the noun).

Read the entire text again with the responses.

2. Editing

Firstly, your child should categorise the error either as a spelling or grammar error

• If it is a proper word = grammar error
• If it does not look like a proper word = spelling error
• Use the syllables in a spelling error to help spell the response
  • Tip: abide by the grammar presented in the error
  • E.g. prisended = presented

Read the entire text again with the responses.

3. Comprehension Cloze

As your child attempts to fill in the blanks, they should underline/ markout the clues that led them to that answer.

Tip 1: Questions can be set based on the relationship between the clauses/ sentences

• Your child should understand the relationships and fill in the appropriate connectors

Tip 2: There will be cases where the response might have been mentioned in a previous portion of the text, or will be mentioned in a later part of the text

Read the entire text again with the responses. Did you capitalise the first word of the sentence?

4. Synthesis and Transformation

Your child should read the entire question and determine the number of clauses and the relationships/ grammar rule:

• Cause and Effect
• Effect and Cause
• Conditional and Consequence
• Subject and Object
• Object and Subject
• Direct/ Indirect Speech

Pay attention to the given words in the new sentence and determine if:

• The clauses need to be shifted
• The words that need to be transformed
• Tip: you can always fill in the clauses in parts and not necessarily begin at the start of the sentence

As you fill in the words, tick off from the original. There should be minimal addition of words.

Read the entire text again, checking for spelling and punctuation as you go along.

5. Comprehension

Your child should glance through read the entire passage once. Study through all the questions, underlining the key words in the questions.

Carefully read the entire passage again, marking out all the responses to the questions

Tip 1: annotate with the question numbers

• Answer the questions using what have been annotated

Tip 2: Answer towards the question by using the question stems in the question

• Check for spelling

3. SITUATIONAL AND COMPOSITION WRITING

1. Situational Writing

Before your child begins, he/she should do the following:

1. Mark out the [CAP] in the question:

1. • Context
   • Audience
   • Purpose
2. Label the tasks (A-E/F).
   • Organise the tasks into paragraphs
     • E.g. A+B, C+D, E
   • Tip: it is safe to follow the sequence of the tasks
   • Determine if there are at least 6 points
     • E.g. a task might have 2 points
       • A1, A2
3. Find all the possible points in the visual

Write out response.

• Tip: elaborate on 1-2 of the points, The elaboration should be points that are not included in the visual.
• E.g. You were recommended by the basketball team. (point from visual) They told me that the t-shirts your company printed were very well designed and of good quality. (elaboration)

 

2. Continuous Writing

Before your child begins writing, he/she should have these considerations:

1. Understand what the topic is about
   • E.g. Breaking a Promise = Not fulfilling what you committed to someone else
2. Pick the easiest picture to write
   • Use only 1 picture
   • Tip: It is normally the picture that strikes you first
3. Based on the topic and the picture, scribble your responses to the given prompts
4. Derive the plot summary
5. Derive the story mountain
   • Ensure that your plot is contained in one setting and within a short time frame
     • Start from the climax to falling action to resolution, then the rising action and the orientation
     • For each segment of the story mountain, have 2-3 descriptions
     • Tip: spend no more than 15min for this
     • Tip: show the topic in the climax

Write out response, taking around 30-35 minutes to do so. When your child is writing, he/she should remember the following tips:

• Write in the first person pronoun
• Keep sentences to include at most 2-3 sentences
• Be vivid in describing
  • Setting
  • Action
  • Emotions
• Tip: imagine it as a movie playing in your head
• Use 4-6 literary devices in the writing
• Include some dialogue
• Always give the plot a fruitful end

Before the time is up your child should read through the composition again to check for these:

• Grammar
• Run on sentences
• Spelling
• Punctuations