"Ignoramus28478" wrote in message
...
On 2010-06-10, Ed Huntress wrote:

"Ignoramus967" wrote in message
...
My 9 year old got his report card scores today. His percentile rank is
at 99% in math, but only 92% in English.

I think that he can do better than than on English. I got 90% on GMAT
verbal part, after just one year of living here, and he's lived in the
US for 9 years, out of which he spoke English for 6 years.

My question is how do we improve his English, given his age of 9. My
first thought is that he needs to just find something that he likes to
read about and read a lot more. I think that simply reading good books
(good as in, giving some examples of good use of the language) is
already a big help.

My second thought is maybe he just needs to find some fun club, group,
discussion forum, theater, tutor or something like that that would
somehow make him more interested in learning English. He has a math
tutor who tries to keep him interested in math, maybe we can find some
equivalent of that for English.

I never studied English formally, so I am not very experienced in such
matters.

i

What did they measure? Grammar, comprehension, syntax, vocabulary,
spelling,
or what?

I think that mostly comprehension and vocabulary.

You've gotten lots of good tips here about getting him into reading heavily,
and that's a painless route to dealing with both of those issues.
Comprehension ultimately is understanding the meanings and relationships of
words. You can teach that specifically, and have him slow down and pick
statements apart to see what they really mean. Or you can build an easy
facility with it by focused reading. He has to be interested enough in the
subject to care about what the words mean.

Vocabulary is another issue that's easily served by lots of reading of good
material. Diversity in reading helps there. He needs more than a couple of
subjects to get interested in -- preferably, to get passionate about.

Or there are methods, such as "word of the day" routines, that will help. I
think that reading is better. It has additional benefits. He may actually
learn something about other subjects along the way. g

If he can read a couple of years beyond his grade, he'll progress faster.


See if you can get a copy of what they tested. There's a big difference
in
the way to teach parts of speech versus reading comprehension.

Yep, I will.

Is your son in Lisle public schools? If so, I have an e-mail from the
director of curriculum for that school district that I'll forward on to you.

--
Ed Huntress