1. Practice More on Reading the Comprehension
Chinese comprehension usually consists of long passages, exhausting the patience of Singapore students. They lose patience in continuing to read the passages, especially passages full of strange vocabulary, making them even tougher to understand. And a common reaction from students is giving up reading and using common sense in answering comprehension questions. This attitude should be avoided. Instead, students must read through the passages thoroughly and carefully; going through them for a second time is highly encouraged. The intention is to ensure that students clearly know what they have read through and confirm that their understanding is the same as the passages.
When the students are practising reading comprehension passage, it is also a good chance for them to strengthen their vocabularly. They are encouraged to mark unfamiliar Chinese characters and check the dictionary for accurate meaning and usage examples, especially for
Primary 1-5 students. Over time, they will learn more and more new characters and phrases, helping them to excel in Chinese comprehension in the future. To make learning more effective, the student can make use of root recognition to recognise the Chinese vocabulary, remember them through mnemonic play, and read the Chinese characters using character-linked reading. This is known as the
3R method developed by Le Xue Education.
2. Find the Answers
Students need to understand the questions clearly to excel in Chinese Comprehension in Singapore. This prevents students from misunderstanding the questions and plucking the wrong information from the passages into the answer. Searching for the correct answers in long yet draining passages sounds complicated, but it is extremely easy for a direct question. Students just need to identify the keywords in the questions and note whether that word appears in the passages. While indirect questions that often ask about opinions would be a little more complicated than a direct one in which students need to understand the context, only then can they know the true meaning behind the comprehension passage. In this situation, try to decipher the context by going through it a few times and linking all the information gathered to discover the embedded implicit information. Students must read through the passage repeatedly, patiently and carefully to excel in Chinese Comprehension in Singapore.
