Yesterday was supposed to be RJ’s first regular classes in the 5th grade, but because of the heavy rain they were sent home after 2 hours. RJ was sad because she was waiting for that big day. The 2 long months of summer vacation made her miss her classmates, her teachers and their school’s homey feel badly. But when their teacher gave her the yellow paper, she smiled again.
RJ happily handed me the yellow paper. It’s the form for Proficiency Enhancement Program (PEP). Only few selected students are included in the program. It is a tailored program that helps the students to excel in the areas of their strengths such as English, Mathematics and Science by exposing them to practical life and sensorial activities. Their school also has what they call Multiple Intelligence (MI) room with musical instruments, books, building blocks, arts materials, etc. The teachers allow the children to stay in the room for a few minutes and observe the students’ intellectual functioning through the things that interest them.
The school also conducts Learning Style Inventory Test with results as Visual Learner (learn through seeing), Auditory Learner (learn through listening) and Kinesthetic (learn through moving, doing and touching). According to the results, RJ’s learning style is Kinesthetic.
Lastly, the school conducts Verbal Ability Test every year. The verbal ability test measures the verbal-educational factor through a variety of tasks that call for the application of several processes to verbal, quantitative and pictorial content. It compares the student’s score with the scores of other students. It also tests the student’s level of general abstract reasoning ability when he/she is compared with the others of the same chronological age and RJ’s verbal ability test result is above average.
picture from the web
Ability tests and IQ tests are very important to know how smart our kids are in solving problems, understanding social values, customs and norms. This is not to boost the parents and kids’ ego but to know the most important thing…how our children could apply the intelligence they have to improve their life.
A few weeks ago I was complaining of the high tuition fee and expensive books in RJ’s school. But now I realized it’s just a small amount compared to what RJ learns in school.