The Pre-Primary 1 Parents Must-Have:
The P1 Parents’ Survival Guide to Primary School
Survival Tip 10: Knowing about LSP and LSM
Learning Support Programme for English (LSP)
The Learning Support Programme for English (LSP) is an early intervention programme aimed at providing additional support to pupils who enter Primary 1 with weak English language and literacy skills. Its objective is to equip the pupils with basic reading and spelling skills. Pupils are identified for the LSP through the Early Literacy Indicators (ELI), a group-screening instrument developed by MOE, at the beginning of each year. Pupils attaining low levels on the ELI are placed in the LSP for additional support.
LSP lessons are conducted by trained Learning Support Teacher (LSP Teacher) and the programme teaches skills which can be used to learn in the different subject areas. It was designed for Primary 1 and 2 students, and focuses on five major components that international research has found to be critical in helping students in early primary grades learn to read and spell. These five components are: alphabetic knowledge, knowledge of sound-letter correspondences, fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. That means, students are taught skills to recognise and write letters of the alphabet. They are also taught to spell letter sounds and to decode and spell words. The curriculum also focuses on developing students’ oral and reading vocabulary. Opportunities are provided for students to develop reading fluency through oral reading of grade level texts. Attention is also devoted to reading comprehension to ensure that students understand what they read. Students’ learning progress is monitored regularly for their responses to the teaching. In addition, students are grouped according to their learning needs. Those who need the most help in English language and literacy skills are grouped separately from the other students at the beginning of Primary 1, to receive customised learning support. Pupils will be pulled out of their form class for the LSP lesson for 1 period (30 minutes for most school). They will be in groups of about 5 to 10 students.
Will it be possible for students to be discharged from LSP after Primary 1? Pupils are discharged from LSP when they meet both of the following criteria:
- attain a pass in the schools' overall English Language assessments
- attain age-appropriate reading age on the Singapore Word Reading Test 2 (SWRT-2)
Learning Support Programme for Mathematics (LSM)
The Learning Support Programme for Math (LSM) is an early intervention programme aimed at providing additional support and intervention for P1 pupils who are identified to be weak in basic numeracy skills. Its objective is to equip the pupils with basic numeracy skills.
Pupils are identified for the LSM through the Early Numeracy Indicators (ENI), a group-screening instrument developed by MOE, at the beginning of each year. Pupils attaining low levels on the ENI are placed in the LSM for additional support. LSM lessons are conducted by trained Learning Support Math Teacher (LSM Teacher).
Lessons maybe held daily for 30-60 minutes per session for schools with total pull-out. Some schools will have total pull-out for all the selected students whereas other schools will do total pull-out for the weaker group and conduct supplementary classes after school for those who are better but still scored a low level on the ENI.
In LSM, the curriculum focuses on structured teaching sequence and supporting manipulatives and materials based on the concrete-pictorial-abstract(CPA) approach to build good Math foundation. The group size is around 8 students. Regular monitoring of pupils' learning progress is carried out using the Topical Unit Review Tests.
Pupils are discharged from LSM when they meet all of the following three criteria:
- attain a good pass in the final review test
- attain age-appropriate math age on the Singapore Mathematics Achievement & Reasoning Test (SMART 2009)
- displays good learning attitude and will most likely have no problems attending lessons with a bigger group of pupils.
Now you may be wondering about the chances of your child being selected for the LSP and LSM programme.
For the past years, about 12 to 14 percent of the Primary 1 cohort is identified to require support in the LSP. About 5 to 10 percent of the Primary 1 cohort are identified and supported through LSM. For both subjects, it is the minority of the cohort who will be selected for the intervention programme. If your child has basic literacy and numeracy skills, it is highly unlikely that your child will be selected for the programme.
Still feeling worried? Yes, accidents do happen. I got a shock when I heard from my good friend that his son was in LSM. Her son was quite bright and thus an unlikely candidate to be in the programme. Upon hearing this, I tried to find out more from the LSP and LSM teachers about the screening tests. However, all of them said that the screening tests are confidential and they are not allowed to reveal the test questions to anyone, including their supervisors and principals. Thus, I decided to try to compile at least some of these questions by interviewing my nephews, nieces, my own child, his classmates and some of my friends’ children.
If you want to know the information that I have gathered, then do come back to find out more. I will be sharing with you about the areas that your child will need to know in order to do well for the screening tests. I will also be sharing with you some sample questions for the screening test.
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