PARENTS PROVIDE THEIR TESTIMONIALS FOR DAS INTERNATIONAL SPECIALIST TUTORING
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Our son was attending DAS before we had to move overseas due to work. We were worried about how he could cope in an international school with his learning disabilities. There was only 1 school teacher who was helping with student support and gradually we realised that our son was not coping well and unfortunately the teachers could not do much since they were not specialists. We decided to enrol him for online tutoring under DAS International. From the first interview, we were comforted by how caring and supportive Ana and Veena were. Our son was extremely comfortable with Veena and didn't once complain about his online lessons. It has been more than a year now and through mutual support between DAS International and his school, our son's language skills and handwriting have improved so much. Most of his teachers are very happy with his progress. He is now much more confident to speak in class and also able to socialise in different environments. Despite the lack of physical interaction and time differences, we feel that having lessons online actually helps him to focus and concentrate more as he is less distracted by unfamiliar surroundings i.e. more comfortable at home. The advancement of online platforms and tools has made it just as effective as a face-to-face class (he has even picked up more computer skills). It is not only just academic support that our son is receiving from DAS International, but we feel that Veena treats our son like her own and truly believes in his overall well-being and achievement. That's really going beyond her call of duty - we are blessed ~ Parent of DAS International Online from Istanbul, Turkey - March 2024 |
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I wanted to take a moment to express my sincere gratitude to Teacher Bhavani for her invaluable guidance and support in helping my daughter improve her O-Level English. Teacher Bhavani's dedication and commitment truly made a significant impact on her academic journey. My daughter had not been doing well in her English but was doing very well in other subjects due to her learning difficulties. Her English score had been ranging from fail to borderline pass. This posed a concern for her post-secondary education which requires at least a pass in English to proceed to Diploma or A level education. Through the one year that my daughter was with Teacher Bhavani, I had seen her grow into a more confident girl. Teacher Bhavani's patience and method of teaching had a good effect on my daughter. She was able to better understand the English passages; able to organise her thoughts and structure them better for conversations. Through Teacher Bhavani's effort and dedication, my daughter improved tremendously and passed her English O-Level, paving her road to her desired post-secondary education in attaining a diploma. Thank you, Teacher Bhavani! |
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Michelle enjoys the lessons and has been progressing well. I do not know if she is at the level of kids her age or not (I fear not) but clearly, she has been progressing since starting with you for her Online Specialist Teaching. Michelle is really looking forward to meeting you in person when she comes to Singapore for her intensive Specialist teaching with you. In general, Michelle absorbs like a sponge everything that we give her from academic content (in English or Vietnamese) to physical activities like golf, rollerblading, martial arts or extracurricular activities like piano, dancing, cooking, coding, etc…. Sometimes I wonder if I had to follow her schedule would I be exhausted? Because I travel a lot and her daddy is not with us all the time as he is also travelling, and grandma is already old so engaging her in activities or having her take lessons is a way for me to ensure that someone is always with her instead of her lying in bed watching her iPad. Thank you Teacher Shilpa |
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Ms Albel is a genuinely caring and experienced teacher for dyslexic children. She is extremely patient, encouraging and at the same time persistent with and committed to the work, even if it takes extra time to allow the different children to work at his/her own pace. She teaches students with strategies that can be understood and followed by dyslexic children to solve math problems that can be particularly difficult for dyslexics (eg time and scale reading) She is also very communicative with parents and even goes the extra mile to guide parents on how to coach dyslexic children, which we are very grateful. Over the course of 5 months, we have observed changes in my daughter’s attitude (9yrs old), from resisting new teachers’ classes to attending Ms Albel’s lessons willingly ( both group and private lessons), gradually she develops confidence in tackling math and becomes more willing to try and put in the effort. We are truly appreciative of Ms Albel for the care and guidance she rendered to my daughter. ~ Parents of DAS International student
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Dear Mdm Bhavani, We would like to extend our deepest appreciation to you for the guidance and support that you have given to our daughter, Julie. Julie joined the DAS Specialist Tutoring Programme two years ago and has been receiving close support from you. Your patience and constant encouragement have helped her manage her fear of Mathematics. Thank you for simplifying the concepts for her which has undoubtedly eased the learning process. We are very grateful to you and DAS for the conduct of the programme. It has definitely been of great help to Julie in her preparations for the PSLE. Thank you once again and we wish you great health and a restful December holiday! ~ Parents of Julie, 1 December 2021 |
| Ana and Veena have been a great support to myself and my daughter. They have kept open communication going with my daughter's school teachers, which has helped to ensure we are all on the same page.
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I would say the experience and talent of Ms Veena to be able to motivate my child to read and sustain attention and focus after a long day at school is wonderful. I am very happy with the quick response to initiate classes. Ms Veena has been extremely interested to know my child and has helped my child a lot. She is patient, knowledgeable interested in the child, and sharp in knowing what methods of teaching work, and how to get the best effort out of the child. She is excellent. ~ A Parent of a child in Specialist Teaching at DAS International |
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Hi Anaberta, I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to DAS and Gladys. Gladys has done a tremendous job! Please find attached my letter of recommendation. Thanks and have a wonderful holiday break! Regards, Audrey ~ A Parent of a child in Specialist Teaching at DAS International |
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Dear All, Our heartfelt thanks to each of you for your dedication and commitment towards supporting our daughter. The progress she has made over the last six months is significant and is the result of your teamwork. Thank you, for the attached notes which are very helpful. We will start using the numbers strategy at home and will encourage our daughter to practice reading two lines at a time. We bought this weekend a Chromebook for her birthday, so she can start practising at home and further develop her ICT skills. We will be coordinating with the school in this respect. Again, thank you to all of you, we leave each of these IEP reviews much inspired. Kind regards J and T. ~ Parents of a child in Specialist Teaching at DAS International |
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Dear Sir/Madam, My son was helped and taught at DAS for almost two years and was fortunate enough to have Miss Gladys as his teacher. We were recommended DAS at Chinatown as my son was having problems pronouncing certain words and as a result, it was affecting his spelling at school. Miss Gladys throughout his time at DAS considerably helped our son. She formed a great relationship with him over his time there. When we decided that she had helped him overcome his difficulty and finished his courses we stopped the lessons and he was very sad as were we. We highly recommend Miss Gladys. Best regards, Mr and Mrs R. ~ Parents of a child in Specialist Teaching at DAS International |
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Hi Ana, I want to comment on Veena’s work with my son. Previously, all efforts to teach him to read have been unsuccessful but with Veena’s help he has made the leap to putting sounds together and to start reading. He enjoys coming to see her and she positively encourages his hard work. As his parent, I am looking forward to his continued progress in Reading. Thanks NT. ~ Parent of a child in Specialist Teaching at DAS International Dear NT, Thank you very much for your mail. It has been an absolute pleasure to work with J. He is so delightful and is always willing to put in his best effort. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to be a part of his learning. Wishing him the very best as he moves from strength to strength. Have a good night, With best regards, Veena.
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To whom it may concern, Teacher Gladys Wee-Bourne has been working with my son for the past 2 years. We have seen tremendous progression in his literacy skills as she prepared him for P1 entry in 2018. He has also emerged to be more confident and outspoken. She has been very patient working with him, who is prone to tantrums and has instilled in him a more methodical and disciplined approach in how he tackles each piece of work. I want to thank Gladys for the great patience & support she has provided to my son. She has built a bond and rapport with him. Under her tutelage, he has moved from not being able to read & write to now being able to attempt simple worksheets & read simple books! His self-confidence has also improved loads. She has also given me many tips on how to support him at home. We truly appreciate her dedication and effort in working with my son. Yours sincerely, JJ ~ Parent of a child in Specialist Teaching at DAS International |
| Dear Sir/madam
My son was tutored by Gladys Wee Kim Geok for two terms. We thank Gladys for her professionalism. Her firm, authoritative but patient manner as a teacher has helped my son gain confidence in English. We wish her the very best in all her endeavours. Best regards, M. ~ Parent of a child in Specialist Teaching at DAS International |
| Dear Samunn,
We are very grateful for your help with our daughter, she has progressed surpassing our expectations and our own. ~ Parents of a child in Specialist Teaching at DAS International |
INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL TESTIMONIAL
Email from the Deputy Principal of an International School in Singapore
Hi Everyone,
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank parent N for organising with Anaberta and Veena and for coming out to our school. It was a very fruitful meeting discussing L’s needs and our plans for the upcoming year. I have added Ms A(Maths), Mrs P (Reading) and Ms B (G1-3 curriculum leader) in on this email thread.
Thank you once again.
Kind regards,
Deputy Principal, Elementary School
International School in Singapore
Email Response from Head of DAS International - Anaberta Oehlers-Jaen
Dear Deputy Principal,
It was a real pleasure meeting you and your team. We look forward to the Awareness talk scheduled by DAS for your teachers.
Best Wishes
Anaberta Oehlers-Jaen
Head of DAS International Services
Email Response from Specialist Tutor, Veena Jayanth
Dear Deputy Principal,
Thank you for meeting Anaberta and me yesterday. The meeting helped us understand the classroom expectations for our students. It gave us an idea about the immediate goals to work on in our support. Thank you for sharing the homework grid which will help us prepare lessons that would connect his tasks at DAS to his schoolwork.
I will be preparing an IEP based on the points we discussed and will share it with you as soon as it is ready.
Thank you once again for taking the time and wishing you a good midterm break.
With best regards,
Veena Jayanth
Senior Specialist Teacher,
DAS International Services
TESTIMONIALS FOR OUR SPECIALIST TEACHERS
BHAVANI JEGAVATHAN
To learn more about Bhavani click here
I hope this message finds you well.
I wanted to take a moment to express my sincere gratitude to Teacher Bhavani for her invaluable guidance and support in helping my daughter to improve her O' level English. Teacher Bhavani's dedication and commitment had truly made a significant impact on her academic journey.
My daughter had not been doing well in her English but was doing very well for other subjects due to her learning difficulties. Her English score had been ranging from fail to borderline pass. This posed a concern for her post-secondary education which requires at least a pass in English to proceed for Diploma or A level education.
Through the one year that my daughter was with Teacher Bhavani, I had seen her grow into a more confident girl. Teacher Bhavani's patience and method of teaching had taken a good effect on my daughter. She was able to better understand the English passages; able to organise her thoughts and structure them better for conversations.
Through Teacher Bhavani's effort and dedication, my daughter had improved tremendously and had passed her English O' level, paving her road to her desired post-secondary education in attaining a diploma.
Thank you, Teacher Bhavani!
Specialist Teaching Parent,
March 2024
I was only officially diagnosed with dyslexia when I was in secondary 4. This means that I take a longer time to understand and learn a concept. Plus my carelessness and my complacency during my exams also lead to me not doing well in my studies and caused me to lose hope, especially in my favourite subject, Science. However, when I was promoted to secondary 4 I knew I had to do better so that I will have more paths to go for my tertiary education. With the help of my teachers and my DAS teacher, Teacher Bhavani. Teacher Bhavani taught me how to annotate the questions properly which although mainly used in English comprehension but I found to be useful in all of my subjects. She also taught me to read the questions first then the passage so that I can look out for the answers while reading. This really helped to prevent my carelessness. I am really thankful for her! Overall for me trying my best and consistently working both hard and smart, applying what I learnt for study skills helps. It is a long but rewarding journey with some failures along the way and one should not give up. Gretal Seet
GLADYS WEE BOURNE
A wonderful testimonial for Gladys Wee, Specialist Teacher for her dedication and passion!
Learn more about Gladys Wee, Specialist Teacher here
I take great pleasure in writing this letter of recommendation for Gladys Wee Bourne. A year and a half ago, I came to DAS to look for a tutor who can understand my son’s challenges and be able to adapt his/her teaching style to my son’s needs and more importantly a flexible teaching style that would allow him to reach his potential.
The minute my husband and I met Gladys, we were won over by her professionalism and enthusiasm. I appreciated how Gladys patiently listened to our concerns and the struggles we were facing and worked closely with us to brainstorm what solutions could possibly work for our son. Each time, she took the effort to identify the root cause, develop teaching methods and more importantly, tailors her lessons to suit my son as he matures and progresses. When he first started with DAS, he struggled with inference, processing large chunks of information and had difficulties summarizing key points from an article. Thus, he disliked reading. Unlike other tutors, Gladys’ approach to helping my son was customized to his needs and his interests. She knew how to garner interest from my son, taught him mind-mapping with short articles of his interest, allowing him to grow in confidence. In addition, she provided him with strategies, which enabled him to identify key messages. Now my son finds interest in reading, as he is able to understand and enjoy the story.
Gladys is an extraordinary teacher. She is calm and collected and my son responds extremely well to her warm personality. He looks forward to her class and proactively completes his homework. She has developed an excellent rapport with not only her students but their parents as well. Please do not hesitate to contact me should you require more information about this very dedicated and deserving teacher who has earned my highest admiration and respect.
Yours sincerely,
Audrey Sim
To whom it may concern,
Ms Gladys Wee taught my daughter who has learning difficulties from December 2018 to August 2019.
With her constant help, my daughter has progressed spectacularly in her command of the English Language. Gladys was exceedingly engaging and caring and provided timely feedback upon promptly identifying learning gaps.
Gladys is a very special teacher as she evidently built a rapport with my daughter very quickly and gave ample space for her to explore and to grow in a conducive learning environment. She was flexible in her approach and gave useful tips to help unleash Ruth's potential and to build her confidence in the language.
She struck a balance between learning in a fun way and yet being firm when setting the standard. While my daughter had only spent a relatively short period with Gladys, it is obvious that Gladys is an asset to the Dyslexia Association of Singapore, in delivering lessons with dedication and passion as well as her gift of nurturing children with learning difficulties.
I hereby wish Gladys all the best in her endeavours.
Yours sincerely
Dr Lim* (Anonymised)
August 2019
SHILPA MADANE
To learn more about Shilpa, click here
"Shilpa was one of my daughter's favourite Teachers because she made lessons both enjoyable and helpful with schoolwork. I’ve seen my daughter apply concepts she learned to help her with her spelling and cloze passages in homework. Her writing was weaker than her ability and Ms Shilpa encouraged her to see herself as a writer and work on comics and short “books” as homework which got her starting to writing longer and more grammatical sentences.”
Parent of specialist tutoring with Shilpa
TESTIMONIALS FOR ONLINE SPECIALIST TEACHING
| A lovely note for our Specialist Teacher, Veena Jayanth, all the way from Turkey!
“Our son was attending DAS before we had to move overseas due to work. We were worried if he could cope in an international school with his learning disabilities. There was only one school teacher who was helping with student support and gradually we realised that our son was not coping well unfortunately the teachers could not do much since they were not specialists. We decided to enrol him for online tutoring under DAS International. From the first interview, we were comforted by how caring and supportive Ana and Veena were. Our son was extremely comfortable with Veena and didn't once complain about his online lessons. It has been more than a year now and through mutual support between DAS International and his school, our son's language skills and handwriting have improved so much. Most of his teachers are very happy with his progress. He is now much more confident to speak in class and also able to socialise in different environments. Despite the lack of physical interaction and time differences, we feel that having lessons online actually helps him to focus and concentrate more as he is less distracted by unfamiliar surroundings i.e. more comfortable at home. The advancement of online platforms and tools has made it just as effective as a face-to-face class (he has even picked up more computer skills). It is not only just academic support that our son is receiving from DAS International, but we feel that Veena treats our son like her own and truly believes in his overall well-being and achievement. That's really going beyond her call of duty - we are blessed!" ~ Online Specialist Tutoring Parent from Turkey - March 2024 |
| Another lovely testimonial for Specialist Teacher, Shilpa Madane, all the way from Vietnam
Michelle enjoys the lessons and has been progressing well. I do not know if she is at the level of kids her age or not (I fear not) but clearly, she has been progressing since starting with you for her Online Specialist Teaching. Michelle is really looking forward to meeting you in person when she comes to Singapore for her intensive Specialist teaching with you. In general, Michelle absorbs like a sponge everything that we give her from academic content (in English or Vietnamese) to physical activities like golf, rollerblading, martial arts or extracurricular activities like piano, dancing, cooking, coding, etc…. Sometimes I wonder if I had to follow her schedule would I be exhausted? Because I travel a lot and her daddy is not with us all the time as he is also travelling, and grandma is already old so engaging her in activities or having her take lessons is a way for me to ensure that someone is always with her instead of her lying in bed watching her iPad. Thank you Teacher Shilpa ~ Parent of DAS International Online Student from Vietnam - March 2024 |
DAS INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS TESTIMONIALS
Yaz, a DAS International Student writes a personal handwritten testimonial for Shilpa, Specialist Tutor
Find out more about Shilpa here
A Testimonial for Samunn from one of his students.
Find out more about Samunn here.
SPECIALIST TUTORING TESTIMONIAL
Marcus Tan Chun Hon attended Specialist Tutoring for 1.5 years at DAS Rex house learning centre. Marcus was a Secondary Three student at St. Andrews Secondary School (Express Stream). He was referred to Specialist Tutoring as he had weak sentence-writing, lack of understanding in phonological decoding, passage-reading fluency and reading comprehension.
Marcus is a well-mannered boy who showed good levels of attention and perseverance throughout the sessions I had with him. He was able to relay his ideas in a fluent and coherent manner. My sessions with him included spelling drills, oral conversations based on selected topics, essay writing (narrative and expositive) and reading comprehension passages. Passages for reading comprehension were carefully selected for his ability. He always left my session with a simple task to finish before he attends the next session, mainly topics that would be covered in the next reading comprehension task. We usually commence the sessions with conversational topics relating to the reading comprehension passage. Marcus enjoys researching and reading on the topics given as it enhances his general knowledge. At times, we also covered study skill concepts as he had challenges on time management, organisation and note-taking.
However, he would come for my sessions displaying some stress with school work and expectations. He would get angry with himself if he does not attain his own academic targets that he has set for himself. Over time, we had lots of positive discussions on how we can manage emotions in a much effective manner. Marcus gradually improved in Secondary 4. He started to answer questions pertaining to reading comprehension passages he read independently and most importantly with greater confidence. Marcus started developing better spelling skills and made lesser spelling errors in his writing tasks. It is highly commendable that Marcus attained good conversational skills within the period he was with me.
We always had great discussions on positive learning and how one can achieve by being positive. Marcus texted me when he was in the school hall when he was about to receive his “O level results”.
We had funny moments of laughter wondering how he had actually scored as he mentioned he was having a “heart attack”. Marcus did extremely well for his O levels by achieving 7 points.
I remember Marcus texting me “I worked so hard for this and it was really hard”.
Marcus is a self-motivated teenager who set out goals for himself. The road to success comes through hard work, determination and sacrifice. I am truly proud of Marcus.
Find out more about his Senior Educational Therapist and Specialist Tutor, Bhavani here
GRETAL SEET, A DAS INTERNATIONAL STUDENT
I was only officially diagnosed with dyslexia when I was in secondary 4. This means that I take a longer time to understand and learn a concept. Plus my carelessness and my complacency during my exams also led to me not doing well in my studies and caused me to lose hope, especially in my favourite subject, science. However, when I was promoted to secondary 4 I knew I had to do better so that I would have more paths to go for my tertiary education. With the help of my teachers and my DAS teacher, Teacher Bhavani. Teacher Bhavani taught me how to annotate the questions properly which although mainly used in English comprehension but I found it to be useful in all of my subjects. She also taught me to read the questions first then the passage so that I could look out for the answers while reading. This really helped to prevent my carelessness. I am really thankful for her! Overall for me trying your best and consistently working both hard and smart, applying what you learnt for study skills helps. It is a long but rewarding journey with some failures along the way and one should not give up.
BHAVANI JEGANATHAN - GRETAL'S SPECIALIST TEACHER
Gretal Seet Jia Xuan attended Specialist Tutoring for 4 months at DAS Rex House Learning Centre. Gretal was a Secondary Four student at Admiralty Secondary School (Express Stream). She was referred to Specialist Tutoring as she had weakness in composition writing, and a lack of understanding in phonological decoding, passage-reading accuracy and reading comprehension.
Gretal is a pleasant and polite student who always appears calm during my lessons. Although Gretal was able to engage in daily conversations, she found it challenging at times to express her thoughts during oral conversations. She would constantly mention how difficult it is to get the word out and prefers to write her thoughts instead. Gretal and I had a good chat about her verbal outbursts in school when she was stressed at school. We had good conversations on how to control one’s emotions and how failures can be learning experiences.
I incorporated spelling drills, oral conversations based on selected topics, essay writing (expositive) and reading comprehension passages in the sessions. We did many reading comprehension passages and had lots of verbal conversations surrounding the topic to prepare her for the upcoming O-level Oral Paper. Gretal is a hardworking and self-disciplined student. She would read the topics ahead of the session to ensure she had relevant knowledge. Gretal shared her interest in pursuing Zoology and was always an independent learner.
Gretal attained a B3 for her O-level English when initially she used to obtain C6. I am heartened to see that Gretal’s efforts paid off and she did very well for her for O-level exams. Good Job Gretal!
Find out more about Bhavani here
ANABERTA OEHLERS-JAEN, HEAD OF DAS INTERNATIONAL
Feedback from Gretal's mom, Sherinna.
I had a telephone conversation with her mother Shenna and she mentioned the following support which she felt contributed to Gretal's success:
DAS has helped Gretal to have her first assessed, confirming the diagnosis of Dyslexia. The recommendation for extra time which was granted meant that Greta could complete the exam papers and could therefore demonstrate her knowledge for the O Level examination 2017. Her Specialist Teaching classes with Ms Bhavani helped Gretal gave her much confidence and strategies in tackling the English Paper. Overall the smooth flow quick response and recommendations for Gretal were much appreciated by Gretal's mum Shenna.