PSLE 2025 Oral Component: Tips on how you can help your child excel in the Oral component at home

In this post, we explain the key updates in detail, from the revised marks allocation to the adjustments in Reading Aloud and Stimulus-Based Conversation. These changes mean that oral skills such as clear articulation, expressive reading and confident, well-organised answers will be even more important in the coming years. To help your child stay ahead, you can also explore more tips, practice questions and lesson ideas in our Primary 5 Oral section.

In line with MOE‘s move to develop students’ critical thinking and public speaking skills even in the primary school years, the Oral component has been modified. While the new PSLE English changes will appear this year in the PSLE 2025, most schools had already tested their Primary 5 students on the Oral component in the new format for their P5 SA2 in 2024.

At TF, we believe that Oral is one component that requires time and practice to master, and preparing for it should start months before the actual exam. This will allow students to build up their confidence with every practice.

What are the changes to the Oral component?

The Reading section is now 15 marks and Stimulus-based Conversation is 25 marks, totalling 40 marks from the previous 30 marks. The Oral component becomes a substantial component in the PSLE English paper.

Changes in the Reading Section

The Reading section evaluates a student’s reading ability. A student must read a given passage fluently with the appropriate pace and intonation. Students tested in the new Oral format will be given a preamble before the passage. For example, the passage may be a speech about the importance of volunteering and the student needs to persuade his classmates to volunteer for a beach clean-up up or the passage may be a presentation about a recycling programme that the student wants to implement in his/her school.

These changes would mean that the tone a student uses in the reading passage is important. Students should study the preamble carefully and use PACT – identify the purpose of the passage, the audience he or she is addressing, the context of the passage, and the tone he or she needs to use when reading the passage aloud.

Changes in the Stimulus-based Conversation

The Stimulus-Based Conversation section is now 25 marks. In the new format, the pictures will be one where people will be doing something based on a theme. For example, if the theme is on Recycling the picture may be of students recycling or if it is about Places of Interest, the picture may be about students at the exhibits at the Science Centre. The first question will be based on the picture.

Students will need to respond logically by inferring from the picture.

Now that you know more about the Oral Component changes, let us look at how students can excel in this component and how parents can help prepare their children at home.

Tip 1: Reading Aloud

Keeping in mind that with the new format, students are required to work on their presentation skills, students can practise reading aloud their speeches in front of their family members. Over the past two years, some schools have implemented this change in their school’s curriculum. Primary 4 students must write a short presentation about topics such A Person I Admire or A Challenge that I had to Overcome and present in their classes. Marks are then awarded.

TF initiated Holiday Projects from 2023, where our Primary 5 and Primary 4 students were asked to present their holiday projects in front of their classes. The P5s had to read the newspapers during the June and December school holidays, choose 1-3 news articles, and present those articles in class. The articles could be in the form of a hardcopy, a PowerPoint presentation, or simply a picture of the article. They then had to summarise the article and explain why those articles resonated with them. There would be a Q&A section where other students or the teacher would ask them questions.

Our P4 students were tasked to read a book, create a Book in a Box and present that to the class.

The aim of giving our P4 and P5 students these projects was to instil in them a habit of reading and the chance to present in class. Presenting the newspaper articles and Book in a Box in class would be a way for them to practise their public speaking skills in preparation for their Oral examination and a way for our teachers to informally test our students’ readiness for the changes in the Reading section of the Oral component.

This simple exercise has several benefits, and the presentation portion can be easily done at home. Aside from newspaper articles or books, families can listen to podcasts or watch a documentary and have their children talk about the theme. Parents can also give them a topic such as ‘The benefits of playing online games,’ and ask them to present it.

A side note: please be encouraging and positive after your child’s presentation. While there may be things to improve on, giving a speech, even as adults, can be nerve-wracking, and confidence plays a large part in the Oral component.

At TF, we prepare Reading Aloud passages with different preambles during Oral testing for our P5 students so that they can practise using PACT and different tones of voice when reading aloud.

Tip 2: Stimulus-based Conversation

The new SBC format requires students to study a picture and infer information from it. The three possible questions for Question 1, asked in recent oral weighted assessments, are :

What are the people in the picture doing?

How are the people in the picture feeling?

The people in the picture look happy. Why are they happy?

Students will need to answer the question, describe the picture and infer the feelings and the reasons for their feelings. However, keep in mind that while the description of the picture is important, the picture is simply a stimulus to the conversation with the examiner. Students will also need to talk about their own experiences related to the picture and give an opinion.

Parents can look for pictures online or even old family photographs and initiate a discussion about those pictures or photographs. Using the example of the picture about students in the Science Centre, parents can ask some questions based on the theme. For example: What are the students in the picture doing? How do you think the students are feeling in the picture?

Talking about current issues can also be a way for students to formulate opinions and practise critical thinking. For example, road safety and the recent road accidents in Singapore. Or reasons why students should display moral values in school. Or the hot debate of how much screen time students should be allowed to have per week.

The key here is allowing children to develop critical thinking and form their personal opinions, then proving that their opinions are valid. As we often tell our students at TF, there is no right or wrong opinion in Oral but you need to prove that your opinion is valid by giving at least two reasons why your opinion is valid. If you cannot, then marks will be deducted.

We hope that this post will help parents understand the changes in the Oral component and give parents some ideas on how they can help their children at home.