All About Teaching and Learning Phonics

[sunset_dae]

HI Tamarind


My boy still cant read by himself but he does like to flip every page of P & J. Should i continue to move on to reading 1B, 1C to him when he cant even read out 1A?

tamarind:

Hi Wesim,
You girl is doing very well ! There is no need to complete all the a, b, c books. Some kids only require the \"a\" books, while most kids will require the \"a\" and \"b\" books. If she can read about 80% to 90% of the words in the \"b\" book, then you can already move on to 4a.

It's good that she likes to look at the pictures, if she does not ask questions, she probably already understands what she is reading. If you think that she may not understand something, just explain it to her. For kids at this age, parents should focus on \"inputs\".

[tamarind]

sunset_dae:

HI Tamarind


My boy still cant read by himself but he does like to flip every page of P & J. Should i continue to move on to reading 1B, 1C to him when he cant even read out 1A?

There is no hard and fast rule because every child is different. You should point to every word and teach him to read out loud. If he is able to read about 50% of book 1a, then you can move on to book 1b. This is just a suggestion. Book 1b uses the same 16 words as book 1a, but in a different story. My advise is to teach the Peter and Jane books only when kids know how to join 3 letters to form a word quite well. Knowing all the letter sounds are not enough, the child may not be ready to read words yet.

[mummaid]

Hi Tamarind,

I tried the phonics teaching method you shared in your blog. DS1 and me had great fun! He was able to pronounce most of the 3-letter words to my surprise. The fun part came in when I asked him to try to explain some of the words (eg. he explained ‘Jam’ as ‘Jam’ on the bread, traffic ‘Jam’…etc). However, I have problem explaining present and past tense to him (eg. ‘sit’ vs ‘sat’). Is it the right time to introduce present & past tense to a K1? Will I confuse him?

[mummy of 2]

tamarind:

There are many picture books that have big pictures on every page, and enough words too. Try looking for these books in the library :


Percy the park keeper : a classic treasury
by Nick Butterworth
This is a very nice book, very thick, but with cute pictures on every page.

The complete adventures of Curious George
by Margret & H.A. Rey.
Another very thick book about a very cute monkey, will occupy kids for a long time.

My kids also love the Curious George book. There is another book \"The New Adventures of Curious Geoge\" which is almost as captivating This book is also available from NLB.

[JJmom2008]

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[Akin]

actually i had already started with K1 boy and he responded quite well, maybe you can work with with him slowly but have to be very patient.[/quote]

[chrismei]

Hi Tamarind


I stopped P&J many months back and was trying to concentrate on teaching my gal’s phonics - blending as her enrichment school suggested to stop P&J as it is too boring… She is confused with some words like sat, ban…i think she is unable to identify the ending sound despite breaking up the words…

Recently, she took the initivate to read P&J-4 pages but she hated to break the words…and i believed it was because she used to read as whole word instead of breaking up…

what sld i do…

[tamarind]

mummaid:

Hi Tamarind,

I tried the phonics teaching method you shared in your blog. DS1 and me had great fun! He was able to pronounce most of the 3-letter words to my surprise. The fun part came in when I asked him to try to explain some of the words (eg. he explained 'Jam' as 'Jam' on the bread, traffic 'Jam'..etc). However, I have problem explaining present and past tense to him (eg. 'sit' vs 'sat'). Is it the right time to introduce present & past tense to a K1? Will I confuse him?

Hi mummaid,
It's great that you and your DS1 are having fun !

It is OK to start teaching present and past tense to him now. The best is not to use words to explain, but to actually act it out. For example, put a bear on a chair. Say \"The bear sits on the chair\". Then remove the bear, and say \"The bear sat on the chair.\" Remember that kids do not learn well by memorizing grammar rules, they learn best by reading and using the language in real life

[tamarind]

chrismei:

Hi Tamarind


I stopped P&J many months back and was trying to concentrate on teaching my gal's phonics - blending as her enrichment school suggested to stop P&J as it is too boring.. She is confused with some words like sat, ban..i think she is unable to identify the ending sound despite breaking up the words..

Recently, she took the initivate to read P&J-4 pages but she hated to break the words..and i believed it was because she used to read as whole word instead of breaking up......

what sld i do...

Some kids know phonics, but they do not like to show adults that they are using the phonics techniques. Like my boy, he will just read out the word without breaking it up. It is absolutely fine for kids to do so. In fact, we should not insist that a child try to break up words as they read. A child should read because they enjoy reading.

To check whether a child is good at phonics or not, parents can ask them to spell any 3 letter word. A child who knows phonics very well can spell any 3 letter phonetic words effortlessly. The more advanced ones can spell any 4 letter phonetic words starting with bl, br, cl, cr, etc.

The Peter and Jane books are well loved by millions of children around the world for over 40 years. Both my kids love them too. Peter and Jane are the best books for teaching kids to read, no other books are as efficient as these books. Adults should not think that the books are boring. Kids see things differently from adults. In fact I find that many children books are extremely boring But I always show that I enjoy reading the books in order to influence my kids positively.

In fact, I think that both my kids love books now, because I always show keen interest in reading their children's books

[jacsplace]

Tamarind, I agree with you about the P&J books. I have a few and my four-year-old is able to read most of the words, even though we don’t read those books every night. I think it’s also a combination of him and his kindy’s reading curriculum. Reinforcement really helps.


But, ultimately, no matter how patient I try to be with him, he plays the fool and will pretend not to words he read effortlessly just a few seconds ago. Then I stop. No point continuing. Try again another day.