Comparing Pre-school English Reading and Phonics Enrichment

[buds]

Hi XK, you're welcome. :celebrate:

[jacsplace]

My son’s kindergarten is using the St James Church Kindergarten curriculum. Their phonics teaching is something like Sandy Sunfish, Nicky Nightingale and so forth. Does anyone know if this is Zoo Phonics?

[HappyAvon]

jacsplace:

My son's kindergarten is using the St James Church Kindergarten curriculum. Their phonics teaching is something like Sandy Sunfish, Nicky Nightingale and so forth. Does anyone know if this is Zoo Phonics?

Hi Jacsplace, I don't think this is Zoophonics. Zoophonics goes like this Allie Alligator,Bubba Bear,Catina Cat, Zeka Zebra etc....The child has to say out the above and make out the first sound together with the actions. Hope this helps...

[cloubhappy.05320live.05320com]

Hi Buds,


Do you know the method to teach phonic in Lcentral? I asked about their method and whether it will clash with Jolly Phonic that used in my gal’ school. They said that they are different methodology but it should be okie… e.g. Jolly show the children the word/letter and asked for the sound while Lcentral used picture and teacher or the child will say out the word… afterwhich they are supposed to use listening skill to hear the 1st sound. I thought this is quite good too cos it train their listening skill. I hope they can work in hand in hand.

Do you think they can compliment with each other?

[buds]

It shouldn't be a problem esp for older children in K1/K2..

cos they're more mature in terms of age and will not get
so easily confused. As for complementing each style of
teaching.. it might.. cos the basis.. the foundation of
learning Phonics is learning to hear sounds in words.

I have not personally seen for myself the LCentral style
of teaching Phonics, but i don't suppose it would cause
much of a confusion. Different styles have different
strengths and merits. Having said that the only thing to
look out for is for any difference in sounding out the letter
sounds... especially for the vowels.. (a,e,i,o,u).. cos the
different approaches may adopt different accents, ie. cud
be British English, American English or even Australian!
So, i should say mostly the concern is over those few vowel
sounds... as for the consonant sounds it can also be the case
of different 'w' and 'q' sounds.. some school of thought use \"werh\"
and \"querh\" (koo-er-h)... while others may use \"woo\" and \"qoo\"....
Mebbe you can find out about these first before you settle on it if
you wish. Hope this helps. :celebrate:

[titank]

Hi Buds,


Have check with the Kindergarten that the school would be using Rigby Star Phonics.

http://www.edventurebooks.com/index.html

Guess I would cotinue with outside enrichment as a form of supplement.

[chrismei]

jacsplace:

My son's kindergarten is using the St James Church Kindergarten curriculum. Their phonics teaching is something like Sandy Sunfish, Nicky Nightingale and so forth. Does anyone know if this is Zoo Phonics?

Hi Jacsplace

My girl is in St James Church - Nursery this year. Understood from her teacher that blending of words will start next year - K1 ..i thought it is too slow as compared to Barker Kindergarten where blending of words will be taught in Nursery according to my friend today...

[buds]

titank:

Hi Buds,


Have check with the Kindergarten that the school would be using Rigby Star Phonics.

http://www.edventurebooks.com/index.html

Guess I would cotinue with outside enrichment as a form of supplement.

Rigby Star Phonics is a complete fully decodable Phonics programme
and if i remember correctly, the programme is further complemented
with the use of a computer software to enrich children's learning
using new age multimedia approach. They have complete step by
step readers from beginner readers to fluent ones. If your child's
school uses this till graduating year (K2) diligently, then i say the
centre has made a good investment. Then again, the delivery still
depends highly on the teachers themselves. As for the programme
itself, haven't personally tried extensively but it is not bad..

Which outside Phonics programme enrichment programme are you
considering so far? Yes, no harm to escalate our children's
learning explorations.. :celebrate:

[titank]

buds:

titank:

Hi Buds,


Have check with the Kindergarten that the school would be using Rigby Star Phonics.

http://www.edventurebooks.com/index.html

Guess I would cotinue with outside enrichment as a form of supplement.

Rigby Star Phonics is a complete fully decodable Phonics programme
and if i remember correctly, the programme is further complemented
with the use of a computer software to enrich children's learning
using new age multimedia approach. They have complete step by
step readers from beginner readers to fluent ones. If your child's
school uses this till graduating year (K2) diligently, then i say the
centre has made a good investment. Then again, the delivery still
depends highly on the teachers themselves. As for the programme
itself, haven't personally tried extensively but it is not bad..

Which outside Phonics programme enrichment programme are you
considering so far? Yes, no harm to escalate our children's
learning explorations.. :celebrate:

Maybe considering the following phonics program:

(1) LCentral
(2) Learning Point (Read For Success & P1 Headstart)
(3) Spalding Phonics (Pte Individual Teacher)

[jacsplace]

My daughter (now in P1) has been attending LCentral for the past two years or so. She loves it, credits them with teaching her how to read. Teachers are all expats, Brit, Aussie, Canadian. They are good with the kids, I can see that the kids do enjoy going there. Classes are small so there is personal attention.


I think overall the programme is good. But I don’t like it that parents are not briefed at all on the programme but are still expected to help coach the child at home. I never studied phonics so I had a really hard time going through the reading passages, prompting my daughter to read words the LCentral-phonics way. I explained this to the centre manager but she said she couldn’t do anything about it. In the end, I gave up and just kept reading the words to my daughter until she could pronounce them herself.

When my daughter started the programme, her homework was unclear. We never knew if she had any, which pages to do, etc. Different teachers have different methods so we recently switched to a teacher who was more willing to be clear, in writing, what homework my daughter had.

Also, the reading passages include words that even adults wouldn’t use. But the words are there simply because they use the phonics sounds taught for that lesson. As a result, big words that are difficult to say and understand are used, instead of simpler words that would have been so much easier to read and understand.

The worksheets sometimes have errors. We first spotted errors in the colour scheme (different colours are used to indicate words/sounds already taught and those that are new), we were told it was a printing error. Then my daughter spotted a grammar error, the teacher was horrified when she told him.

I have given all this feedback to the centre manager and to the teachers. I think they are trying to make changes where it applies to this one centre. But in cases that involve LCentral as a whole – like the print and grammar errors, and teaching parents themselves phonics – no change yet.

Despite all this however is the surprising comment from my daughter that LCentral taught her how to read. My husband wants to enrol our son (now in K1) there in July. Mainly because his sister goes there, so he is more likely to accept it and stay the course, unlike all the other programmes (gym, tkd, soccer, painting, pottery) we’ve tried to get him interested in.