Comparing Pre-school English Reading and Phonics Enrichment

[ffchin]

Holistic Parenting\" post_id=\"1836646\" time=\"1520319653\" user_id=\"165714:[quote=\"Holistic Parenting\" post_id=1836646 time=1520319653 user_id=165714]
After many attempts of putting her in different phonics classes and teachers. we finally got a teacher who can truly connect with my child. She was patient loving and an excellent phonics teacher. her patience has helped my child to improve in such a short time. Me and my husband, after believe me, many attempts felt we found a versatile teacher who can really relate to a child so I think it is only good to share her with many more of our children.[/quote]

Hi Holistic Parenting,
can you PM me about the info of this teacher?
Thanks

[lee_yl]

Yes. There are at least a dozen of “fake parents” advertising for TLL and Xin Zhong Wen.


:sick: :sick:

[MrsKiasu]

Frankly speaking, some are really so obvious…I don’t know if they know it.

[tryourbest]

MrsKiasu\" post_id=\"1939830\" time=\"1570193527\" user_id=\"43981:

Frankly speaking, some are really so obvious..I don't know if they know it.

Totally agree.. I wonder if they think parents here are stupid or something. Bth. :roll:
Can't be 光明正大？ must resort to such means? Reputable centres some more.

[vvos]

My god! So fake! I heard TLL standard has dropped already. My friend’s daughter P6 enrolled into TLL for English & Science, the improvement is not noticeable. They did teach some exam tips which help, but not really much helping on learning the language and deep understanding the knowledge.

[erencie]

Hi parents, do you think it’s a good idea to put a very young kid in a phonics class?


I’m thinking of putting my daughter into a foundation class of Tiong Bahru LCentral when she turns 34 month’s old (i.e., 2 months before her 3 years’ old birthday). It’s quite near my home and should be very easy for parents to drop-off/pick-up.

My daughter does show her interest in learning English letters and phonics at home when I’m teaching her by myself. She is also kind of quiet type of kid who likes to flip and read picture books. But that 1.5 hour duration on the class schedule is still a bit scaring–I am not quite sure how small kids are able to stay attentive in a room for 1.5 hour.

Is it harmful to a kid if I put her in the English class at such a young age?

[zac's mum]

- Will she be attending kindergarten N1 when she turns 3? Because the kindergarten will introduce phonics to the kids. Why pay for external lessons?


- If she won’t be attending any preschool, and this is her very first group lesson of any sort, then yes 1.5 hours will be very long for her. She may cry if she misses her caregiver, disrupting the lesson. As for short attention span, quiz the teachers how they handle it. The experienced ones have their tricks to keep the lessons fun, fresh & engaging for very young kids. Eg thru music & songs when their attention drifts.

- Harmful? I doubt so, unless it traumatizes her and gives her a phobia of a formal preschool/lesson setting, which can last several months in some kids.

- Helpful? Looking back now that my son is 9 years old, he learnt basic phonics in kindergarten at age 3-6, started reading (relatively late) at age 6.5, entered primary school reading well and scoring well in his English exams all the way. If u ask me, it is pretty much pointless paying for phonics enrichment at all. So what if kids know the letter sounds and read earlier. It does not give them any real advantage come Primary school years.

Don’t be conned. If I can give u more worthwhile advice, it is to let your parents speak more MT to her right from now this young age. And read to her in MT if they can. The future of the primary school kids (under PSLE AL system): those with good grounding in MT will have the edge over their peers who don’t.

[erencie]

zac's mum\" post_id=\"1947045\" time=\"1574075156\" user_id=\"53606:[quote=\"zac's mum\" post_id=1947045 time=1574075156 user_id=53606]
- Will she be attending kindergarten N1 when she turns 3? Because the kindergarten will introduce phonics to the kids. Why pay for external lessons?

- If she won’t be attending any preschool, and this is her very first group lesson of any sort, then yes 1.5 hours will be very long for her. She may cry if she misses her caregiver, disrupting the lesson. As for short attention span, quiz the teachers how they handle it. The experienced ones have their tricks to keep the lessons fun, fresh & engaging for very young kids. Eg thru music & songs when their attention drifts.

- Harmful? I doubt so, unless it traumatizes her and gives her a phobia of a formal preschool/lesson setting, which can last several months in some kids.

- Helpful? Looking back now that my son is 9 years old, he learnt basic phonics in kindergarten at age 3-6, started reading (relatively late) at age 6.5, entered primary school reading well and scoring well in his English exams all the way. If u ask me, it is pretty much *pointless* paying for phonics enrichment at all. So what if kids know the letter sounds and read earlier. It does not give them any real advantage come Primary school years.

Don’t be conned. If I can give u more worthwhile advice, it is to let your parents speak more MT to her right from now this young age. And read to her in MT if they can. The future of the primary school kids (under PSLE AL system): those with good grounding in MT will have the edge over their peers who don’t.[/quote]

Thanks for the detailed reply. Hmmm, my child is attending full day childcare, sometimes taken care by maid when I'm away for trips, so should be fine with leaving me for a while. But in childcare all her lessons last for 30 minutes each, so this is probably the first 1.5 hour stretch for her.

We mainly speak MT at home and so far her MT surpassed her English speaking ability, although it is still a too young age to judge so.

[zac's mum]

Oic…since she is attending childcare, then let the childcare introduce phonics to her (which they will). She gets social interaction in school also. Don’t need to send her for enrichments during her precious weekends.


Weekends are your precious family time with her. This is what she needs to be doing in her free time, if I may be very frank. Just continue to read books with her & converse with her in both languages. Let her have long unstructured play time (which she hardly gets in school. I mean, they run on a very tight schedule. Play time over means over). You can introduce her to easy family bonding games like Snap or Snakes & Ladders (builds counting & math skills in a fun way).

[MrsKiasu]

Don’t think our childcare has those ‘complete’ lessons on phonics as compared to outside enrichment ctrs but I think kids still get help/can learn from there…those who learn to read mainly on their own will have some ‘funny’ pronounciations at the earlier stage but once they go to primary school and get more exposure of the language, they will pick up quite naturally…