All About Teaching and Learning Phonics

[milo66]

Tamarind, thanks for ur excellent blog it certainly help to kickstart teaching my boy phonics at home.


Will be relocating overseas hence abit worried of his progress in school and whether he can catch up with P1 curriculum when he is back. Thanks for giving me the confident tat with hard work, a mother can be a good teacher too!

[tamarind]

milo66:

Tamarind, thanks for ur excellent blog it certainly help to kickstart teaching my boy phonics at home.


Will be relocating overseas hence abit worried of his progress in school and whether he can catch up with P1 curriculum when he is back. Thanks for giving me the confident tat with hard work, a mother can be a good teacher too!

You are welcome

I think of teaching as spending quality time with my kids, it is actually very enjoyable now. I love to hear them read the wonderful children's classics out loud to me, it is a great way to de-stress after work. I think that my mind has been enriched through the process too

[pummanuel]

Hi Tamarind,


I have applied your suggestion to let my daughter read other books when we came to a deadlock at Book 7a. I picked the easier books for her to read and it renewed her confidence in reading and we progressed from there on.

She’s at Book 10a now. Blending is more or less established for her. For longer words or non-phonetic words, I will still need to help her. However, I noticed that complex sentence structure is more commonly used since book 9. Like the use of ‘and’, ‘as’, ‘which’, ‘if’ to join 2 sentences. Eg. "The four of them are soon walking along by the side of the little stream as it flows down to the sea." She has problems understanding and I have to break it into parts and draw/act its content.

Do I need to formally go through sentence construction with her or she will just pick it up as we read more books? Thanks.

[tamarind]

pummanuel:

Hi Tamarind,


I have applied your suggestion to let my daughter read other books when we came to a deadlock at Book 7a. I picked the easier books for her to read and it renewed her confidence in reading and we progressed from there on.

She's at Book 10a now. Blending is more or less established for her. For longer words or non-phonetic words, I will still need to help her. However, I noticed that complex sentence strucutre is more commonly used since book 9. Like the use of 'and', 'as', 'which', 'if' to join 2 sentences. Eg. \"The four of them are soon walking along by the side of the little stream as it flows down to the sea.\" She has problems understanding and I have to break it into parts and draw/act its content.

Do I need to formally go through sentence construction with her or she will just pick it up as we read more books? Thanks.

Hi pummanuel,
Your daughter is 4 years old this year right ? Yes she will pick it up as she reads more books. Peter and Jane (Key Words) books 10 to 12 are actually intended for kids 8+ years old, I have a chart in this page :

http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/2010/04/what-to-expect-in-primary-one.html

She is already very advanced It is also good to explain the sentence structure to her, but the most important task is to find books that she likes to read very much. Make sure that she reads lots of picture books, there are books with lots of pictures and lots of words that are suitable for her reading level, check out this page :

http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/2010/03/picture-books-from-my-home-library.html

The pictures will help her understand the sentences. I indicated the reading level for each book. For example, reading level 10 means that if a child is reading Peter and Jane book 10, she should be able to read the book. She will also be able to read all the books below level 10

[pummanuel]

Thanks, Tamarind.


Yes, she’s 4 years 4 months now. She enjoys Peter & Jane very much. It has become a daily routine for her now. She looks forward to meeting her ‘friends’ everyday.

As the latter books touch on more complex topics, we would act out/draw the various scenarios in the books for her to understand better. The other day, she could not understand how a buoy worked. I explained to her that the boys tied the motor boat to the buoy so that the motor boat would stay in place. But she wondered if the buoy is so small and light, how could it keep the boat in place. I had to do an experiment in the tub for her to understand. So I think P&J is more than just language.

I have been following your blog religiously and bought several of the books you mentioned in the blog, along with other picture books. However, she would tell me she has done her share of reading already (P&J) and insisted on me reading to her. So I would try to coax her to read alternate pages with me.

May I know for your children, did you get them to read the other books after P&J then? She’s tired after P&J, so I tried to do it before bedtime, not daily though, mainly when she’s keen too. However, there may be several words that she doesn’t know. As she has not reached the stage where she can decode most of the new words just by looking at the words in the book (I normally write it down on the board), so she finds it tiring to do so at bedtime. But there’s the only time I have with her after P&J.

Thanks.

[Hifive]

Hi Tamarind


Need your advice:

I am teaching my DS2 phonics at home. There are a few ending sound like "ct" and "xt" which I am not sure of how to teach him.

Pls help. Or is there any resources or references that I can refer to? Thanks in advance.

[tamarind]

pummanuel:

Thanks, Tamarind.


Yes, she's 4 years 4 months now. She enjoys Peter & Jane very much. It has become a daily routine for her now. She looks forward to meeting her 'friends' everyday.

As the latter books touch on more complex topics, we would act out/draw the various scenarios in the books for her to understand better. The other day, she could not understand how a buoy worked. I explained to her that the boys tied the motor boat to the buoy so that the motor boat would stay in place. But she wondered if the buoy is so small and light, how could it keep the boat in place. I had to do an experiment in the tub for her to understand. So I think P&J is more than just language.

I have been following your blog religiously and bought several of the books you mentioned in the blog, along with other picture books. However, she would tell me she has done her share of reading already (P&J) and insisted on me reading to her. So I would try to coax her to read alternate pages with me.

May I know for your children, did you get them to read the other books after P&J then? She's tired after P&J, so I tried to do it before bedtime, not daily though, mainly when she's keen too. However, there may be several words that she doesn't know. As she has not reached the stage where she can decode most of the new words just by looking at the words in the book (I normally write it down on the board), so she finds it tiring to do so at bedtime. But there's the only time I have with her after P&J.

Thanks.

Hi pummanuel,
It is great that your girl enjoys Peter and Jane

My kids also like the Peter and Jane books very much. When they were reading these books at 4 years old, I did not ask them to read other books out loud to me. I give them the freedom to pick up any book they like from our home library of a few hundred children's books. They can read whenever they feel like it. They usually pick books that are of a lower reading level then the Peter and Jane book that they were reading, so they have no problem reading those books.

After they finished reading Peter and Jane book 12, I continued the routine of getting them to read out loud to me everyday, from a book of my choice.

[tamarind]

Hifive:

Hi Tamarind


Need your advice:

I am teaching my DS2 phonics at home. There are a few ending sound like \"ct\" and \"xt\" which I am not sure of how to teach him.

Pls help. Or is there any resources or references that I can refer to? Thanks in advance.

Hifive,
I actually did not teach \"ct\" and \"xt\".

I only taught up to Stage 3 as described in my blog :
http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/2008/08/how-to-teach-phonics.html

Then I move on to teaching sight words using the Peter and Jane series. Personally I do not think it is necessary to teach any more than the 3 stages in my blog My boy is able to read and spell effortlessly after I have finished teaching him phonics, and also after lots of practice reading the Peter and Jane series. My kids are able to read all those words ending with \"ct\" and \"xt\", because they learn them as sight words. For example, I just point to the word \"fact\" and read the whole word for them. It makes sense to them, because they automatically breaks up the word to \"f-a-c-t\".

If we teach kids too many phonics rules, it is very difficult for them to remember all the rules. But most kids below 7 years old have the ability to learn sight words, so it is more efficient to teach by combining basic phonics and sight words.

[tamarind]

Dear all,

Check out my new page about how to motivate your child to read.
http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/2010/07/how-to-motivate-your-child-to-read.html

[Hifive]

Hi tamarind


Thanks for your advice! Really appreciate that…

My DS1 attended Montessori Phonics enrichment class when he was younger. So I have his worksheets at home. I have used the Leapfrog DVD to teach my DS2 letter sounds and now I am using DS1’s worksheet to teach the rest of the blending. I was quite concerned for a while when I couldn’t figure out how to teach some sounds.

Thanks once again for your advice. Will continue to teach DS2 the rest of the sounds + reading Peter and Jane books.