All About Teaching and Learning Phonics

[cherrygal]

The topic is very helpful.


If I buy the Leapfrog DVD from amazon.com, can I watch it with a normal DVD player? Sorry to ask this. I seem to have seen this question asked somewhere but now cannot locate the answer.

My son learnt reading at 4yrs from Zoophonics (1 year). I sent him to Zoophonics as he was resistant to reading books by himself. After he was confident in reading, I took him out of Zoophonics. He's now 6 and can read Enid Blyton books, newspapers and ingredients from food packages. So which level should I start my son on with Ladybird series? He will enter P1 next year.

I now intend to use Tamarind's method to teach my daughter when she reaches 2+ and also to help motivate my son to read more extensively. I will also tell my son tonight that he can have ice cream at swensens if he finishes more books. Great idea!

[buds]

laughingcat:

Hello experts :rahrah: I do have a query and hopefully can get some expert view and suggestion. :salute:

Hi, laughingcat.

Received your PM with regards to the query below.
Apologise for the delay as i've been rather occupied.
I am NO expert but i will try my best to guide you where
i can, okie?

laughingcat:

All along I have been teaching my boy the short vowel first. Now that I need to move to teaching long vowel because of some advanced blending.

Yes, i suppose you are on the right track, dear.

Beginners to Phonics will begin from learning the sounds of
letters first (single letter sounds)... move on to wordbuilding
(listening to sounds in words :eg. t...i...n...) then to 3-letter
phonetic words family blending (eg. am, an, at ag, etc)...
followed by double consonant blends (bl, cl, fl, sp (etc)...
triple consonant blends (eg. spr, spl, etc)...

After which, children can move on to other combination
sounds, long vowels & special letter combinations & so on.

An effective phonics programme must be supplemented with
books or readers. Phonics should not only serve the purpose
of decoding words or learning how to spell, but also not forgetting
the whole intention of assisting the child with fluency in reading and
reading effectively. Children should progress from learning to read
short simple words to short sentences and move on to longer words
and longer sentences. The inclusion of sight words will be extremely
helpful in helping children to make sense of sentences in words, as
complete sentences will be made up of both phonetic and sight words.

laughingcat:

Can anyone advise me how do I go about teaching long vowels in order to avoid confusion? :?

You should ensure that you gao tim the blends first prior to introducing the
long vowels. There are blends that do not have long vowels in them like in
the words bl-ack... bl-and... and also in words like spr-ing... spl-en-did. Try
to avoid words like bl-oo-per-s... and br-oo-m... or scr-ee-ch... for starters.

Once you're assured that your child understands the blends, i can guide you
further with the long vowels. As usual, you're always welcome to PM me your
doubts. Will try the best i can, k.. with whatever time i have here.

Regards, buds.

[hquek]

cherrygal:

The topic is very helpful.


If I buy the Leapfrog DVD from amazon.com, can I watch it with a normal DVD player? Sorry to ask this. I seem to have seen this question asked somewhere but now cannot locate the answer.

Hi cherrygal,

You can actually borrow the leadpad frog dvds from local library - normal members (ie don't pay money type) can borrow 2 discs.

And if you buy from amazon, as long as your dvd player can read the region the dvd is under, no issues.

if you have a region-compatibility issue, no worries. Just google and there will be someplace that teaches how to change the region code of the dvd player. For all machines, there is a chain of buttons to press that will enable to make the machine multi-region.

[buds]

It is usually easiest if one has the multi-coded DVD player.

The one i recently sold off couldn't be played on desktop,
laptop or netbook but could play automatically on our DVD.
No fuss for region code changes and such.

[cherrygal]

hquek:

Hi cherrygal,

You can actually borrow the leadpad frog dvds from local library - normal members (ie don't pay money type) can borrow 2 discs.

And if you buy from amazon, as long as your dvd player can read the region the dvd is under, no issues.

if you have a region-compatibility issue, no worries. Just google and there will be someplace that teaches how to change the region code of the dvd player. For all machines, there is a chain of buttons to press that will enable to make the machine multi-region.

Thanks hquek and Buds for your advice! I just ordered mine via Amazon and it should arrive in Sep. Hopefully I will have no problems watching. I bought the 3xDVD set with flash cards (US$24.95 before shipping). Tot it would be a good investment since we are supposed to show to the kid everyday or so.

This website is really making me kiasu man...

[laughingcat]

HELLO Buds :rahrah: Thanks so much for the advise. I really need it ...hehehehe :lol:


Your advise came in just in time. As I have finished with the initial consonant blends and that is when I felt stuck :whut:

Okie....shall try out the triple consonant blends. I was thinking of skipping this actually and just go straight into long vowels. heheheh seems like I can't take the short cut way.

[tamarind]

starz:

hi tamarind,


my girl is reading level 4b right now. I find its too easy for her age 4 yrs old. cos i was so busy that we delay almost a yr to restart P&J again. its like overdue. shall i skip to the next level? but which level is recommended? also issit a must to buy both book A and B?

else what is the most basic n easy simple chapter books to start off with? i dun wish to bore her with chapter books, just want to lightly introduce to her.

Hi starz,
It is not necessary to buy the \"b\" series if your girl can read most of the words in \"a\" without any help.

Check out this page from my blog :

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

I listed many books suitable for reading level 4.

[tamarind]

buds:

An effective phonics programme must be supplemented with
books or readers. Phonics should not only serve the purpose
of decoding words or learning how to spell, but also not forgetting
the whole intention of assisting the child with fluency in reading and
reading effectively. Children should progress from learning to read
short simple words to short sentences and move on to longer words
and longer sentences. The inclusion of sight words will be extremely
helpful in helping children to make sense of sentences in words, as
complete sentences will be made up of both phonetic and sight words.

Hi buds,
I totally agree with you.

In my blog, I have always advised parents that they must teach both phonics and sight words (using the Peter and Jane series or other books).


For my boy, I started him on the Peter and Jane book 1 after I taught him how to join 3 letters to form words. The results are amazing.

He will be 6 years old next month, and now he is reading Charlotte's Web. He reads very fluently, and he knows most of the words, I rarely need to help him. I remember struggling when I had to read Charlotte's Web at Sec 1. My boy is only of average learning ability and he used to have a very short attention span. I believe that if we use the correct methods, all kids of average and above abilities can be taught to read amazingly well by the age of 6.

[laughingcat]

tamarind:

He will be 6 years old next month, and now he is reading Charlotte's Web. He reads very fluently, and he knows most of the words, I rarely need to help him.

Hello Tamarind,

Was wondering whether can you share your experiences in getting active boy to read. At the start, do you face any difficulty getting your boy to read books other than P&J? Also can you share what are your encounters when you tell your boy to read such a \"thick\" book? I was thinking how I can counter such fear should my boy be in that stage.

[tamarind]

laughingcat:

tamarind:

He will be 6 years old next month, and now he is reading Charlotte's Web. He reads very fluently, and he knows most of the words, I rarely need to help him.

Hello Tamarind,

Was wondering whether can you share your experiences in getting active boy to read. At the start, do you face any difficulty getting your boy to read books other than P&J? Also can you share what are your encounters when you tell your boy to read such a \"thick\" book? I was thinking how I can counter such fear should my boy be in that stage.

Hi laughingcat,
My boy reads thick books only after he has completed the Peter and Jane level 11 books at 4 years 10 months old. Book 11 has about 150 to 200 words a book, take a look at this page :
http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/2009/06/how-do-i-manage-to-find-time-to-teach.html

After book 11, he started reading these books :
http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/2009/09/books-they-love.html

The Peter and Jane books are the best books for training kids to read thick books with hundreds of words

I started the Peter and Jane book 1 when he was 3 years old. There were only a few words a page, and I only asked him to read at most 2 to 3 pages a day (for books 1 to 4). Since he only had to read for a few minutes, he did not mind.

Since book 5, he read only one page a day. As he progressed through the levels, the number of words in each page increased, although he was still reading one page a day.

By book 11, he was very used to looking at pages with many small words. So when I asked him to read thick books, he did not mind at all.

That is why I highly recommend the Peter and Jane books Of course, both my kids have a very strong foundation in phonics, and that really helps them to remember new words easily.

When teaching a boy who cannot sit still, the trick is only teach a few minutes a day using an excellent reader like the Peter and Jane series, and also teach a very helpful technique which is phonics. Many parents think that we must make a child sit still for at least an hour everyday to read, that is not necessary. We only have to teach a few minutes a day, but it is important to persist and teach every day between the age of 3 to 6. If we stop for one or two days, the child may forget the words. I brought the Peter and Jane books with me even when we travel overseas.

Different kids will progress at a different pace. In the case of my girl, now in P1, she read Charlotte's web at 5 years old.

When my kids were reading the Peter and Jane series (note that they read every word out loud from the book, I did not read to them), I did not make them read any other books to me. They always have the freedom to pick any book they like from our home library of a few hundred books, and read quietly on their own.