All About Grooming & Encouraging Good Reading Habits

[lifestylelink]

debbiehsl:

Hi parents,


I'm having difficulty in teaching my 7 years old boy English, who is in P1 this year. I want to improve his English but do not know how.

We went to the library to borrow books together but he don't really seems to have the interest to take the book out to read. Everytime, I've to ask him to go read books and he will ask me to read to him instead of he reads it to me.....

I can sees that whenever he comes across words that he don't know how to read or understand, he will loss interest of continuing to read the books.

Helppppppppp.....I'm worry........

Just spotted this on Mumcentre. Free trial lesson on http://www.mrssam.com.sg/, you may want to give it a try and provide feedback here.

[Picolo]

chamonix:

Hi Picolo,


Thanks for the recommendation. Will definitely keep a lookout for the book. :celebrate:

My pleasure

tamarind:

Picolo:

I found it from the Jurong Reg. Lib. I really like to have my own copy. If you are ordering from Amazon, count me in too.

I just checked http://www.amazon.com , there is only 1 left in stock ! I will order next time when they have more stock.

Let me know then.

[fo12eal]

I find this thread SUPER useful! Thanks to all for being so generous sharing informative infor here. I thought people would be so kiasu (since this is a ks forum) to lose out that they would be unwilling to share but it happened the other way round.


My dad is in the book business so I have lots of books to read when I was little. However, I never really like reading and I lose out alot! I only love pictorial books which is a shame. I couldn’t focus whenever I read and my mind would soon wonder else where…

I knew what I have lost out so I’m making sure my child doesn’t follow my footstep. She is coming to 2 and everyday I’ll try to read to her as often as I could, as many books as I can. At the moment, I will read books to her by this author – Julia Donaldson. I only buy her books if the illustartor is Axel Scheffler.

1. Room on the broom
2. Gruffalo
3. The Spiffiest Giant in Town ( in mandarin)
5. The Snail and the Whale

On other time, my gal will choose to flip/browse on books suitable around her age.

I have also send her to playgroup to get some exposure with other children. They teach phonics too. And Tamarind has been really helpful and her blog is really impressive! She really has a big heart sharing all these with us. (people she doesn’t even know)

On the Mandarin side, I recently bought 1 set of books from Growing Up Fun. There are 12 copies in the box together with 10 flash card ( 我 你 他 要 etc)

Each book cover topics like
1. My family
2. My body
3. Colours
4. Food
5. Fruits
6. Numbers
7. Scenic etc

The 1st page will be a chinese word then the next page will show the meaning. So my child can get to ‘recognise’ the chinese word. I’m not sure if it’s useful but will try to get different types of books/reading material for her exposure.

Now that I read from another thread that parents introduce San Zi Jing, it would definitely be worth while having a look at the popular bookshop.

cheers!

[curious_mom]

[Moderator's note: Topics merged.]


I have this problem; getting the same comments from my daugther's teacher that she doesn't read enough and it's showing in her composition.

I realised that she can read very well because she has very strong phonics foundation ... just that she don't understand what she is reading at times.

Any advices from daddies and mommies out there?

[quixation]

a friend of mine said the same thing about her gal who was also phonics trained and I suggested to her to send her gal for creative writing lessons.


My cousin is an english literature grad and she too started with phonics and later had trouble with comprehension and grammer. My aunt sent her for creative writing lessons…

i dont know if this works but can try…

maybe also can check with tamarind, she is the phonics pro here…hahaha…

[smum]

Actually I’m also curious if my son (P2) knows what he read. He loves to read but sometime when I asked him to read some of the words in the story book, he said he dont know. I think he just "jump" over those words which he cannot read or cannot understand. So does all these reading help?

[daisyt]

smum:

Actually I'm also curious if my son (P2) knows what he read. He loves to read but sometime when I asked him to read some of the words in the story book, he said he dont know. I think he just \"jump\" over those words which he cannot read or cannot understand. So does all these reading help?

Hi smum, once, a teacher told me, when a child reads a lot, that does not mean he/she would be good in language because he/she has been carried away by the storyline and the characters and does not take note on the vocabs and grammer etc. A good way to train up and improve the language, is to read newspaper article. It can be quite boring but that's the point. After reading, identify the difficult words, find out the meaning, compose a sentence with that word. Maybe once the kid has learnt compose sentence in school, its the right time to start this.

Another way is to have a discussion after reading the story book / article he has read. On one hand, to practise his oral skill, on the other, to practice his understanding skill. Of course, before you can discuss with him, you have to read and understand.

[Yong HL]

Hi everyone, i need advise.

my k1 daughter still cannot read on her own. she is now attending a 3-hr kindergarten and a phonics enrichment class once a week. She is now learning to stretch the sounds of the alphabets to form simple words. Yesterday i went to popular and was flipping through the p1 workbooks. seems to me they will have to learn how to read themselves in order to answer the questions. Now i am getting panicky and worried for her chinese and english... am i worrying too much..? thanks for advise. :?:

[jedamum]

Hi Yong HL,

As your girl has just started on phonics, give her some time to grasp the technique. Do ensure that the syllabus is vigorous enough (my boy spent one year in a phonics class before I withdrew him as I find it not effective). In the short span from K1-K2, you will be surprised by how much the kid progressed during this one year given regular practices.
At the same time, do expose her to http://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/content/sight-words which form bulk of any sentence structure.
Chinese-wise, if you feel that you need extra help, you can get info on the enrichment centres http://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/forum/viewtopic.php?t=416&start=0.

[buds]

Yong HL:

Hi everyone, i need advise. My K1 daughter still cannot

read on her own. She is now attending a 3-hr kindergarten and a phonics
enrichment class once a week. She is now learning to stretch the sounds
of the alphabets to form simple words.

3 hours kindergarten... Good.
1 x a week Phonics... Good.
Every other day of the week being read to?.... ?
Here dear Yong HL, you have not indicated how you help her
to cultivate a good reading habit..

It is very important that your daughter is exposed to as many different
kinds of books at this age if you are to encourage her to read or even
help to escalate her reading process. Reading to her will help her make
sense of words and through yourself as the parent, you can be there to
be her first dictionary... explaining the meanings of words... showing her
the pictures and what she derives from looking at those pictures.

Phonics will help with diction and fluency of the words you say/pronounce.
Phonics will not in its own ensure that your child will know the meanings
of words - automatically. Exposure to various literature on a regular basis
will. Encourage her to read books that she can manage... for now. From
the above note you made on the \"stretching of sounds\" or blending.
In this stage, she is taught how 3 single letter sounds are put together to
form many different words. A good Phonics programme will also provide
some good reading material to help in reading phonetic sentences on top
of reading/blending the words.

For example...

Tad the cat.
Tad is a fat cat.
Tad the fat cat sat on a mat.
Tad the fat cat naps on the mat.

Inclusion of sight words (as per jedamum's recommendation) also
plays a part in completing the reading experience. As English is a very
complex language, there are words that cannot be broken up into
individual sounds, where the child who is exposed to the Phonics
method of reading can try to decipher. These sight words can be
introduced with reading cards you can make yourself and also have
these words reinforce through reading story books together.

Yong HL:

Yesterday i went to popular and was flipping through the p1 workbooks. seems to me they will have to learn how to read themselves in order to answer the questions. Now i am getting panicky and worried for her chinese and english... am i worrying too much..? thanks for advise. :?:

Firstly, wuah... not bad. You kiasu enuf to go sniff around the P1 books.
Secondly, you're right. P1 children preferebly should know how to read
before entering P1. Not just that.. Writing too. As the writing process is
as complex as the reading, a child must know and understand how to
put in print the words/sentences that she reads too. Worry yes.. We
should worry. When we worry, we take action. We make effort. We
realise the importance of sufficient preparation.

Panicky? Try not to. When you panic, the child will catch on and panic too..
You did good in placing her in a programme for one thing.. Now you
continuously monitor and reinforce that programme you signed her
up for, talk to the teachers... find out how you can practise with your
daughter at home with their method of teaching. Does the centre offer
purchase of books at their centre that you can use (etc)?

Give the centre and your daughter some time... Rome isn't built in a day.
K1 is a great time to begin and explore the exciting realm of reading...
Your daughter, Yong HL... is roughly on track... on time... on target.
Don't worry unduly, yea.

Cheers.
Have a splendid weekend.

:celebrate: