Letterland

[pummanuel]

buds:

Agree. Same here.. :hi5: We made it our music and movement session
during the afternoons and a chance to play with puppets we made
according to the Letterland characters.

This is an interesting idea...to act out the roles with puppets. I should try it out one day with my finger puppets.

For us, we took turns to re-enact the roles, I'm Peter Puppy and she's Harry Hat Man. She will take take a photograph of me and I will pant like a dog, with my hands in front of me, and go 'ffff'. Or I'm Oscar Orange and she's Walter Walrus and she will splash water on me and I'll go very crossed and said 'oh' and 'ow'. It tickles her no end. Then we will switch the roles. One day, she asked me, 'I thought Mr O is supposed to protect Oscar Orange. Why didn't he come to his rescue when Walter Walrus was bullying OO?'

buds:

Confusion may not be so much after the children know all their letter sounds,
but i suppose they will miss out on the fun blending stories. Term 4 of N2,
in my opinion is good time to start as their more mature. Other centres i
know of start only in K1. When children are more mature and have longer
attention span, the concepts can be taught and understood much better &
definitely much faster.

Oh, perhaps this is why her school starts blending at Term 4 of N2. I've just proposed bringing forward basic blending to Term 3 in their annual feedback form. If different programs won't confuse the children who are already familiar with the letter sounds, then it seems alright. Thanks for the enlightenment.

[buds]

buds:

Agree. Same here.. :hi5: We made it our music and movement session during the afternoons and a chance to play with puppets we made according to the Letterland characters.

pummanuel:

This is an interesting idea...to act out the roles with puppets. I should try it out one day with my finger puppets.

Our puppets are bigger. Hand puppets and face masks.
So each of us get to be the Letterland characters itself.
When they were younger, we would act out the words
while the CD was playing. We had large hollow-letter
templates to trace and match to the face masks as
we sang the songs to the handwriting CD.

pummanuel:

For us, we took turns to re-enact the roles, I'm Peter Puppy and she's Harry Hat Man. She will take take a photograph of me and I will pant like a dog, with my hands in front of me, and go 'ffff'. Or I'm Oscar Orange and she's Walter Walrus and she will splash water on me and I'll go very crossed and said 'oh' and 'ow'. It tickles her no end.

You are creative too and pretty hands-on as well i must add. From your
sharings, i can visualize how much fun the both of you were having
together! :celebrate:

Word of caution though : Do watch out that Peter the poor puppy says its
sound (letter sound) instead of the 'fffff', while 'fffff' itself isn't wrong as
that would be the actual cute puppy sound. One may also re-enact the
puppy saying soft \"p-uh' sounds in a sad whiny voice with a sad puppy
face.

Why the word of caution? Cause i have had parents who came to us and
shared similar woes of confusion when trying to do home reinforements
with their children. Amidst the fun of learning through play, the objective
of the reinforcement may not necessarily be met if at the end of the home
activity, the child is still not able to voice out the sound corresponding to
the characters or pick out the letter shape that makes the letter sound tt
was being reinforced.

It is fine to play with animal sounds but when parents can sense a wee bit
of confusion between the animal character sounds and the letter sounds...
you may rephrase the sounds you are asking for.

ie. Animal sounds : woof woof... baa baa... meow meow... (etc)

Example :

Yes, you're right hun... a puppy does make that sound. (woof woof.. or aaarrrfff)

Can you now; give mummy the letter sound Poor Peter the Puppy makes?
And when you pose that question, make extra emphasis on the /p/ sound
to get the objective across.

pummanuel:

Then we will switch the roles. One day, she asked me, 'I thought Mr O is supposed to protect Oscar Orange. Why didn't he come to his rescue when Walter Walrus was bullying OO?'

You have a bright kiddie there... thinking outside the box!

pummanuel:

Oh, perhaps this is why her school starts blending at Term 4 of N2. I've just proposed bringing forward basic blending to Term 3 in their annual feedback form. If different programs won't confuse the children who are already familiar with the letter sounds, then it seems alright. Thanks for the enlightenment.

Most likely reason i can think of. Another is also to allow new students to
catch up and also to ensure the whole class / level is on the same level
with each other so that the teacher does not have to repeat or back-teach
once blending activities come in. The idea is to make sure the single letter
sounds are solid before moving on to blending.

If children are already quite versed with the Letterland stories and also the
characters, parents can double up reinforcements by ensuring that they can
say, pick out/point to the letter shape, trace... with just yourselves saying
only the letter sounds... yes... without the Letterland characters. This way
if parents are planning to outsource phonics lesson to speed up, children
will be less reliant on the Letterland characters. Even if parents do not have
such intentions, this will still help with the moving on to the next level with
the children getting older & going into the blending process.

[pummanuel]

buds:

Word of caution though : Do watch out that Peter the poor puppy says its

sound (letter sound) instead of the 'fffff', while 'fffff' itself isn't wrong as
that would be the actual cute puppy sound. One may also re-enact the
puppy saying soft \"p-uh' sounds in a sad whiny voice with a sad puppy
face.

Thanks Buds for the advice. It didn't occur to me that she may be confused between the sounds the animals make vs the letter sounds.

I guess we didn't have this problem as

(1) I started to teach her digraphs this year after she had spent a year in school on letter sounds, hence she's very familiar with the letter sounds.

(2) And I've read and explained the 'ph' story to her beforehand, so she knew that when Harry Hatman takes a photograph of Peter Puppy, instead of saying the humanly 'cheese', Peter Puppy says 'fff'. So when Peter Puppy meets Harry Hatman, i.e ph, it sounds like fff.

Phew!!! Actually being untrained in early childhood education/phonics/etc requires me to read up a lot on how to teach a young child. Lots of trials and errors, but it brings me immense satisfaction too. Once again, thanks.

[buds]

buds:

Word of caution though : Do watch out that Peter the poor puppy says its sound (letter sound) instead of the 'fffff', while 'fffff' itself isn't wrong as that would be the actual cute puppy sound. One may also re-enact the puppy saying soft \"p-uh' sounds in a sad whiny voice with a sad puppy face.

pummanuel:

Thanks Buds for the advice. It didn't occur to me that she may be confused between the sounds the animals make vs the letter sounds.

I guess we didn't have this problem as

(1) I started to teach her digraphs this year after she had spent a year in school on letter sounds, hence she's very familiar with the letter sounds.

(2) And I've read and explained the 'ph' story to her beforehand, so she knew that when Harry Hatman takes a photograph of Peter Puppy, instead of saying the humanly 'cheese', Peter Puppy says 'fff'. So when Peter Puppy meets Harry Hatman, i.e ph, it sounds like fff.

Yes it is definitely fine for advanced learners ( like yours! ) :celebrate:
and if they gao tim all the single letter sounds concretely. The
word of caution does not apply to the digraph stage where all letter
combinations make different / special sounds.

The confusion usually happens during the single letter sounds stage where
children are beginning to understand the differences between letter shapes,
letter sounds, animal sounds, special combination sounds.. (etc)

pummanuel:

Phew!!! Actually being untrained in early childhood education/phonics/etc requires me to read up a lot on how to teach a young child. Lots of trials and errors, but it brings me immense satisfaction too. Once again, thanks.

I will ditto the immense satisfaction part! :hi5:

You're doin' extremely well for an untrained one.. in future you would
have bright opportunities in the early childhood industry, cos you're soo
creative and very ONZ! :salute: All that research has served you well & your
child is very fortunate to have you as her personal enrichment teacher.

[pummanuel]

Thanks for the compliments.


I'm really far from what it takes to be an early childhood educator, esp when I see my daughter's teachers at work. But for SAHMs with no bonuses, promotions, etc, compliments keep us going! :celebrate:

[buds]

pummanuel:

But for SAHMs with no bonuses, promotions, etc, compliments keep us going! :celebrate:

Yes, everyone needs a form of appreciation and that pat on the back!
It keeps anyone going! I compliment where compliments are deserving..

You're doing great and you're on the right track! :celebrate:

[badgal]

hi pummanuel!


My dd is at halifax too, playgrp class.


I was oso thinkg if I shld let my dd attend montessori phonics class under the blendg part as my dd oredi noes all her single letter phonics sound v well. She learnt them fr the Leapfrog dvd. She can oso recognise all her alphabets be it in small caps or big caps. If next yr (nursery), Pat's is still gg to touch on single phonetic sounds until Term 4, then I must find something more interestg for her liao. Afraid she will be bored , worse still, no longer interested in learning.

[pummanuel]

Hi badgal


You have to make a call as I’m not familiar with Montessori phonics though several have commented that Tamarind’s method adopted part of Montessori phonics and I’m using hers as a reference.

I printed out Tamarind’s blending materials from her blog. For 3 letter words, it’s quite straightforward. However, do note that there are some differences in the letter sounds between Letterland & Leapfrog. I’m not sure about Monterssori. I only used Letterland to teach my DD. For 4-5 letter words which have sh, wr, wh, etc, I will also use Letterland method to teach her the sounds, and then teach her to blend.

My DD just started blending in school this term. According to her, her teacher has started on 3 letter blending beginning with a, i.e at, ad, am, an. The school is using cards, animation games, making little books to teach them blending. She’s enjoying these lessons even though she has learnt them at home. And she enjoys being praised when she can provide all the correct answers.

So I think (bearing in mind, I’m no early education expert) learning earlier is ok as long as we try to sync the outside programs with Letterland’s.

[buds]

badgal:

If next yr (nursery), Pat's is still gg to touch on single phonetic sounds until Term 4, then I must find something more interestg for her liao. Afraid she will be bored , worse still, no longer interested in learning.

Heyya badgal.. if i may jump in here just as a word of friendly precaution.
If your child is ahead of the entire pack all the time, ie. you pre-teach
everything that the school is going to cover in due time aniwaes, your
child will also risk being bored in school. As childcare hours are stretched
in childcare set-up it will be worse... she might eventually find each day
very draggy.

What you can also consider doing is focus on other skills as well... like
introduce thematic readers so that she can pick up some sight words..
practice tracing skills with her to enable her to write neatly and legibly..
There are also soft skills like improving her fine motor skills which are
needed for writing... like cutting along lines... start with straight lines..
zig-zag lines... then curvy lines... working with paintbrushes... and a
whole lot more.

While it is fine to teach slightly ahead of school in certain areas, too much
will only make a competent child bored or distracted. Early childhood
educators these days always have problem explaining to parents the
importance of age-appropriate learning. We need to truly analyze how
much is too much... how advanced is too advanced... in case too much
of a good thing might work against the intended objective.

There is more to early childhood development than just learning how to
read quickly.. JMHO. Parents must also remember that a child should be
learning holistically... not just be extremely good in one area of their
development... every good thing can be done in tandem.

[badgal]

Hi pummanuel & Buds


Thks for ur advice. I will definitely mull over the gd suggestions u have given mi. In fact Buds, what u suggested like teaching her sight words, I’ve juz started my DD on the P&J books a few wks ago. We started wif 1a. I read Tam’s blog. She used phonics to teach her boy the P&J books. For mi, I dunno phonics leh. Last time neber learnt in sch so scared I teach her sa-lah (wrong in malay) then confused her more. So tot can let her go for montessori phonics as an add-on to the single phonics she oredi knew fr her childcare. Then I can proceed more confidently with the P&J books?