Montessori Phonics - Introduction To Single Letter Sounds

[keas]

Hi Charmaine and Buds,


Thanks so much for your sharing. I have already applied your advice to my son

[buds]

keas:

I have already applied your advice to my son

Hope it works out for you, keas.. :celebrate:

[daddy2007]

mummy of 2:

the school will only teach blending etc in K1. Is that too late? Am quite kan cheong becos i never learned phonics and am not sure how to teach him.

Personally I think is abit late. My wife taught my DD phonics when she is 18months and blending when she is 2 years old. By 3 years old, my DD can really read & pronounce alot of words. So I think blending works wonders

[buds]

Just like how each child is unique and have different pace for learning

discoveries... likewise for learning centres. Different learning centres
offer different phases of teaching reading for different levels... and
each centre offers varying methods of teaching reading / phonics.

The important thing is to ensure that the centre does indeed have a full
reading pgrm or curriculum and not just teach only single letter sounds
then stop (i've encountered centres who do that) or the centre is equipped
to teach the children only up till 3-letter word formation (word families).

How much time a parent has; to spend on teaching their own children
should they want to skip the enrichment route is also yet another factor.
Another aspect to factor in... is with regards to the fact that not all parents
\"know how\" or \"what\" to teach.

Blending @ K1 is NOT late at all on the contrary.

In fact, if the child at N2 age can really polish up the 3-letter word formation;
read, decode, write the word families to perfection... blending @ K1 age is a real
breeze.

I try never to compare speed of achievements amongst children. It's never
fair as each child is in different home environment, choice of schools or/and
enrichment and the amount of exposure between children is different.

Parents should observe the pace of their own children based on the child's personal
learning growth and development. Do not use the benchmark of other children
to measure up against your own... but instead work towards the progress of your
own children positively.

[Charmaine_chong]

Buds,


I have bought silly sentences at Popular book fair and my son likes it.

[buds]

GREAT! :hugs:


Share more when you have time okie, dear!
Value for money?

[buds]

soomum:

Lessons 1- 5 which covers teaching child sounds /c/. /f/, /i/, /m/, does it mean we just do the same for /e/, /z/, /p/, /o/ follow by next set etc?

Yes, correct. The continuity of the flow of lessons should be the same. Feel free to throw in more interesting objects tt u can find with more challenging vocab / greater difficulty of words for the remaining sets as and when you observe your child can benefit from. As a follow up to concrete experiences with the objects, you may collect pictures from old storybooks, magazines, newspapers (etc) to make your own picture cards to be used for matching games. This is where the abstract learning takes place.

soomum:

What is the reason for introducing LMA ? :?

Several objectives.. when u first embark on single letter sounds, the recognition of print/letter shape is a main objective together with knowledge on how to distinguish between consonants and vowels (easily understood as the lma is colour coded - red for consonants n blue for vowels) and tt later on at blending of sounds, it takes two of the reds n one of the blue to form a proper three letter word.. and more (follow up objectives) as you go along.

soomum:

After LMA, is it word building stage or the 3-letter word formation you mentioned earlier?

Using the same LMA material, the progression \"I\" would prefer n very much encourage is the word building stage (which understandably takes some time but more concept concrete) followed by three letter word families.

soomum:

she is not tracing the sandpaper letters well yet, always anyhow do :frustrated: is it a bad time if i try to get her to hold a pencil and start writing freehand letters? :?

I wouldn't exactly say bad timing but more to you wanting to stretch the learning experiences. As long as she can and is receptive to tracing with a pencil... using colorful markers... using paintbrushes or crayons (etc)... in
the proper fashion (top to bottom, left to right) it is fine. The key is to get her interested with tracing letters so she can learn how it is properly written.

soomum:

siidetrack a bit, i noticed that there are usually more than 1 child working on the mat in my child's school. is this acceptable? i have the perception that a child should work within a given space/work area in a montessori env, hence i'm abit disturbed by this as the teachers are not showing that this is not wrong to do. my child would tell me that so and so went over and play with her toys. she is not too happy unless its her fav friend (strange how a 3yo would already have friends she prefers) as i taught her to work within her mat and not disturb others hence she expects the others to do so.

Then she loves playing her school toys not sure what she picked and she does not like to be asked to do tablework/sit beside teacher to learn numbers/letters. she's stubborn i usually have to find a way to convince her to agree to do what i want her to. Have you come across such student/child before? How would you handle them?

Of course sweetie! What issit that I haven't encountered in this field after doing it so long... :evil: Just to clarify that technically it isn't exactly wrong to work together but the interested party must get prior agreement and approval from the one working on his/her mat. It should ideally be s mutual agreement n not something forced upon the child to agree, since there is a need to respect another child's work space.. ie. not crossing over mat/materials.. not grabbing.. not disturbing another child's concentration while intently at work.. (etc). Directresses, as facilitators n observers can come in to act as the middle-man to ensure the agreement (or not) is understandable to both parties. I suggest the moment parents feel doubtful or uncomfortable with certain settings of the classroom environment or handling of certain issues to quickly come forth to the respective directresses to seek council or advice. Point to note : Positive feedback n tactful expression of observation will in turn reward you with the same aura of positivity in most scenarios unless the teaching person is unsociable, unapproachable, or worse still... the kinds always on the defence.. :roll:

As for children who prefers to fo their own stuff most of the time, there are ways of getting around it. In a non-threatening Montessori environment we never stop encouraging children to work on materials within the individual curriculum regardless whether the child decides to fully participate in it or not. The other way is to do it as a group of a few if them first (so nobody does their own individual mat activity until the presentation is complete) after which the directress still goes around individually presenting the same presentation again to all of them. You'd be surprised dome kids who are genuinely strong headed n who've refused to partake in the activities DO observe n listen (even if they look like they're not! ) and actually know how to do them so well when they're left to their own devices to work the material! On your part, keep encouraging your child to take turns taking activities from all the shelves to ensure she gets the full benefits of what the 5 areas of the Montessori Method really offers. :hugs:

A thousand apologies for an extremely delayed reply.
Hope it's still helpful to u now. :oops:

[buds]

Heyya soomum... here are more detailed replies.

soomum:

lessons1- 5 which covers teaching child sounds /c/. /f/, /i/, /m/, does it mean we just do the same for /e/, /z/, /p/, /o/ follow by next set etc?

Yes. Correct.
The other sets are as per the ones here at this link > http://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/content/do-it-yourself-alphabet-cards-1-montessori-sandpaper-letters or here at forum thread > http://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7573&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

soomum:

What is the reason for introducing LMA ? :?

For starters learning single letter sounds, they learn to distinguish the letter shape and because the LMAs aren't arranged in order, you can observe if your child can indeed recognize the letter shape and match it to the corresponding letter sound card (sandpaper alphabets). They will also learn to tell vowels and consonants apart initially by colour but later on automatically with practice as they go on to 3 letter words' formation.

For intermediate learners, they learn to do wordbuilding effectively with the LMA and self-revision does not even require an adult to further teach. The adult observes and facilitates the learning experience as much as possible. Montessori materials are designed to allow self-correction which means that the child can self-check for any errors. Cool huh?

LMAs can be used up till the blending stage for up to 5 to 6 letter words' formation.

soomum:

After LMA, is it word building stage or the 3-letter word formation you mentioned earlier?

Think the answer here is already given above as well. Lemme noe if you require further clarification.

soomum:

she is not tracing the sandpaper letters well yet, always anyhow do :frustrated: is it a bad time if i try to get her to hold a pencil and start writing freehand letters? :?

My DD1 didn't even wanna touch the cards when i first tried to introduce her. :rant:

Bad timing... naaah... no harm trying.

[chuaeil]

bud,

do you have a blog for montessori phonics?

[laughingcat]

Hi chuaeil,


I kaypoh abit and speak for Buds as she is kinda busy and may not be in time to answer all queries.

Naaah Buds doesn’t have a blog yet. You can refer to all the posts and articles that she has kindly created and shared. It is sufficient already.