All About Teaching and Learning Phonics

[porcupine12trade]

tamarind:

porcupine12trade:

Tamarind is it you who reco the book The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe? I found it in the library and my gal loves it, though she has nvr watched Narnia. Anymore books to reco? We are running out of books to borrow, the usual ones she borrows are rainbow magic (i dont like), tiara club (i dont like), magic ballerina, all enid blytons esp the adventure ones, naughty gal, malory towers etc, nancy drew, roald dahl, and others i cant rem.. I have no idea what else to search in the library for her. I buy quite many books too, esp those i feel may benefit my #2, #3.

Hi porcupine12trade,
Yes I recommended the Lion, the witch and the wardrobe in my blog.

I also highly recommend these wonderful books :

Suitable for boys and girls:
Lafcadio The Lion who shot back by Shel Silverstein
Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones
The book of dragons by E. Nesbit
Melisande by E. Nesbit
Three tales of My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett
Tales of a fourth grade nothing by Judy Blume
Jenny goes to sea by Esther Averill


The following are good books that girls will love :
The Cobble Street Cousins by Cythia Rylant
The Fairy Rebel by Lynne Reid Banks
No Flying in the House by Betty Brock

These books are many times more interesting than Enid Blyton books.

My kids have also read many wonderful children's classics :
http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/2010/03/importance-of-reading-books.html

All books are available in the library and amazon.com, but most cannot be found in local books.

Thanks for the list! I will search for them :)!

[porcupine12trade]

porcupine12trade:

tamarind:

[quote=\"porcupine12trade\"]
Tamarind is it you who reco the book The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe? I found it in the library and my gal loves it, though she has nvr watched Narnia. Anymore books to reco? We are running out of books to borrow, the usual ones she borrows are rainbow magic (i dont like), tiara club (i dont like), magic ballerina, all enid blytons esp the adventure ones, naughty gal, malory towers etc, nancy drew, roald dahl, and others i cant rem.. I have no idea what else to search in the library for her. I buy quite many books too, esp those i feel may benefit my #2, #3.

Hi porcupine12trade,
Yes I recommended the Lion, the witch and the wardrobe in my blog.

I also highly recommend these wonderful books :

Suitable for boys and girls:
Lafcadio The Lion who shot back by Shel Silverstein
Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones
The book of dragons by E. Nesbit
Melisande by E. Nesbit
Three tales of My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett
Tales of a fourth grade nothing by Judy Blume
Jenny goes to sea by Esther Averill


The following are good books that girls will love :
The Cobble Street Cousins by Cythia Rylant
The Fairy Rebel by Lynne Reid Banks
No Flying in the House by Betty Brock

These books are many times more interesting than Enid Blyton books.

My kids have also read many wonderful children's classics :
http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/2010/03/importance-of-reading-books.html

All books are available in the library and amazon.com, but most cannot be found in local books.

Thanks for the list! I will search for them :)![/quote]Hi Tamarind,

If the list that you reco is exhausted, do u think its wise to go for other titles written by the same author? I searched \"charmed life\" in library cat and saw some interesting titles under the same author.

[tamarind]

porcupine12trade:

Hi Tamarind,

If the list that you reco is exhausted, do u think its wise to go for other titles written by the same author? I searched \"charmed life\" in library cat and saw some interesting titles under the same author.

Yes you can definitely get other titles by the same author. My girl also enjoyed reading Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones, very complicated plot, highly original and imaginative. But the book is over 400 pages long, kids may not be attracted to it at first The Lives of Christoper Chant, another book in the same series as Charmed Life, is also very interesting.

Forget to mention Prince Caspian, the sequel to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Both books are equally exciting. Actually these books are part of the Chronicles of Narnia, there are a total of 7 books in this series, all are worth reading.

[porcupine12trade]

tamarind:

porcupine12trade:

Hi Tamarind,

If the list that you reco is exhausted, do u think its wise to go for other titles written by the same author? I searched \"charmed life\" in library cat and saw some interesting titles under the same author.

Yes you can definitely get other titles by the same author. My girl also enjoyed reading Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones, very complicated plot, highly original and imaginative. But the book is over 400 pages long, kids may not be attracted to it at first The Lives of Christoper Chant, another book in the same series as Charmed Life, is also very interesting.

Forget to mention Prince Caspian, the sequel to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Both books are equally exciting. Actually these books are part of the Chronicles of Narnia, there are a total of 7 books in this series, all are worth reading.

Hi Tamarind,

Thanks very much for taking precious time to ans my qns, really appreciate that! I was about to ask you about other books in Chronicles of Narnia and you went ahead of me :). I dont like to read (paiseh :oops: ), hence dont know much about books, i only read craft books hahaha.

[tamarind]

milo66:

Thanks Tamarind for your recomendation. I hope I can succeed in teaching him Chinese myself. He will still attend school in US but seeing the no of holidays there, i doubt will be sufficient

Getting him to read aloud to me everyday as suggested in ur blog. He is in P&J Book 5a now and actually the school has completed the 3 letter phonics with him. Jus realise that he has no initiative in trying to sound the words himself! Have to depend on me to break up for me unless i prompt him to. So now wat i did was buy book of lower standard for him and hopefully will encourage him to read instead of ME reading to him. Am i doing the right thing?

Jus to check with you. When u make ur kids read aloud to you, wat happen if they meet some new words that they dunno? Mine refuse to try sounding by phonics so most of the time i will have to tell him else cannot go on liao. any suggestion?

Will continue to jiayou cos i believe no matter how good the school and system is, without the parents emphasizing at home, its also useless. Thanks!

Hi milo66,
My boy also does not break up the letter sounds when he reads a word. But I know that he is doing it \"secretly\" in his brain, he likes to pretend to be cool and does not like to show that he is trying hard at something.

If we are sure that a child knows phonics very well, then it is not necessary to make him show you how to break up the sounds when he reads. This may disrupt the flow of reading, and makes reading less enjoyable.

The way to make sure that he really knows phonics, is to test if he can spell any 3 letter words.

Yes it is fine to buy lower standards of books for him to read for enjoyment, this is the right thing to do because kids will be motivated to read books are easy for them. The Peter and Jane books are \"study books\" meant for teaching kids to read more difficult books progressively, and should not be the only books that kids read.

[porcupine12trade]

Hi Tamarind


My son loves english books and many times he will pretend he can read and "read" according to the picture or his memory. Yet when I teach him phonics blending, he loose interest v fast. Is it because the word cards are boring? Is there any book reco on simple 3 letter words, i think it would be more interesting if i can show him pictures. Thanks

[tamarind]

porcupine12trade:

Hi Tamarind


My son loves english books and many times he will pretend he can read and \"read\" according to the picture or his memory. Yet when I teach him phonics blending, he loose interest v fast. Is it because the word cards are boring? Is there any book reco on simple 3 letter words, i think it would be more interesting if i can show him pictures. Thanks

porcupine12trade,
When I teach my boy, I used real objects, and also try to let him do the action together with me. For example, when I teach the word \"jog\", I get my boy to jog together with me.

I also play games with the cards, like mixing them up, and ask my boy to arrange them in the correct groups, or read a word and ask him to pick up the correct word.

If I really cannot find any real object or demonstrate the action, I will look for the pictures in the internet to show him

[keltong]

porcupine12trade:

Hi Tamarind


My son loves english books and many times he will pretend he can read and \"read\" according to the picture or his memory. Yet when I teach him phonics blending, he loose interest v fast. Is it because the word cards are boring? Is there any book reco on simple 3 letter words, i think it would be more interesting if i can show him pictures. Thanks

Just to share a minor success I have after recently (like 1 week only) starting to do some 3 words blending with him. He just started last Sun at Mind Stretcher for his phonics class and from the worksheet I know he is have trouble. They were on 'am' and 'ad'.

So I prepared the material as per tamarind's blog and took out the 'am' and 'ad' set.

The words for 'am' are 'jam' and 'ham'. So I bought some ham home, place a piece on the table along with his favorite strawberry jam and a piece of bread. He didn't saw me preparing the food but saw me taking out the word cards to line on the table and his reaction was, \"wow man, not the word again\" and hide in his room.

So after I lay the food on the table, I went into the room to call him. Same reaction, but I told him I have something special for him. That made him walk out of the room. When he saw the food on the table his eyes sparkle.

So I told him we are going to do the word cards and he can eat after that. He readily sat down. So naturally I started with the 'am' words. He got it pretty fast, so as we do jam, I got him to spread the jam on the bread, than we do ham and I cut half of it and put it in his bread. I than allow him to eat while he promise to do the next set of words, the 'ad'.

I started by taking out a writing pad and get him to do the word 'pad' and show him what it is. Than I started to (try to) draw a girl who is tearing, and got him to do the word 'sad'. I get him to than do 'bad' and explain that the bad boy cause the girl to be sad (getting him to read the word cards instead of me saying out the word). Than I draw an angry dad scolding the boy. So I got him to say the 'dad' got so 'mad' with the 'bad' boy for making the girl 'sad' and scold the 'bad' boy. Than the 'bad' boy apologies to the girl. Trying to re-emphasize the 'ad' words again. My boy was very delighted and even asked me to draw a speech bubble for the boy to say he is sorry.

I realize this picture and visual stick as over the next 2 days he is still talking about the picture. Yesterday he even ask me for the 'pad' and attempted to draw his own version of a 'bad' girl making the boy 'sad' (doing the reverse of what I did). And he has been asking for his ham bread daily.

Yesterday when doing 'at', he was the 'cat' and chase the 'fat' 'rat' (me of coz) around the house. It has been both tough and fun trying to come out with creative ways to teach but it sure make him more interested (he brought the cards to me yesterday).

I can't thank tamarind and the rest enough for their inspiration.

[smurf]

How to teach phonics? :?


I understand that kids should be taught single letter sound first and then follow by three letters words, such as cat, fat, tap, etc.

But what I understand is that some teachers taught phonics in such a way that they teach first letter first and THEN teach the second and third letters together.

For example, the word cat. Teachers only teach the 'c' sound and then followed by 'at' sound.

So it would be c...at. But what I understand from a phonics teacher is that this is wrong. Teachers should teach in this manner:

C...a...t

3 sounds instead of 2 sounds.

[porcupine12trade]

keltong:

his reaction was, \"wow man, not the word again\" and hide in his room.

Heh my son has the same reaction! He would say \"我不要读了\" or \"我不要玩了\" only after 2-3 words. sigh...so demoralising. Wah you really put in loads of effort! i think i have to try do the same. Show all sorts of materials, stuff etc.