All About Teaching and Learning Phonics

[tamarind]

starz:

tamarind:

My younger boy also likes non fiction books. But I have a reading routine for him, he has read the Enormous Crocodile, the Giraffe the pelly and me, and the Minpins by Roald Dahl, which he enjoys very much. I make sure that my kids read all the great children's classics, they can learn the rich vocabulary as well as the wonderful styles of writing.

I am very impressed that your boy at such a young age can read so difficult books by Ronald Dahl. Those books are not easy to read for 4 yrs old. Sorry just curious, is he able to read all the words from these books for the 1st time or he also get to learn new words from there?

starz,
This is a page from the Minpins by Roald Dahl. My boy just read it 2 nights ago. He can read every word on the page without any help from me, except for a few words like \"completely\", \"tantalizing\", \"desire\". There are usually less than 5 words on each page that he needs help.

http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/2470/74151826.jpg\">

He is also reading very fluently, he can read a page like that in less than 10 minutes. He always asks about the meaning of new words, and I will take time to explain to him. I make sure that he understands the story by asking him to act out the story with me. For example, I pretend to be the big swan and he pretends to be the little boy riding on my back. Or I pretend to be the little boy and he pretends to be the scary fire monster coming after me

My boy is of average learning ability, and I am also surprised that he can read books like this before the age of 5. All thanks to the Ladybird Peter and Jane series, as well as his strong foundation in phonics. Besides teaching him phonics http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/, all I have done with him, was to read one page of Peter and Jane every day since early last year. He has finished reading book 11a about 2 months ago, and he is ready to start reading all the wonderful children's classics.

According to Ladybird:
12 key words make up one quarter of those we read and write
100 key words make up half of those we read and write
About 300 key words account for three quarters of those we read and write


The Peter and Jane series start by teaching kids all the important key words, enabling them to be able to read quickly at a very young age.

I have not seen any other series as good as the Peter and Jane books. My kids are using the Rigby books which do not build up the key words like the Peter and Jane series.

It is a pity that many parents think that their kids are not interested in Peter and Jane, and give up on these books. The fact is that kids don't know what are good for them !

starz:

Hi Tamarind,
Does it mean those words like sunny, bunny n etc, house mouse, tall, wall n etc I can treat them as sight words? Hee not sure how to differentiate whether they belongs under phonics or simply sight words. Confused.

Yes you can treat them as sight words. Kids should be able to see the pattern themselves. For example, we teach them sunny, bunny, then when they see \"funny\", they will be able to read it.

If you read the individual phonics letter sounds of the word, and it does not sound like what the whole word should be pronounced, then the word is not phonetic. Don't need to worry about which are sight words and which are phonetic words. Just concentrate on teaching the basics of phonics. Kids can figure it out themselves.

For example, the letter \"o\" sounds different in \"one\" and \"come\". Don't need to try to explain to the child using phonics. Just point to the words and read it correctly. If you try to explain, it will only make it more confusing.

[tamarind]

pokemon:

starz:

Abit side track, how do u all teach your kids that must use the word \"an\" for vowels (aeiou)? Any suggestions?

i told him those words that start with 'aeiou',u have to use 'an' before it. Must give them alot of examples and comparison with those words that use 'a', they will get the hang of it fast.

I do it the same way as pokemon

pokemon:

tamarind,
for fiction, i borrowed simple,thin chapter books for him,he loves it when i read to him, or else he wont voluntarily pick it up to read, although i did tell him he could read few pages and contd some other time. I also tried getting picture books w text, he will say its too kiddy. Does your boy pick up the fiction voluntarily? If given both fiction and non-fiction, which will he prefer? i was told boys at this age prefer non-fiction and as they grow older, will naturally go into fiction. Maybe different kids have different preference. Im just afraid he wil lose interest in reading. Any idea how to encourage him to read simple chapter books or izit wil come naturally when its of rite age? Since he is going P1 soon, hope he can use it on his creative writing.

My boy voluntary picks up any books which have pictures that interest him. So I make sure that we have books with nice pictures. I have the big picture book versions of Roald Dahl's The enormous crocodile, the giraffe the pelly and me, and the Minpins. He likes the pictures and he does not mind reading even though these books have about 200 to 300 words a page. I ask him to read every word out loud to me, since he is not yet 5 years old, and I want to make sure that he reads every word correctly. When I am working, he reads any other books that he likes at home (we have a few hundred children's books).

For my 6 year old girl, right after she completed Peter and Jane book 12b, I let her read Charlotte's Web, that was before her 5 year old birthday. That book only has black and white pictures, and there are not many pictures. She got bored with the book but I persisted and made sure that she completed reading the whole book of about 180 pages (200 words a page). She read out loud only 1 or 2 pages a day to me and it took a few months. When she completed Charlotte's Web, she was a very confident reader, and she was fine with reading any other books with hundred of pages. Now she easily reads about 1000 words in less than 10 minutes. But I realized that Charlotte's Web is actually a difficult book to read(for young children), and I don't intend to let my boy read it until he is 6 or 7 years old.

Personally I think that parents play an important part in choosing the right book for kids. Kids don't know which books are good for them. If we leave it to kids to read voluntarily, then they will go for easy books and they will not learn much from these books. My kids read a few pages from a book which is mommy's choice every day. Then they are free to read any other books of their choice.

[sphinx]

Hi Tamarind


My boy has mastered the 3 letter words from the vowels list like cat, dog etc. but he does make a mistake at times in sound those 3 letter words. Now, I thought of progressing to blends. I started with ‘ch’ and ‘th’. He doesn’t seems to get it when I told him that when we combine ‘c’ and ‘h’, we get a totally different sound. He still sound it out as ‘ke’ for ‘c’ and ‘he’ for ‘h’. So I’m totally at a loss whether should I proceed on or just hand in there at the 3 letter word first and let him practice some more or did I start him off with a difficult blend?

He is reading book 3A of peter and jane now and there are some words that he will be deem to forget. Should I proceed to 3B if he don’t remember quite a few words. I tried pasting those words and revise with him every now and then but he will still forget. How did you get your boy to remember the words?

Can you recommend any other books he could read to practice based on your experience if he is reading 3A of Peter and Jane now?

Sorry for the long post . Many thanks in advance.

[tamarind]

sphinx:

Hi Tamarind


My boy has mastered the 3 letter words from the vowels list like cat, dog etc. but he does make a mistake at times in sound those 3 letter words. Now, I thought of progressing to blends. I started with 'ch' and 'th'. He doesn't seems to get it when I told him that when we combine 'c' and 'h', we get a totally different sound. He still sound it out as 'ke' for 'c' and 'he' for 'h'. So I'm totally at a loss whether should I proceed on or just hand in there at the 3 letter word first and let him practice some more or did I start him off with a difficult blend?

He is reading book 3A of peter and jane now and there are some words that he will be deem to forget. Should I proceed to 3B if he don't remember quite a few words. I tried pasting those words and revise with him every now and then but he will still forget. How did you get your boy to remember the words?

Can you recommend any other books he could read to practice based on your experience if he is reading 3A of Peter and Jane now?

Sorry for the long post . Many thanks in advance.

Hi sphinx,
Don't need to say sorry I enjoy discussing about this topic.

You should proceed to book 3B, because book 3A and 3B use the same words, which are repeated many times through the books. Children need many repetitions to remember a word, so long as he knows about 80% of the words, then it is OK to proceed to the next level (4A, 4B, etc).

My boy also does not remember all the words when he finished one level. The common words are repeated through the whole series all the way to book 12, so he gets to read them again and again. By the time he finished reading book 11a, he is already very familiar with all the common words.

So don't worry, just continue to let your boy read.

For \"ch\" and \"th\", try showing him the starfall.com website :

http://www.starfall.com/n/skills/ch/load.htm?f
http://www.starfall.com/n/skills/th/load.htm?f

Let him watch it many times to become familiar with it.

The fact is the \"ch\" sometimes sound like \"k\", like in \"chorus\"

[Charmaine_chong]

Hi Tamarind,


My son manage to master lettersound 90% of them. He has been watching Leapfrog Talking Words 1 since 2 weeks ago and on zoophonics weekend class.

Will teach him words blending next week.

I taught him P&J 1 & 2 before introdution of phonics. He once remembered all words in book 1 but has seems forgotten all now.

Can i check for P&J, am i suppose to go through a page or two once daily or to get him read a page 3 times daily? End of book 1a&b, do i need to test him on words?

Thanks for your patience and time for answering my queries.

[sphinx]

Thank you very much for the reply Tamarind. Can you share what other books which you let your boy read as a practice other than p&j series when he is at level 3 of p&j? Thanks.

[tamarind]

Charmaine_chong:

Hi Tamarind,


My son manage to master lettersound 90% of them. He has been watching Leapfrog Talking Words 1 since 2 weeks ago and on zoophonics weekend class.

Will teach him words blending next week.

I taught him P&J 1 & 2 before introdution of phonics. He once remembered all words in book 1 but has seems forgotten all now.

Can i check for P&J, am i suppose to go through a page or two once daily or to get him read a page 3 times daily? End of book 1a&b, do i need to test him on words?

Thanks for your patience and time for answering my queries.

Hi Charmaine,
Your son is progressing well !

My advise is not to repeat the same page 3 times, it will be too boring for the child. I only let my boy read the same pages once a day. Book 1a is very simple. My suggestion is :

Read this on day 1
(odd number pages are pictures only)
Page 6: Peter
Page 8: Jane
Page 10: Peter and Jane
Page 12: Here is Peter and here is Jane
Page 14: Peter is here and Jane is here.


Read this on day 2
(read the earlier pages as revision)
Page 6: Peter
Page 8: Jane
Page 10: Peter and Jane
Page 12: Here is Peter and here is Jane
Page 14: Peter is here and Jane is here.
Page 16: Here is the dog
Page 18: Here is Jane and here is the dog


Read this on day 3
(read the earlier pages as revision)
Page 6: Peter
Page 8: Jane
Page 10: Peter and Jane
Page 12: Here is Peter and here is Jane
Page 14: Peter is here and Jane is here.
Page 16: Here is the dog
Page 18: Here is Jane and here is the dog
Page 20: Jane likes the dog and Peter likes the dog.
Page 22: The dog likes Jane and the dog likes Peter
Page 24: I like Peter.
Page 26: I like Jane.
Page 28: I like the dog.


This is only a suggestion. Every child is different. If your child already knows the words like \"here\" and \"is\" very well, then there is no need to repeat the earlier pages. For my boy, I don't repeat any pages at all from book 4 onwards, after that, he reads a new page every day.

On the bottom of every page, there are new words. What I did was to revise the words at the bottom of every page with my boy once a day.

[tamarind]

sphinx:

Thank you very much for the reply Tamarind. Can you share what other books which you let your boy read as a practice other than p&j series when he is at level 3 of p&j? Thanks.

Hi sphinx,
I also let him read the Dr Seuss books :
http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/2008/12/books-for-beginning-reader.html

His nursery was using the rigby readers:
http://www.edventurebooks.com/Rigby/Rocket/index.html

[Charmaine_chong]

Hi Tamarind,


Thanks a lot.

[sphinx]

Tamarind

Thanks for d info.