All About Grooming & Encouraging Good Reading Habits

[optimistforum]

Tamarind wrote:

[quote]Thanks for sharing. It is great to know like minded parents from UK. Hope to learn more from you

Just curious, how did you buy the Singapore assessment books ? Does Popular bookshop ship overseas?[/quote]Thanks for that Tamarind.

Re Popular, yes it does ship overseas. I have bought well over a hundred books over the last 18 months. Some are good, and some are poor. I have also bought from sgbox.com too.

Whenever I buy I tend to purchase a whole P1 to P6 set, and sometimes I buy two sets - for DS1 and DS2.

Re Practice papers, I tend to use those from Wendykoh,com. I use Raffles, Anglo Catholic School, Nanyang and Henry Park. I generally prefer Nanyang because of the variety of question types.

[tamarind]

optimistforum,

Wow you have bought more books from Popular than I have

Yes I heard that Nanyang has the toughest exam papers.

[pokemon]

The Alternative Story:

Hi pokemon,


Have you tried second-hand bookstores like Sunny bookstore or Sans, they specialize in older books. Another option is this website where I find rather rare selections- opentrolley.com.sg You can order your books online and then pick them up at Plaza Singapura. Hope this helps! I used to enjoy Catherine Lim's books too

TAS (The Alternative Story)

tks, i will try it out.

[optimistforum]

Hi Tamarind


Happy New Year.

You mentioned that your child starts P1 in Jan (I guess next week). Will you be using any enrichment assessment books when term starts? I have decided to use P2 English Practice by Jean Chua.

I really want to align, with Sinapore P1, the books my DS1 will use? Any thoughts?

PS I saw a wonderful documentary today about the Circle driverless rail-line in Singapore - quite spectacular!!!

[sleepy]

optimistforum:

Re Popular, yes it does ship overseas. I have bought well over a hundred books over the last 18 months. Some are good, and some are poor. I have also bought from sgbox.com too.


Whenever I buy I tend to purchase a whole P1 to P6 set, and sometimes I buy two sets - for DS1 and DS2.

From my observation, it's not necessary to buy the same set from p1 to p6 from same publisher. I usually buy from different publishers so that there's a variance of difficulties.
If buying from same publisher, I will usually skip some levels since the format is similar. For grammar, I bought p1 & p2 then skip to p6. Grammar books are around the same level of difficulties regardless of p1 or p6. Same set of grammar rules.

[tamarind]

optimistforum,

Sleepy is much more of an expert in assessment books compared to me I will only be using some of the free test and exam papers from the top primary schools.

[optimistforum]

Thought I would give an update on DS1's reading. I have taken on opinions from this thread; he is reading books he enjoys - Horrid Henry in this case. I started by getting him to read a a paragraph at a time and to then summarise what happened/transpired. It has worked, and slowly but surely I am gaining confidence that he is starting to understand what he reads.


I am now working off the following reading list, and will pick titles, that DS1 enjoys. I thought i would share the title names with fellow members:
[list]

[sssdarlings]

Thank you for sharing the titles! :rahrah: May I know what level is your DS1 studying in now?


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SK

[tamarind]

Thanks optimistforum for the very good list of books.


I would also like to share some books that my girl has read from 5 to 6 years old :

Charlotte's Web and The trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White
Three Tales of My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett (highly recommended for boys )
The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, The enormous crocodile, The giraffe the pelly and me, The Minpins by Roald Dahl
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Frank Baum
Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Happy Prince and the Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde
http://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Pinocchio-Creative-Editions/dp/1568461909/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262832364&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/Alices-Adventures-Wonderland-Illustrated-Classics/dp/1406316237/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262832430&sr=1-2
http://www.amazon.com/Jonathan-Swifts-Gulliver-Swift/dp/1406301744/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257670556&sr=1-3


All original and unabridged versions. Even though she can read very well, she loves art so I find books with lots of beautiful illustrations for her. All the books are illustrated, especially the last 3 books which are wonderful. I think that good pictures are very important in helping kids understand what they are reading. My girl loves to read all these books.

My kids are free to read any book from our home library of a few hundred children's books, but the above list is my \"compulsory reading list\" My 5 year old boy has read the Roald Dahl books except Matilda, My Father's Dragon and he is now reading the original Winnie-the-pooh by A.A.Milne. I will make sure he goes through this list too, and more books which have boys as the central character.

[sssdarlings]

Another impressive list!


How do you encourage them to read the original versions or even such classic titles?
Many children find the originals lengthy/ wordy and there are those who are keen other type of books such as non-fiction or fantasy etc.

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SK