All About Teaching and Learning Phonics

[tamarind]

i3mum:

Yes, my girl only started the P&J book 1a in April this year. She started with as you mentioned in book 1a, 1b, 2a,2b.. and now she is in 8b. When she is feeling happy, she can reads up to 8-10 pages in a day, or sometimes only 1 page when she is tired. I also used the \"High Frequency book\" which you have mentioned, and she also completes it at about 3 months. But she could not spell out all the words like your son I hope to let her learn the phonics way.

It's great that your girl can read so many pages when she is feeling happy My boy, who is 5 years old now, can at most read 4 pages, then he will say he is tired.

Yes it is best to make sure that she has a strong foundation in phonics techniques.

I find that it is good enough to know up to Stage 2, refer to my blog :
http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/2008/08/how-to-teach-phonics.html

My boy can easily spell many words, even though he still does not fully understand Stage 3(long vowels and silent \"e\").

jacsplace:

I guess the key is control. I remember you wrote in one of your blog posts that you have a good maid. She must be if she listens to you and is firm with your kids to do what you want. No TV must be tough, no fun toys even tougher. Particularly for school-going kids (peer pressure).

For my maid, it is definitely my way, or no way. After all, I pay her to work for me. I am fortunate to finally find a good maid (after sending back many maids), who is very keen to earn money so that she can send her own daughter to university. I do reward her very well when she performs to my satisfaction, and she is happy to work for me.

For the kids, it is definitely tougher. I believe that we have to start when the child is still a baby. We never turn on the TV for our kids before they turn 3 years old. They play with their toys all day long, but they do need adult attention. So my mother, my maid, me and my hubby took turns to play or read with them whenever they were awake. They started to play on their own when they were more than 3 years old. They don't mind not watching TV at all.

After they are 3 years old, I bought educational DVDs for them. We only have Leapfrog, Little Einstein, and Richard Scarry DVDs. My kids learn all the phonics letter sounds from the Leapfrog DVD, and they learn how to count from \"Richard Scarry's Best Counting Video Ever\". I don't mind them watching the DVDs, but it is limited to about 30 minutes each day.

jacsplace:

TV has become a necessary babysitter. Otherwise, my kids will fight each other.

Kids will naturally prefer TV to reading. It is so easy to sit back and watch TV, compared to reading. But it is necessary to reduce the amount of time watching TV. My kids do fight with each other sometimes, and we always punish them. For example, the child who hits first will not get to go anywhere for a long time. My kids love to go out because my mother and the maid cannot bring them to fun places faraway. But then every child is different, and the same methods may not work for every child. I understand your difficulties !

One thing my mother is very good at, is nagging. She does not scream, and she does not get angry. She only raises her voice slightly, and she goes on and on and on... It works on me, and it works on my kids too ! My older girl is now quite scared of her nagging and would rather quickly finishes what my mother wants her to do. My younger boy still drags, but he also understands that he must do what she says otherwise she is not going to stop.

[i3mum]

Hi Tamarind,


Yes, i am trying to teach her phonics, and I hope she will be able to learn through the phonics way. In this way, she can pronounce any new word which she has never seen before.

Is your son a year end child? My twins are year end babies, I am so worried for them. Worried that they cannot cope in school, they are turning 3 in Nov 09, and in Jan 10 they will be in Nursery level. They cannot speak well yet & can't even know how to hold the pencil. Gotta pray that they can pick up soon.

tamarind:

It's great that your girl can read so many pages when she is feeling happy My boy, who is 5 years old now, can at most read 4 pages, then he will say he is tired.

Yes it is best to make sure that she has a strong foundation in phonics techniques.

I find that it is good enough to know up to Stage 2, refer to my blog :
http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/2008/08/how-to-teach-phonics.html

My boy can easily spell many words, even though he still does not fully understand Stage 3(long vowels and silent \"e\").

[jedamum]

i3mum:

Is your son a year end child? My twins are year end babies, I am so worried for them. Worried that they cannot cope in school, they are turning 3 in Nov 09, and in Jan 10 they will be in Nursery level. They cannot speak well yet & can't even know how to hold the pencil. Gotta pray that they can pick up soon.

i3mum.
my turning-3-in-nov son cannot speak well and can't hold the pencil to write any letters yet (but scribbling and making messes super good). he can't answer my questions to him, so it is difficult for me to find out from him how he feel and what he does in school. academic aside, i hope he can understand soon that in school, he can't behave as carefree as he is at home - he has been on the naughty chair for the past week for being rough to this friends, reason why he resists going to school these few days.

[i3mum]

Oh my twins are also Nov babies! Precisely, they behaved in the same way, but my twins are alright to go school. One of my twins cannot sit still, and when both of them are together, they are always up to mischief, in the end, I have to teach them on separate occasions.


I just hope they can outgrow this \"stage\"

jedamum:

i3mum.
my turning-3-in-nov son cannot speak well and can't hold the pencil to write any letters yet (but scribbling and making messes super good). he can't answer my questions to him, so it is difficult for me to find out from him how he feel and what he does in school. academic aside, i hope he can understand soon that in school, he can't behave as carefree as he is at home - he has been on the naughty chair for the past week for being rough to this friends, reason why he resists going to school these few days.

[tamarind]

i3mum:

Is your son a year end child? My twins are year end babies, I am so worried for them. Worried that they cannot cope in school, they are turning 3 in Nov 09, and in Jan 10 they will be in Nursery level. They cannot speak well yet & can't even know how to hold the pencil. Gotta pray that they can pick up soon.

My boy just celebrated his 5 year old birthday this week

Don't worry. My boy only started to write legibly around his 4 year old birthday. He only practices writing in his kindergarten. I actually have not let him practice writing at home regularly until now that he has regular spelling tests. He spells easily, but sometimes writes in mirror images. I let him write his spelling words once a day.

My 6 year old girl writes beautifully, in fact her handwriting is now better than mine :oops: I have never let her practice writing at home. So I believe that it depends on the child. Some children have more advanced fine motor skills and are able to write well at a very young age. Other children will naturally be able to do so when they are older and their fine motor skills are more developed.

I just make sure that I have lots of pencils and papers around at home. The kids can write anything they want at anytime. They enjoy writing and drawing their own stories, message cards, letters, etc.

As for speaking well, practicing phonics letter sounds, and reading out loud from books like the Peter and Jane series will definitely be helpful

[i3mum]

Hi tamarind,


Thanks for sharing I also remembered my eldest gal can write when she was about 4 year old. I have not started with spelling yet & I hope she can learn through the phonics way which will be easier for her.

Your gal is doing very well, I have seen her stories writing through your blog. It's lovely & she has lots of imagination & she is creative.

As for my twins, what I can do now is to read to them daily, teach them the lettersounds, & let them write & colour as they like.

tamarind:

My boy just celebrated his 5 year old birthday this week

Don't worry. My boy only started to write legibly around his 4 year old birthday. He only practices writing in his kindergarten. I actually have not let him practice writing at home regularly until now that he has regular spelling tests. He spells easily, but sometimes writes in mirror images. I let him write his spelling words once a day.

My 6 year old girl writes beautifully, in fact her handwriting is now better than mine :oops: I have never let her practice writing at home. So I believe that it depends on the child. Some children have more advanced fine motor skills and are able to write well at a very young age. Other children will naturally be able to do so when they are older and their fine motor skills are more developed.

I just make sure that I have lots of pencils and papers around at home. The kids can write anything they want at anytime. They enjoy writing and drawing their own stories, message cards, letters, etc.

As for speaking well, practicing phonics letter sounds, and reading out loud from books like the Peter and Jane series will definitely be helpful

[mrswongtuition]

Just a quick question.


Do you mummies teach by associating sounds to alphabets first?
Or do you teach them to recognise sounds in words first?

I did the former with my boy but have found that by teaching the latter then move on to the former, they seem to be able to pick up sounds & learn blending much faster.

Any thoughts on this?

[tamarind]

mrswongtuition:

Just a quick question.


Do you mummies teach by associating sounds to alphabets first?
Or do you teach them to recognise sounds in words first?

I did the former with my boy but have found that by teaching the latter then move on to the former, they seem to be able to pick up sounds & learn blending much faster.

Any thoughts on this?

Sorry for the late reply. I brought the kids to Genting Highlands the past few days.

Both my kids learn all the letter sounds from the Leapfrog Letter Factory DVD, which associates the sound to the alphabet first.

In the case of my boy, there are some letters which he was not 100% sure. By moving on to words, he managed to know all the letter sounds very well.

So I think that it all depends on the child. As parents, we can be flexible. If the child still does not know all the letter sounds after 6 months or one year, then we should just move on to words. The child may learn better when the letters are joined together to form words.

[ChiefKiasu]

jedamum:

... if you prefer me to delete such spam msg straightaway in the future, it'll be my pleasure.

Please do. There is not much point in engaging in civility with a party that doesn't really care much about civility.

[mrswongtuition]

tamarind:

Sorry for the late reply. I brought the kids to Genting Highlands the past few days.


Both my kids learn all the letter sounds from the Leapfrog Letter Factory DVD, which associates the sound to the alphabet first.

In the case of my boy, there are some letters which he was not 100% sure. By moving on to words, he managed to know all the letter sounds very well.

So I think that it all depends on the child. As parents, we can be flexible. If the child still does not know all the letter sounds after 6 months or one year, then we should just move on to words. The child may learn better when the letters are joined together to form words.

My boy can tell you the sounds of the different alphabets very well. But he does not link it to words.

Recently we tried another approach, which is to emphasis on starting sounds of each word and ask him what is the starting alphabet. Then proceeded on to ending sounds. Seems like he picks up faster this way.

Maybe some mummies can consider this. What we do is in daily life, objects/words commonly used, we ask him for the starting sound and it's alphabet.