All About Teaching and Learning Phonics

[Charmaine_chong]

Hi Jedamum,


I know.

The fact is there are many children can read at 2 or 3yo. Most can’t.

This teaches me that early stimulation-reading aloud to kids is soooo important.

[tamarind]

Charmaine,

Both my boy and girl also cannot read at 3 years old My younger boy cannot even recognize all the 26 letters at 3 years 3 months old.

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I was not exactly referring to you. There were other mommies who emailed me asking for advice. I was just speaking in general.

Phonics is not rocket science. My hubby learned his phonics by watching Sesame Street when he was a child. He can read Lord of the Rings at 13 years old. I learned my phonics by watching the 3 Leapfrog DVDs together with my kids about 3 years ago. Any parent who can speak and write in English can learn phonics in a few days. Those \"experts\" at phonics schools make phonics look so difficult, because they want to earn your money Believe me, the 3 Leapfrog DVDs are all we need to learn phonics (together with lots of practices).

I really do admire all the hard work that you put in. I know that you will never give up on your son. But your son is only 4 years old this year right ? He still has lots of time to learn, so there is no need to push too hard. And there is no need to panic and despair if he does not progress as fast as you like. There are many other kids who started to learn to read only at 5 to 6 years old. All these kids will eventually catch up

The truth is that I never expected my son to progress at this rate. He was a very average child, and his attention span was only 2 to 3 mins when he was 3 years old. I did not \"aim\" to teach him to read Charlie and the Chocolate factory before he turned 5 years old. My target was only to teach him to read simple sentences by 5 years old. I established a routine to teach him at least 10 to 15 mins a day. I would be happy enough if he can read books with one or two sentences by 5 years old, which is what his kindergarten is teaching.

Thanks to phonics and the Ladybird Peter and Jane series, he is doing far better than I ever dreamed. That is why I want to share with other parents about these excellent resources.

Personally I have a lot of faith in these resources. There are over 700 five star reviews for the Leapfrog DVDs at http://www.amazon.com. The Peter and Jane series have been around for more than 40 years. There are mommies who emailed me saying that their kids are doing amazingly well using these resources. The fact is that I wish I had these resources when I was a child, because I could not even read Charlotte's Web when I was 13 years old.

Of course every child is different, and if parents do not find these resources helpful, by all means use other resources. I will be more than happy to know about these resources in this thread. When parents decide on a method, they should be consistent and stick to it, instead of trying for a few days then give up. If we keep trying this and that the child will be very confused.

BTW, I am very lazy to read books to my kids. I taught them to read by themselves so that they can read books out loud to me This is far more effective than reading to the kids.

I actually hate enrichment classes because they cost so much money, and I felt so tired bringing my kids to class. They only attend Berries because I did not have good resources to teach them at home in the past. I spent a total of $9000 sending both kids to Berries from N2 to K2. I could have saved this money if I have found http://tamarindvillage.blogspot.com/2009/12/teaching-chinese-at-home.html earlier.

I believe that it is not necessary to spend a lot of money for kids to do very well That is why I started this thread to share with other parents.

[buds]

tamarind:

Any parent who can speak and write in English can learn phonics in a few days. Those \"experts\" at phonics schools make phonics look so difficult, because they want to earn your money

[tamarind]

buds:

tamarind:

Any parent who can speak and write in English can learn phonics in a few days. Those \"experts\" at phonics schools make phonics look so difficult, because they want to earn your money

buds,
Ooops you are teaching phonics at enrichment classes ? I don't mean that all phonics teachers are like that.

But I have read an article in a magazine. Some teacher at a famous pre-school (LW), wrote that parents need to send their kids to piano teachers to learn how to play the piano, for phonics, parents should also send kids to the experts to learn. I find that ridiculous. Many parents don't know how to play the piano, but all parents who are educated in English can learn how to teach phonics very easily.

[Charmaine_chong]

Hi Tamarind,


Appreciate a lot your willingness to share good resources and know how to parents who keen to teach at home. I learnt a lot from your thread.

Not many parents love to share their experiences but only to seek help. Sorry i am very straight forward sometimes.

I am thankful there is always someone there who is so passionate, so kind to share their know how in teaching to the rest, like you and buds. Truly appreciate.

I tried to look for good readers for my son but still think that Peter and Jane is the best.

My son couldn't speak well at the age of 3 and couldn't recognised a single letter when school has already taught him. I was really panic at that time. I was wondering whether he has learning difficulties or.... therefore i seek help from forums and take time to read parents success stories to help my son.

It will be good if the child keen to read by himself. What about child like mine who doesn't like to speak up? I got no choice but to read to him instead and i notice that he does learn. I knew it is not that effective. But seriously for my case, when he doesn't like to read after me, not willing to speak up, always cranky. I have not choice but to stop pressing him. On the other way, i read to him instead and post one or two questions. Too many questions he doesn't like it either.

To me as a mother, i am very worried that my child couldn't read by P1 and struggling attending enrichments during primary school is not what i want. I hope this would not happen.

I believe in what Glenn Doman say. The younger the child the easier to teach. I had missed out 3 years without doing anything with my son. Starting him at age of 3 isn't late. And it is always not too late.

I don't expect him to read very well like what other children do at his age. But i do hope my son pick up reading by himself when he turns 5 or 5.5.

I also has a clear mind that a child that is ahead doesn't mean that he/she will excell well in future. A child's charater play a part on top of education.

And i learn in the chinese classic class at buddhism centre that 2 things that shouldnt be wait

1. education
2. filial to parents.

I learn to know Education can be very simple too.

Start reading aloud to the child at 0 age- that is the key. (amended)

[Funz]

Actually Charmaine, most kids start reading independantly only when they are 5+ yrs old. That is the norm. There will always be the exceptions, on both spectrum actually, those that can read way before and those who struggle to read even when they are 6+yrs old. I get 1 or 2 of those in each batch of K1s.


It is so ironical cos I just had a meeting with my staff about a 3yr old who is not even talking yet and here I am reading about how a 3yr old can be taught to read.

I do not think that start early means read early per se. More importantly, the child has to be ready. If your child is low in linguistic development but high on spatial development he will not be able to read at 3 but he may be able to complete puzzles meant for children much older then him.

The key to learning any language is exposure. So continue exposing him to the language, through books, audio, etc. He will soon learn to read.

[Charmaine_chong]

Funz,


Start early, read early- that is the key.

I wasn’t meant start early = reading early. Sorry about the sentence. What i am trying to say is start reading early to the child at age 0, when she grow older like 6-9 months, read by running fingers on the words, that helps a lot.

Simply reading loads of books to the child.

Funz, I learnt a lot from wounderful parents that young babies can read. I just knew a mommy in a forum who claimed that her 15 mths girl understand phonics. Speaking in short sentences at age 2. When i asked how she did it. That is simple, read and read with words in big font.

My baby girl who is 18months now knew some lettersound. When i point at m, she would sound for me and sing to me as i teach her to sing ", mommy mommy m m" She knew some colors and shapes. I don’t drill her. Just read loads of books to her, describe to her pictures that interest her, read road sign, play clasical music, listen to san zhi jin. And i expose her to some simple craft and water colors. Very messy but guess what, whenever she sees her masterpiece touch it as she did it herself. If the craft is done her brother, she would look at it and say "gou gou" = brother.

I always believe that is always a way to help a child to read.

[tamarind]

Funz,

There are systematic and effective methods to teach a child to read very quickly. My girl could not read any word at 3 years 8 months, even though I have read books to her since she was a baby (not very diligently though) and we speak English at home. By learning phonics and reading the Ladybird Peter and Jane series, she learned at an amazing speed. She was able to read Charlotte’s Web (about 200 words a page) before she turned 5 years old, and she understood what she was reading very well too.

You are right about exposing to the language, but exactly how to do so ? It is easy to say so, but many parents have no idea how to do it. They can read hundreds of books to the child, but he may not be paying attention at all, and if he is not looking at the words, he is not going to learn how to read.

You are also right that the child has to be ready. I wrote earlier that parents should just establish a routine and teach for a short period of time everyday. It does not matter how fast the child can learn. In fact my son took many weeks to learn the same thing. We should just let the child progress at his own speed.

[tamarind]

[quote]
Not many parents love to share their experiences but only to seek help. Sorry i am very straight forward sometimes. [/quote]Charmaine,
You are welcome and don't need to say you are sorry I know all along that you are trying to do your best for your kids

Yes I have heard of parents (not in this thread) who said that their kids know how to read very thick books at 3 or 4 years old, but all they said was that the child \"just know how to read\" and it's like they did nothing to help. That is not very helpful to mommies with kids who need to be taught, like mine.

You are absolutely right that parents should start to read to kids since birth.

As soon as the child is ready, we should teach him to read out loud. Once a child can read effortlessly, he will naturally love to read. It is also very important for parents to look for good books that will interest the kids.

[Funz]

Hi Charmaine,


I get you. I am not saying don’t read or don’t bother. In fact I encourage reading to kids. I for one started reading to my kids when they were 4mths old.

And I for one will say the though Phonics is a popular method for teaching reading, it is not the only method. My kids too do not respond well to phonics and it initially confuses them. But I still expose them to Phonics. One never know, they may not be able to apply it fully now but further down they may reach into that memory bank and use that knowledge.

Though I do not think you fall in that category, but I see more and more parents coming to us worrying about their children’s ability to read and write and add and subtract. Whereas in the past, parents start panicking when the kids are in 2nd half of K2, these days, parents at the start of N1 come to us worried that the kid cannot recognise words, citing examples of fren’s kids who can while theirs cannot.

I just cannot stress enough those that can read at such an early age is an exception, not the norm. But with parents pushing for such expectations, my fear is it will become a norm and those who cannot be labelled slow.