All About Teaching and Learning Phonics

[tamarind]

pea:

I really want to say thank you to Tamarind for her inspiring posts. They were a great starting point for my attempts to teach my boy phonics at home. However my boy (almost 3.5yrs old now) still struggles with phonics... He prefers to sight read and does not like to slow down to decode a new word using phonics. Just wants me to tell him what the word is, memorise it, and move on. So impatient :roll: .


Siak, are your girls in K1 and N2? So close in age, must be fun for them.

pea,
You are welcome
There is no need to ask your boy to slow down to decode a new word using phonics if he does not like to. If he can remember it by sight, then let him read by sight. In fact, I do not ask my kids to decode the words in the Peter and Jane series at all

Kids may be able to read by learning sight words alone, but when it comes to spelling, they will need to put in a lot of effort if they don't know phonics.

Phonics helps not only in reading, it is also a very important skill to help a child to spell words.

My P1 girl has hanyu pinyin, english and maths spelling every week. Since she has a good foundation in phonics, she does not feel stressed at all.

You only have to make sure that he knows how to spell any 3 letter word by listening to the sounds. Also get him to understand the technique of blending 4 letter words like :
http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/2008/08/bl-cl-gl-fl-pl.html

In fact, that is all that my boy knows about phonics. He does not really understand about the silent E. But that is good enough to make spelling so easy for him.

So long as you have practiced phonics sufficiently with your boy, he already knows the technique, and he is actually using the technique to help him remember new words even though he is not showing you

Phonics and sight words should be taught at the same time, and it is perfectly OK if kids like one method better than the other. Just make sure that they know both

[tamarind]

Dear all,

I went to my girl’s primary school to attend a talk about the Stellar program yesterday. Just to share :

The teachers are using big story books to teach. It is MOE directive that parents are not allowed to keep a copy of these books at home. I spoke to my girl’s teacher and she readily showed me the books in the classroom. The reading level of these books is only equivalent to Peter and Jane level 1 or 2. There is only one sentence on each page.

But each school can come up with their own workbooks. So depending on the school, the workbooks can have a higher degree of difficulty compared to the big story books that they used to each.

I think that if kids can read up to Peter and Jane book 5a and 5b fluently, then the child is already well prepared for P1. Unless the child goes to brand name schools that is known to set very difficult test papers.

Of course if the child is motivated and interested to read Peter and Jane, then we should certainly let them progress at their own rate.

[siak]

Siak, are your girls in K1 and N2? So close in age, must be fun for them. [/quote]


Yes, born in 2005 and 2006, so elder is now K1 and younger is in nursery (or N2 in childcare term). they always bicker in everything, they compete in everything too. Anything one wants to have, the other also wants to have, including fighting to have my right hand to hold their hand, die die...must be right hand. :lol:

Tamarind, I am not a systematic person, though I find systematic approach can produce a better result. May you share after P&J series, what is the next series that can be suitable for my elder daugther?

[siak]

tamarind:

siak,

Thanks for sharing. Your experience is actually quite similar to mine. Both my kids love the Leapfrog DVDs, and they still want to watch it now after 3 years. My older girl has a good foundation in phonics before she started the Peter and Jane series, she was very motivated to read them, and she loves the books even now. It was harder to make my younger boy to read the books, but it is no harder than to get him to finish his food or brush his teeth. It was just a matter of discipline.

Just to check, do your kids watch any other DVDs except Leapfrog ? These were the only DVDs we had for a long time. I only started to buy the Little Einsteins DVDs when my older girl was around 5 years old. That is why they asked for the Leapfrog DVDs everyday

Dunno if 2nd child is more difficult to control and stubborn or...... :?
My 2nd child is like that, it's harder to make her to drink water, to finish food, to read books, ....and her favourite answer is wait first. :x

I don't invest much in DVD, except Leapfrog dvd (5 sets) that I bought from Amazon, However we subscribe to Playhouse disney since the elder was 2 year plus. I do not restrict them to watch only certain programs, they love all kinds, like Word World, Little Einstein, Dibo, Mickey Mouse, JoJo the circus, Animal Mechanical....and plenty more. Despite these more interesting shows, they still love phonics - Leapfrog DVD

[tamarind]

siak:

Dunno if 2nd child is more difficult to control and stubborn or...... :?
My 2nd child is like that, it's harder to make her to drink water, to finish food, to read books, ....and her favourite answer is wait first. :x

I don't invest much in DVD, except Leapfrog dvd (5 sets) that I bought from Amazon, However we subscribe to Playhouse disney since the elder was 2 year plus. I do not restrict them to watch only certain programs, they love all kinds, like Word World, Little Einstein, Dibo, Mickey Mouse, JoJo the circus, Animal Mechanical....and plenty more. Despite these more interesting shows, they still love phonics - Leapfrog DVD

siak,
At 3 years old my boy did not even say wait first, he just kept running away when we tried to get him to eat his meal, drink water, etc, or simply refused to open his mouth

OK I was just wondering if my kids like the Leapfrog DVDs because they didn't have any other choices

[tamarind]

siak:

Tamarind, I am not a systematic person, though I find systematic approach can produce a better result. May you share after P&J series, what is the next series that can be suitable for my elder daugther?

After the Peter and Jane series, my boy has read :
The enormous crocodile
The giraffe, the pelly and me
The minpins
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

All these are by Roald Dahl. The first 2 books are funny, the last book has a scary monster so you may want to read the book first before buying. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a more difficult compared to the first 3 books, I would suggest that you let her watch the movie(by Johnny Depp) first, then read the book, so that she can visualize the story better.

I highly recommend \"My Father's Dragon\" by Ruth Stiles Gannet. This is a wonderful book about a boy and a dragon, very exciting but not scary, and very suitable for 4 to 5 years old who are reading very well. Lots of words but also lots of pictures.

You can see pictures of these books in my blog. Click on the photos to read the pages in the books :
http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/2009/09/books-they-love.html

My boy has also finished reading Winnie-the-pooh by A.A. Milne.
http://www.amazon.com/Winnie-Pooh-Milne/dp/0525477683/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265598968&sr=8-8
Make sure you get the original version, not the Disney one. The original has lots of words, but the words are very simple compared to Roald Dahl's books. This book is not as exciting as My Father's Dragon, but the stories are very suitable for 4 to 5 years old.

All these books are available at the National Library.

I would advise you to let your girl read these books out loud to you, so that you can help her if there are words that she does not know.

Remember that a child may be reading very well at a very young age, but he/she may not completely understand what he/she is reading. So we should try to let them read books with pictures on every page, because pictures are very helpful for kids to understand the story.

Also take a look at the Rainbow Fairy series, available at all Popular bookshops. These are not great classics, but most young girls will be attracted to the books and you can let your girls read these books silently on their own.

As for my girl, the first book after she completed Peter and Jane, is Charlotte's Web by E.B. White. This book is considered by many as one of the best children's book ever written. It was my literature textbook at Sec 1, and I heard that this book is now used in GEP classes. But I don't recommend this book for children who are too young, because they may not be able to understand the beauty and meaning of the story. And I have heard of mommies who said that their kids think it is boring

My girl finished reading the book when she was 5 years old, but I don't really know how much she really understood, though she can still remember the story very well now. She did not complain that it is boring, and she was willing to finish reading the entire book out loud That time I only asked her to read one or two pages a day.

[tamarind]

Phonics – What is the New Approach?

How Schools Teach Reading and Spelling Using Synthetic Phonics

http://primary-school-curriculum.suite101.com/article.cfm/phonics_what_is_the_new_approach

The main approach to the teaching of reading and spelling in English schools is that of systematic or synthetic phonics.

The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF in UK) currently encourages state maintained schools to adopt a systematic approach as outlined in the 2007 guidance “Letters and Sounds: Principles and Practice of High Quality Phonics”.
Best Practice in Phonics Teaching

The DCSF advises schools to:

* Carry out short, daily phonics sessions (15 to 20 minutes);
* Make teaching active and multi-sensory;
* Follow a structured teaching sequence (groups of sounds introduced in a set order);
* Brisk teaching of 44 key sounds (phonemes) within the first year of statutory schooling (the reception year);
* Explicitly teach children to blend sounds together for reading, and segment them for writing;
* Set phonics work within a broad, language-rich curriculum which takes account of the four interdependent strands of language: speaking, listening, reading and writing, and vocabulary.

Good phonic skills help children to become better readers and spellers, so it makes sense to help them develop a secure grasp of the essential sound and spelling patterns that words are composed of. There are 44 key phonemes in the English language – the smallest units of sound that can change words. Some of these are single alphabet sounds such as s-a-t-p-i-n, but others may be combinations of letters like sh, ck or ie.

[tamarind]

A systematic review of the research literature on the use of phonics in the teaching of reading and spelling

http://publications.dcsf.gov.uk/default.aspx?PageFunction=productdetails&PageMode=publications&ProductId=RB711&

http://s1.postimage.org/btA49-23f8f41b6170e42f59a53873b28e6911.jpg\">
http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/

[pea]

tamarind:

pea:

I really want to say thank you to Tamarind for her inspiring posts. They were a great starting point for my attempts to teach my boy phonics at home. However my boy (almost 3.5yrs old now) still struggles with phonics... He prefers to sight read and does not like to slow down to decode a new word using phonics. Just wants me to tell him what the word is, memorise it, and move on. So impatient :roll: .


Siak, are your girls in K1 and N2? So close in age, must be fun for them.

pea,
You are welcome
There is no need to ask your boy to slow down to decode a new word using phonics if he does not like to. If he can remember it by sight, then let him read by sight. In fact, I do not ask my kids to decode the words in the Peter and Jane series at all

Kids may be able to read by learning sight words alone, but when it comes to spelling, they will need to put in a lot of effort if they don't know phonics.

Phonics helps not only in reading, it is also a very important skill to help a child to spell words.

My P1 girl has hanyu pinyin, english and maths spelling every week. Since she has a good foundation in phonics, she does not feel stressed at all.

You only have to make sure that he knows how to spell any 3 letter word by listening to the sounds. Also get him to understand the technique of blending 4 letter words like :
http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/2008/08/bl-cl-gl-fl-pl.html

In fact, that is all that my boy knows about phonics. He does not really understand about the silent E. But that is good enough to make spelling so easy for him.

So long as you have practiced phonics sufficiently with your boy, he already knows the technique, and he is actually using the technique to help him remember new words even though he is not showing you

Phonics and sight words should be taught at the same time, and it is perfectly OK if kids like one method better than the other. Just make sure that they know both

Thanks, Tamarind, for your encouragement.

My boy also does not understand the silent E thingy. I also think it's not necessary as I did not realise there's such a rule till I watched Leapfrog's Code Word Caper with him! Nevertheless, he enjoys watching Code Word Caper very much!

I would also recommend the Sesame Street dvd's. Very catchy tunes and also educational.

Tamarind, isn't your girl going to be bored with the Stellar books since she is already such an advanced reader? :lol:

Siak, your younger girl is about the same age as my boy.

[mummy of 2]

I think I also don't quite get the slient E thingy


I'm a bit more laid-back, in the sense that I only get my kids to learn the sounds for each letter. Beyond that I leave it to the school teachers as I'm not conifdent that I'm teaching it correctly.

I admire parents like Tarimand who really dedicate time to teach their kids phonics. :udawoman: