All About Teaching and Learning Phonics

[mummy of 2]

Hi tamarind


At least your kids can read on their own

I hope to achieve that, but as I have just started on readers with DS1, I think it will be a long time before he can read books by Roald Dahl, though I have already bought them in advance

[starz]

Hi Tamarind,


My girl is still reading Ladybird Level 4a, its been a slow progress as my schedule is real busy. When is the best time to get the Roald Dahl book? as in must reach a certain level of ladybird level?

btw my girl has just started her phonics lesson at montessori. check w u. due to she is not feeling well, she has missed 2 lessons. is there any makeup or teacher will revise? not sure she will lag anot?

[tamarind]

starz:

Hi Tamarind,


My girl is still reading Ladybird Level 4a, its been a slow progress as my schedule is real busy. When is the best time to get the Roald Dahl book? as in must reach a certain level of ladybird level?

btw my girl has just started her phonics lesson at montessori. check w u. due to she is not feeling well, she has missed 2 lessons. is there any makeup or teacher will revise? not sure she will lag anot?

starz,
I don't think they allow make up lessons. You can check with the teacher.

Kids who complete level 10 or 11 of the Ladybird series, will be able to read any Roald Dahl books. Though there will be about 5 to 10% of the words that they don't know, so it is best that we ask them to read out loud to us so that we can help them. Otherwise, they may not understand the stories at all. Also, start with the shorter ones like the Enormous Crocodile.

[maltbibi]

Hi Tamarind


Do you have books to recommend that suit a 4 year old girl that can read P&J book 5a?

Just an update on her P&J. Her progress was slow as we stopped for a while at book 3a. Recently she has developed interest and at least can read one or two pages a day.

Thanks.

[mummy of 2]

tamarind:

Kids who complete level 10 or 11 of the Ladybird series, will be able to read any Roald Dahl books. Though there will be about 5 to 10% of the words that they don't know, so it is best that we ask them to read out loud to us so that we can help them. Otherwise, they may not understand the stories at all. Also, start with the shorter ones like the Enormous Crocodile.

Showed DS1 The enormous Crocodile, and he said \"So many words\" :!:

Guess he's not ready for it yet

[sean wife]

HI Tamarind,


Like many mummies here, I am also getting my kids (coming to 2.5 yrs old) to read the P&J series based on you good recommendation. I would say they have been pretty co-operative when motivated with their favourite food and can ‘read’ level 5 now. I say ‘read’ because although they can technically read out the words, I am not sure if they can really understand the storyline. They can recognize the words mainly based on sight reading and I think they can remember new words quite fast (but tend to get confused with they, the, there…).

For phonics, they learned their letter sounds mainly based on the Leapfrog…tried to teach basic blending but not sure whether they can get it or not…for e.g. when I asked them to pick out the words, cat, bat, hat etc, I am not sure if they pick the correct one based on the phonic way or sight word way.

At this point of time, do you think I should continue them on P&J higher level (learning the words mostly based on sight reading) or I should stop for a while and practice more blending first? If they learn more and more words through sight reading, will they still want to learn through blending…?

Thanks for your advice

[siak]

sean wife:

HI Tamarind,


Like many mummies here, I am also getting my kids (coming to 2.5 yrs old) to read the P&J series based on you good recommendation. I would say they have been pretty co-operative when motivated with their favourite food and can ‘read’ level 5 now. I say ‘read’ because although they can technically read out the words, I am not sure if they can really understand the storyline. They can recognize the words mainly based on sight reading and I think they can remember new words quite fast (but tend to get confused with they, the, there…).

Sean wife, your kids at 2.5 years can read level 5 now, very impressed :salute:

My younger girl (now at 3 year and 4 months) seems not interested in P&J. She just finished at 3B, but everytime I ask her to read, she does not show her interest. She will take her own sweet time to read, and with her soft voice, and she tends to do funny funny thing while she is reading it. I see her like that also feel very agitated. :x But when she reads chinese books, she seems very happy and quickly takes the book and read out loud.

I guess P&J story is too boring for her.

[sean wife]

Hi Siak,


Their level of interest varies…sometimes very soft and draggy and funny tone also. But so far, whipping out their favourite pokky stick usually works wonders…they even want to use the stick to point to the words and read…but seriously, i m not sure i am on the right track as there seems to be problems also if the kids recognizes too many words just by sight reading alone…??

[tamarind]

maltbibi,

You can try these books :

The Complete Adventures of Curious George by Margret & H.A. Rey

By Dr Suess :
Green eggs and ham
The cat in the hat
The cat in the hat comes back
One fish two fish
Hop on Pop

The complete tales of Winnie the pooh by A.A. Milne

Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans (and other books in the series)

Little Miss Collection
Mr Men collection

All the above should be easy to read for a 4 year old who can read book 5a.

The Complete tales of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter have very beautiful illustrations but the words can be a little difficult.

All the books are available in the library.


sean wife,
Reading level 5 at 2.5 years old is certainly very impressive ! I use the same strategy as you, by using small rewards. But not always sweets, most of the time the reward is watching his favourite DVDs, which are the Leapfrog DVDs

It is perfectly OK if they can learn and remember most words by sight. Phonics can be taught at any time, before or after they have learnt many words by sight, depending on the ability of the child.

Some kids, like my boy, may seem to be learning words by sight in that he does not try to decode the words as he reads, but actually phonics is helping him to remember the words (even though he may not be showing it)

Phonics is very important for spelling, so we need to train our kids to be able listen to a word and spell it out. Since your kids are good at learning to read by sight, then you should concentrate on teaching them to spell using phonics.

For example, write each of these letters on one small piece of paper :

a c m t

Mix them up, give it to the child. Then say \"c-a-t\", speak slowly so that the beginning and end sounds are clearly sounded, and then ask the child to pick out the letters and arrange correctly on her own. Practice every day until the child is able to spell any 3 letter word by listening to the sound. Then move on to 4 letter words starting with \"br\", \"cr\", etc. My blog includes the list of words : http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com

Remember to teach them the technique of listening to the sounds, not by memorizing the spelling.

As to whether to continue the Peter and Jane series, it is all up to you. You may want to go slower. Peter and Jane can work wonders for kids who can learn reading by sight words very well. Kids can progress very quickly, but they may not be able to understand the story, especially when they reach the higher levels. You can also try some of the books that I recommended to Maltbibi above and then go back to Peter and Jane later.

[starz]

Hi Tamarind,


Thank you so much for your always encouraging reply and advise.
Guess i have to just continue my child on ladybird til level 10 to 11. For Think for the time being, i will hold on Roald Dahl's books.

Btw i think i hv been very slow in phonics so i guess i leave it to Montessori phonics. But at the meantime, if i have the time, will continue to teach her. So far we are at Vowel O only, completed A and I

Also is 4 letter blending difficult? cos i myself not sure how to pronounce the bl, cl, n etc. Also how to explain the Silent E to my child?

Lastly, from your spelling games suggestions, I actually ever play this game with her before but oni a few times. give her a \"t c n\" ask her arrange. so far she is able to. shall i follow the Vowel A, I, O n etc to teach her tis way?

also just ask to arrange, tats it? not verbally say it out n spell out rite? Or need them to write out so that we test whether they know?

Thank you.