All About Teaching and Learning Phonics

[Wesim]

Hi,


I need help.

My girl is currently 23mths. I have registered her at Zoophonics. Besides this once a week lesson, i will find time to go thru the basic letters sound with her everyday, when time permits. However, i realise that she is not pronoucing the sound correctly. I think she has trouble curling up her tongue. I tried showing her face-to-face, unfortunately she will just ignore me.

Any suggestion?


To Tamarind,
I like your blog.

To buds,
your contribution to this forum is just simply wonderful.

[buds]

Heyya wesim,


:thankyou:

Thats sweet of you.

Btw, :idea: have you tried the Starfall.com
site for your girl? Instead of face to face,
Starfall has the \"mouth-to-our-face\" version
of pronunciation for single letter sounds. :lol:

Mebbe she prefers to go digital?

:?

Then, if she does make effort and let her
play some of the starfall games. This site
highly recommended by tamarind.

[tamarind]

buds,

Thanks

The activities you wrote above are very important when teaching phonics and reading.

I have also done similar things. For example, when learning \"fin\", I pulled out a real frozen fish from the fridge, and let my boy touch the fin. When learning \"smash\", I let my boy smash a real biscuit, which he really enjoyed and asked to do it again and again :lol: Even my older girl wanted to do the same thing.

When my older girl attended phonics enrichment class at Montessori, they only did worksheets, nothing as fun and exciting as what we did at home

http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/

[buds]

Heyya tamarind,


You're welcome.

I specially designed that for
jedamum's ds2. Cause she's
always saying how her ds2
can't sit still for long... plus
the activities listed can nicely
include ds1, if he finds them
interesting enuf to join in...
Unless... if ds1 finds it too
easy.. blah.

[Charmaine_chong]

Hi Tamarind,


I taught my son Peter and Jane after reading your post 2 moths back. He was so excited and crazy about it. After a week or two, he showed no interest at all and kept telling me to keep the book.

Everytime i take out the book, he would say" i don’t want peter and jane." i dont want to see , i don’t want to read.

I have to pleased him, only one page. repeat after me please. Sometimes, i just point the words and tried my best to make him repeat after me. If he don’t i just keep the book.

Since then, i never read or force him to read Peter and Jane since he has no interest but get him to do other activities eg: colouring, cut and past, counting, educational dvd and flash card.

One month is gone, i casually asked him to read the book last week. Again he told me that he didn’t like it.

He is very active and can’t sit still. Just wondering why i can’t do it right?

He is now 3 years and 2 months old. He can recognise lower case alphebet and about 20 chinese words.

I am trying very hard to encourage him to read but don’t see very good result. Has just started teaching him since early Mar 09.

[buds]

Heyya charmaine,


With younger kiddies, like yours...
You can start by reading to him the
whole book first instead of asking
him to read it or repeat after you,
right after you showed him the book.

This way it's like you story telling and
not you trying to get him to read..

After a few repetitions, he may have
memorized the book for you, enuf for
him to read it to you.

Do voice changes and keep story
telling lively to keep him glued to any
book.

[Charmaine_chong]

Hey, thanks


I seen tamarind’s blog. her child repeat after her, so i thought this should be the way.

May be i shuld do some changes.

Besides getting him to read. i believe in glenn doman’s reading program- flash card. i started him a month ago. facing problem too. will try harder.

Thanks.

[tamarind]

Charmaine_chong,

We can be flexible and adapt to the child, and do like what buds described.

My boy also did not like Peter and Jane when we first started. I have to try all sorts of ways to keep him focused, even for a page with less than 5 words. But I insisted, and I gave him a reward for every book that he finished reading. After books 4a and 4b, he was reading fluently and he started to enjoy reading the books.

The fact is that children resist books because they find it tough to learn new words everyday. Once they get used to it, and start to read fluently, they will enjoy reading.

Does your boy know basic phonics ? Personally I think that a child should at least know how to join 3 letters words before they start learning sight words using the Ladybird series. It makes it so much easier for them to remember new words.

Have you tried other books ? It may be that he is simply not interested in books at this age. You may have to try later when he is older.

Peter and Jane is not the only series you can try, though personally I think that it is the best. Dr Seuss books are also very good. You can also try other readers that he find interesting.

[pea]

Hi Tamarind!


I think you recommended Leapfrog factory phonics DVD before? May I know where I can buy it? I’ve asked Popular, Borders, they don’t have it. Thanks.

[buds]

Ya, the key is flexibility.

Ditto that, tamarind!

One of my close friends tried
the Peter and Jane series too,
but found it was too dry to entice
her young boy... so i recommended
her other readers to supplement the
thematic reading scheme for the sight
words inclusion for her Phonics-trained
reading boy.

The same readers worked very well for
both my girls, tho. So... here, what may
work for one may not necessarily work
for someone else, but like tamarind said,
there are other readers around. You may
find one that has a certain character that
the child likes for the moment... like Dora
the Explorer of Bob The Builder.. (etc)

As for sight words, tho a plus point for
a Phonics reader... it is not necessary to
know. Just like flashcards, sight words can
be introduced using word cards or repetitive
readers. Sight words are usually introduced as
visual aids/activities. Some spell the letters on each
card individually then say the word out and continue
with next card... and others read the whole word on
each card and do the same for all other cards. They
will practise each day few minutes until the child can
remember all the words shown to them for the week.
These sight words can be introduced thematically ie.
family > father, mother, sister, brother... or it can be
words introduced at random... the words you want the
child to learn for the moment.