All About Teaching and Learning Phonics

[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.

[buds]

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.

You can purchase it online here, pea.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Leapfrog+Letter+DVD

[Charmaine_chong]

Hi,


Thanks bud an tamarind.

Will try my very very best.

Buds, he likes car and dinasours, any readers you can recommend?

I hava Dr Seuss’s book as recommended by tamarind. I love the books but he needs time. Is very fun.

[mathsparks]

Hi Charmaine_chong,


Peter & Jane’s an excellent series of books. But to avoid boring the kids, I only bought the C series.

My 2 kids picked up reading from this series alone. Coz I was too lazy with Glen Doman’s flash cards which I subsequently sold.

[buds]

Charmaine_chong:

Hi,


Thanks bud an tamarind.

Will try my very very best.

Buds, he likes car and dinasours, any readers you can recommend?

I hava Dr Seuss's book as recommended by tamarind. I love the books but he needs time. Is very fun.

Cars and dinosaurs?
Yes, ma'am. I will check
out for you!

[GreenQ]

pea:

...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.

Hi pea,

I bought the Leapfrog factory DVD fr ebay.com.sg. Its sealed and new one! SGD15.00/DVD. The seller is staying in Punggol and not local ppl. Think she got lobang to import the DVD herself.

[GreenQ]

Hi Charmaine_chong,


Juz to share...

I use Fitzroy readers for my kids. Kind of animal series - cat, pig, bug, dog, hen, fox etc. So far my kids enjoyed it very much. And they were progressing very well. At beginning, they took abt 2 wks to read fluently for bk 1. But these few days 2 of my kids only took 3 days to finish bk 4 and bk 5. I juz started to teach them for a mth. And I spent abt 20min to teach them daily. So the result was really encouraging me...

Hi Tamarind,

I muz express my gratitude to u for ur nice blog too. Thx! Ur blog has given me more confident whr and how to start to teach phonics to my kids. Thx for sharing!

[Charmaine_chong]

Hi Bud,


Thanks. Appreciate your recommendation.


Hi Green Q,

May i know where i can get it and the pricing? Just would like to have more options to choose.

Tamarind’ s blog is so encoraging. Thus, i bought some books for my son after reading her blog. but i didn’t handle it well.

I have peter and jane and Thematic reading scheme from Scholar’s. I have others too. Thematic reading scheme has four series. My boy has no interest on all these books. Topics are myself, dislike, my family, my friends. He didn’t even want to repeat after me or stare at the books afer trying for couple of weeks. Then i changed to Peter and Jane, again what a dissapointment to me!

The process is not fun and it looks like a tourture to him. Cry and cry when i take out the books.

I borrowed 2 dinasour books from library yesterday. He likes them and said those are his.

May be i should start him with animal words.

I remember Glenn Doman said. If this is not the child’s idea, it is not a great idea. Throw away words that he dislike. Show words that interest him.

My maid play wink to learn chinsese for them from mon-fri. Obviously my son pick up quite well. I do have a series of English learning DVD that he enjoys very much as well.

I read him Dr Seuss’s Green Eggs & Ham. He keep on laughing. Then i tried to encourage him to read. He simply replied:’ No you read."

My son is 38 months now. I would ltry my very best to encourage him to read. I am lack of technique to handle such kids.

He gets bored easily and i notice that he don’t like to be tested. He is very active too.

Appreciate mummies view and advise.

Thank you and happy mother’s day!

[clarabella]

Hi charmaine

Just to share my experience with my older kids. When they were learning to read, I approached reading as if it's a piano recital; piano pieces are practised many times before a recital, so if I introduced a new book, I'd make sure they know the words in it pretty well first. For my kids, it didn't work if I sat them down and used a book to 'teach' new words; they did much better if I just taught the words separately first. Hence they could read more smoothly, and it helped to build confidence as they didn't keep stumbling over words that they couldn't read. Imo it's very discouraging for beginning readers to keep encountering words that they fail to read; it's much more exciting for them to be able to read smoothly, and they'll feel very proud of themselves for being able to read a book well.
Another strategy I employed (when they were about your son's age) was to ask them to read to their stuffed toys; my daughter, in particular, loved to master new words so she can read to her favourite toy.

The beginning levels of the P&J ladybird series can be very boring to young kids... Here is Peter, here is Jane, the dog likes Peter and the dog likes Jane... they are not stories at all!
My ds1 flatly refused to read the beginning levels because to him these are not considered books - no story= not worth reading. So for him, I didn't bother with readers when he was your boy's age since he was bored with most of them. I merely read whatever he liked to him. He picked up many words in this manner (sheer repetition) because we read widely to accommodate his interests. When he was a little older (about four), he was keen to read by himself and that's when I was more hardworking and did the piano recital thing: taught him words from the books he picked to read on his own (still no readers). However my dd enjoyed the pictures in P&J, and she couldn't wait to learn how to read like her brother, so she conscientiously started from Book 1 and progressed steadily. I realized she viewed them as tools to help her to learn how to read, so she didn't care that they were rather inane 'stories'.

As you realized, your son has his likes and dislikes, so follow his cues lah. Continue to read books to him, but perhaps back off for a while from asking him to 'read' the books? To cultivate a love for reading, he must first enjoy the process, and if books=time to work (reading on his own), it certainly won't be as fun as snuggling up and just enjoying mummy's reading.

[Charmaine_chong]

Hi Clarabella,


Thank you for your advise.

Ya. I paste the words on the wall and read to him daily. If he dont want me to read. I get him to do other activity book.

He likes puzzle. Just bought him Upper case alphebet puzzle. He keep on playing and playing.

He knows his lower case but refuse to learn upper case through book and flash card. Thus i got him alphabet puzzle and play dough to learn. Doing well.

Do you guys teach mandarin and english to 3 years old kid simultaneously or only focus on english lesson?