All About Teaching and Learning Phonics

[tamarind]

divein:

Dear tamarind


Bought the Leapfrog Letter Factory and shown Starfall to my DD based on the recommendation here. It worked really well! she is going to be 2yrs soon and she has \"kind of\" mastered all the letters. I said \"kind of\" causes she still young and with only 8 teeth, some of the sounds is not that accurate. But when we sing the leapfrog song she can sound out all the letters. Also she will sound out the letter if she see them outside, so we know she know recognize the letters.

Need some advice... What should we do now? Continue \"drilling\" the letters until she is older liked 2.5 or 3 before starting on 3 letter words? We shown her the leapfrog talking word DVD but it seem abit complicated for her.

Thks

Hi divein,
Your DD is amazing !

You can try 2 letter words first. Take a look at this page :
http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/2008/08/how-to-teach-phonics.html

Start by teaching her to join \"a-t\" to \"at\", \"a-m\" to \"am\", etc. Write them on separate cards, mix them up, then say a word, for example \"at\", and see if she can pick up the correct one. If she can do so correctly, then she should be ready to learn 2 and 3 letter words using the methods in my blog. If not, just wait a few more months.

[divein]

Dear tamarind


Thks for the advice will give it a try.

[Charmaine_chong]

deleted

[porcupine12trade]

keltong:

porcupine12trade:

I \"copied\" tamarind and your idea, i look for real life items, when i cant find, i draw on A4 paper, my son likes them and they work! And it helped further that my #2 is \"fighting\" with him to tell me how to read a word. so like u say, now my son keeps \"C...AT, cat\", \"C AB, cab\" on n off even when Im not practicing with him :D... and i find he can understand the \"technique\" after the fun game

btw i read some pages on 45kuaidu that we shld stop the teaching when the kid is most \"excited\"...i tried that, and its true, my son looks fwd to the nx session coz i always stop when he wanted more.

Cool! My son still a little confused with 3 letter words but I am not worried now a I have just started with him not too long. Trying to let him go at his pace.

The stopping at most \"excited\" part is a good point. I will learn to do that too. Thanks!

Hi keltong,

I think its good to give them them plenty of time. My son is 38mths and he is not as fast as I like him to be heh, mayb i am impatient. But think abt it, my #1 and #2 who attended zooph starting the year they turn 4 ( all my kids are nov/dec kids), they progress slowly too coz zooph teaches 1 alpha per week! so to complete all letters, it would be like 1/2 yr liao, then they learn 3 letter blending. My gals' learning journey is also \"long\" but produces results. My #1 reads alot now and I am so happy to see she uses the vocab, description etc in her compo writing! Now i really see for myself the great benefit of reading alot. So i tell myself we are already \"faster\" than the centers that kids attend once a week. But i think sometimes in a group environment, they learn better, and fear authority more so they tend to be more \"on\"? my gals had homework from zooph which teaches them writing and other words (if at A, they learn ant, axe, alligator etc). I am not introducing such words to my son when teaching him the technique of \"sounding\" coz i find it alot of work on my part (guilty, but really i m running out of energy with 3 kids!) so i hope he will pick up such words when we read togther . As for writing, gosh my son cant write leh, dont know how and he not keen to sit and write

[porcupine12trade]

tamarind:

divein:

Dear tamarind


Bought the Leapfrog Letter Factory and shown Starfall to my DD based on the recommendation here. It worked really well! she is going to be 2yrs soon and she has \"kind of\" mastered all the letters. I said \"kind of\" causes she still young and with only 8 teeth, some of the sounds is not that accurate. But when we sing the leapfrog song she can sound out all the letters. Also she will sound out the letter if she see them outside, so we know she know recognize the letters.

Need some advice... What should we do now? Continue \"drilling\" the letters until she is older liked 2.5 or 3 before starting on 3 letter words? We shown her the leapfrog talking word DVD but it seem abit complicated for her.

Thks

Hi divein,
Your DD is amazing !

You can try 2 letter words first. Take a look at this page :
http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/2008/08/how-to-teach-phonics.html

Start by teaching her to join \"a-t\" to \"at\", \"a-m\" to \"am\", etc. Write them on separate cards, mix them up, then say a word, for example \"at\", and see if she can pick up the correct one. If she can do so correctly, then she should be ready to learn 2 and 3 letter words using the methods in my blog. If not, just wait a few more months.

Hi Tamarind,

I forgot to give more time to the 2 letter words and jump right into 3 letter words. I need to check with you, I give my son a total of about 12-15 3 letter words consisting of *at and *ad...he can pick out all the words correctly and recognise all the words too (match to pictures), while doing it, he will try to sound out like \"c...a.t\"... but somehow when I show him other 3 letter words and are NOT *at or *ad (eg maybe NOT, AND etc)..he cannot really blend them, is it normal? Or is it coz I did not teach him the 2 letters then jump to 3 letters? I totally forgot abt teaching 2 letters separately from 3 letters until i see this post

[keltong]

Hi porcupine12trade,


I think there are 2 schools of thoughts. One believe we can push our kids to learn a lot of things when they are young and can absorb like sponge. The other believe that each child is different and we should take time to teach different kids differently and not push too much.

I think I belong to the later. I just didn't want to push too hard, yet I do not want to do nothing. So I am going at a pace I feel he is comfortable with and will not reject me teaching. So just praying that everything will be better for him.

I also had a problem of briefing touching 2 letters blending and jump straight to 3 letters blending. I think I was push into it as his phonics class already started 3 letters blending and I want him to quickly know them. After 2 weeks, I still struggle with him on 'a' vowel.

Than I read here and reminded that I should do 2 letters blending first. So I went through all the 2 letters 'a' vowel for a couple of days. Than teach him to blend (black letter than red letters) with the 3 letters, and in one night he is able to read all the 'a' 3 letter words.

But doing all in one night is very tiring, we have to run around the house, do all sort of actions, take out things from kitchen, drive pretend cab/van, search the map, etc...to do all the words...:lol: ...maybe I should have split to 2 nights but was too excited he finally got it and many of the words we have taught before.

So I am going to do the same way with the next vowel and see if it works the same, at a more comfortable pace of coz.

[tamarind]

porcupine12trade:

Hi Tamarind,

I forgot to give more time to the 2 letter words and jump right into 3 letter words. I need to check with you, I give my son a total of about 12-15 3 letter words consisting of *at and *ad...he can pick out all the words correctly and recognise all the words too (match to pictures), while doing it, he will try to sound out like \"c...a.t\"... but somehow when I show him other 3 letter words and are NOT *at or *ad (eg maybe NOT, AND etc)..he cannot really blend them, is it normal? Or is it coz I did not teach him the 2 letters then jump to 3 letters? I totally forgot abt teaching 2 letters separately from 3 letters until i see this post

Yes like keltong wrote, it is better to teach the 2 letter words first, when he is familiar with them, then move on to 3 letter words.

When he can read the 3 letter words, you should also test him by asking him to pickup the letters that form a word. He should be able to pick the correct letters just by listening to the sounds.

[keltong]

tamarind:

When he can read the 3 letter words, you should also test him by asking him to pickup the letters that form a word. He should be able to pick the correct letters just by listening to the sounds.

Hi Tamarind,

So means I need to have a set of letter cards too for him to pick out? Or just for him to pick out the words? So far I will scatter the words on the floor and I will say the word and ask him to pick out. I do not have individual letter cards. Time to make one?

[tamarind]

keltong:

tamarind:

When he can read the 3 letter words, you should also test him by asking him to pickup the letters that form a word. He should be able to pick the correct letters just by listening to the sounds.

Hi Tamarind,

So means I need to have a set of letter cards too for him to pick out? Or just for him to pick out the words? So far I will scatter the words on the floor and I will say the word and ask him to pick out. I do not have individual letter cards. Time to make one?

When he picks out the words, it is hard to tell whether he is remembering it by sight, or using the phonics technique. If he can pick up the correct letters to make the word, that will mean that he is using the phonics sounds to read the words. There is no need to test him on every word, just pick a few random words will do.

[keltong]

tamarind:

keltong:

[quote=\"tamarind\"]

When he can read the 3 letter words, you should also test him by asking him to pickup the letters that form a word. He should be able to pick the correct letters just by listening to the sounds.

Hi Tamarind,

So means I need to have a set of letter cards too for him to pick out? Or just for him to pick out the words? So far I will scatter the words on the floor and I will say the word and ask him to pick out. I do not have individual letter cards. Time to make one?

When he picks out the words, it is hard to tell whether he is remembering it by sight, or using the phonics technique. If he can pick up the correct letters to make the word, that will mean that he is using the phonics sounds to read the words. There is no need to test him on every word, just pick a few random words will do.[/quote]OK, thanks. Will try that.