All About Teaching and Learning Phonics
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Hi laughingcat,
She had finished all her 3-letters words and I have been revising with her all the words for the past 6 mths but she still blend all the words. She will silent blend and read the words. When I read out the words, she has no problem to spell out the words correctly. But when can she be able to read the words fast?
Her phonic teacher told me that she is still young (4 years old) and ask me not to rush her.
Sorry for being too kiasu. -
Hi Angela,
Don;t worry. Your child does well.
I have a 6yo son and 4yo daughter.
I started him with Montessori phonics and home teaching phonics without much success. Therefore, i sent him to Lcentral when he was 4.5yo and ended 3 months ago. He is doing perfectly well for his age.
what i did was to get him read out loud every day and words recognition of 10 words weekly . He had spelling of 6 words in childcare and 10 spelling in his Lcentral. He mostly scored full marks.
No problem in reading but need to spend a bit time to guide him on writing as he is entering P1 next year.
Whereas for my 4.5yo daughter. She has finised Peter and Jane book 3b yesterday. I got her to do 1 set of words blending 9 (about 10 words; 3-4 letters), 4 sight words recognition a week. She has no issue.
Aside of this she is reading chinese reader- "45 kuan du" book 1, chapter 3 + reciting chinese classic.
We do math few pages a week. I would say for her age is perfectly fine. No complaint.
Do give your child sometime. I am sure your child would do very well when turn 6 yo.
When my son was 4.5yo, he knew only finished P&J book 5, simple book reading but now no problem to read out thick story books.
Do have some patience and seriously don’t rush. -
Hi Charmaine,
Wow, your 4.5 years old gal is doing great. I am very worried about my gal as she will be going to K1 next year. She has a home-based montessori teacher and she has been with her for a year. The teacher taught her some sight words and she is doing quite well. But only for the reading part, she is quite slow. Sometimes have to depend on her mood too. I have never let my gal read Peter & Jane books. Are their books good?
Now I am thinking to sign her up to any enrichment centre like I can read, Mind stretcher, LCentral etc. Mind to share your opinion, double phonics lesson will stress her more.
As for chinese, I have not sent her to any enrichment centre like berries. At home, I teach her using berries reader and 45kuan du and she had finished book 1 but some of the words, she still forget.
For Maths, she knows 1-20 and can spell 1-10, know some addition. But sometimes, I get her to do some counting but she very lazy. I can see she has no interest in maths so thinking to send her CMA. -
Hi Angela,
Your DD is doing fine. Just read more. No need to attend anymore classes on phonics. By practising more will reap better result. -
Hi laughingcat,
Just now, just came back from my gal’s PTM. Overall, the teachers comments that my gal is a clever & sweet gal. She learns things very fast and does her work neatly. She can write very nice Chinese words and when her Chinese teacher showed me her work, I was quite amazed.
Maybe I am just worried too much as actually I knew that she can do very well.
Too kiasu mummy. -
Hihi…
To teach kids to read, does it start from phonics or lots of reading? Which one better? -
Hi Angela,
Your k1 to be daughter does well.
I personally feel that it is unnecessary to send her for so many english related enrichments. Every centre has its own niche way of teaching phonics, just send her one good english enrichment will do if you want to.
Mind stretcher / I can read - Not sure about it as never tried.
Lcentral - Ms Ann from Lcentral of Marine Parade is very good. Very patience, detail and always highlight areas that child requires improvement. My son does well and able to do homework by himself when he reach home. When he was taught by other teacher, i need to sit beside my son to guide him. Teacher is very important.
English/Chinese - I personally feel that reading frequently is the basic/key to do well in languages. Enrichment is only supplement, we can't just simply rely on enrichment & expect good result. No short-cut. While my son was attending Lcentral, i got him to read english stories/chapter book every day. Aside of english reading, he has to finish Lcentral homework, child-care 5 english & 3 mandarin words spelling, reciting chinese classics. Math is ocassionally.
Reading frequently can be done on daily basis or 5 days a week. No strict rules. If the child does not like it, stop and don't do, don't force.
Berries - it is well known and heard it is good.
To me, i would not send my kids to any chinese enrichment. They attend chinese reciting class whereby they need to recite chinese classics as well as moral education.
45 kuan Du- Don;t worry if she forgets. Keep reading and monitoring closely. Revise/invent games to play with her. This is what i do with my kids.
Math - my kids also don't like math.
Invent funny games. Please see the link below.
I bought the math books which is very colourful from my dangdang to teach my both kids. They are ok. I don't make them do math every day. Only ocassionally. You have to schedule your time and see the needs first.
English is the basic and definitly require to master befor P1. So i focus heavily on this subject, if i have time, i add chinese and arrange math when i have more time for it and he/she likes to do.
CMA is good but math is not only +-X /. It is far more than that. I seriously not keen to enrol my kids for enrichment from monday till sunday.
Encouragement is very powerful.
Never fail with it. It can be with a movie at her own choice, a gift, a candy, an outing.... with tons of praising.
I always tell my child that i love their voice, i miss their voice, so nice to hear them reading. you read very well, wow , well done, amazing. I must give you a gift tomorrow because u read very well. .....
Some parents here get the kids read every day regardless of holiday. To me, it is a torture. When holidaying , i would like them to enjoy & have a memorable moments, not bringing a book and get the child reads ( it is perfectly ok if the child likes it)
Peter & Jane - It is a progressive readers with introduction of sight words and repeating it frequently to get kids remember the words but a bit boring. I used this book to taught my son when he was aged 4 & 5 but he dislikes it very much. Therefore, I swithed the books to interesting stories eg:I can read series- eg: frog and toad.... (available in library). when he knew quite a fair bit of words, i got him to read 3 books of My father's dragon.
For my daughter who will be in K1 next year (same age as your daughter), she is ok with P&J. Her mood swings too. When she is in good mood, would happily tell me that she wants to read 3 pages, somedays she does not even want to read. I just encourage/bribe her with sweets, then she would read.
Books written by Peggy Kaye - Games for math/read
Please grab one from library to steal ideas to play with your kids to reinforce what has been learn.
You could browse here.
http://www.peggykaye.com/target.php?ct=welcome
Instant games to do with your K1 daughter
http://www.peggykaye.com/target.php?ct=games
There are few games that my kids love to play from this book. Do check it out her books. Some are really good and my kids love playing it.
Do get meaningful board games / arts & craft to expose her to wide variety of activities aside of reading.
I play snake ladder 1-100, chinese chess, blokus, bingo number 1-90, snap game, soduku.
I often google for arts and craft to do with my kids or simply go to dangdang website / taobao website to ship back. Tons of them. -
Schen,
Start with letter sound, then 3 words blending, when child can do it.
could introduce sight words(eg: 3 sight words each week ) and simple book to start with. Parents to read a lot to them. -
Hi Charmaine,
Recently, I bought some English books for my gal and initially, she refused to read and we try to encourage her & she starts to read slowly. She always likes to play toys and puzzles but dun like to read. She lacks of confidence.
I agree with you that not to occupied their time with too many enrichment programs. Like my colleagues, when she heard someone say berries, I Can Read, Montessori phonics are good, she will enrol her kids to the program. I feel that just blindly follow. I feel that mother is a best teacher to the kids and also a good bonding.
Currently, I am teaching my gal with 四五快读 and berries reader (which I bought from one of the mummies). Also, her Chinese is coping well in her school. I am not so worried abt her Chinese as I have confident to teach her. Problem is I might send her to enrichment lesson for HYPY & creative writing in future. (dunno how to teach HYPY & compo writing, hee hee)
As for Maths, she can count 1-20, spell 1-10, some addition, counting etc. I seldom let her do Maths, only once per week do some Maths activities books. But so far, she is ok.
The only enrichment I send her is phonics as I dunno how to teach phonics so I need to depend on her phonics teacher.
Also, thks for your link, I will try to make learning fun to her by playing games.
Sometimes, I do not have much time with her as I still have a 2 yrs old playful and active gal so quite hard to teach the elder gal.
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I taught my children to read through phonics and whole words at home as well. Reading classes for little ones are not very popular here, only a few parents send their kids to Kumon and a handful of similar centers. I just wanted to chime in on a few things.
1) Leapfrog's Letter Factory is great but from the perspective of an American, all of the pronunciations, including R & L, are correct. I think it may just be a difference in dialect.
2) I started teaching phonics between 12-14 months old or so. It took both of my kids about 1-2 months to learn them all. I called it \"Baby Bootcamp\" and just played some youtube videos about 2-4 times a day and they loved it. It was a very quick and easy way to teach them introductory letter sounds. I found the Leapfrog videos to be \"too busy\" for little ones that age, I would probably wait to introduce them until 18 months at the earliest. I didn't mind screen time early on, I just tried to make it as simple as possible (videos with no plot, without a lot of background movement, jokes they did not understand, etc). You can find the specific videos I used on my youtube playlist \"Alphabet & Phonics Songs\" here:
https://www.youtube.com/user/TeachingMyToddlers/videos?flow=grid&view=1
3) These Peter and Jane books look very interesting. My kids read very well (DD just turned 4 about a week ago and DS will turn 3 at the end of December) but I am always looking for materials to build stamina and to increase their skills overall. We've used a few things, but mostly we first started with Little Reader and then Hooked on Phonics \"Learn to Read\" along with some DVD supplements. Now, I am doing Hooked on Phonics \"Master Reader\" with my DD and may start it soon with my son. My daughter is on Green Level (2), so I would like someone familiar with the Peter and Jane Series to tell me what level is equivalent and then I would like to start slightly below that so give her some confidence and familiarity when being introduced to a new series.
I took a picture of one of the last story cards she read. They are double sided cards that introduce progressively more difficult multi-syllable words in each level. (All of the stories are about high interest real life kids, sports heroes, situations, etc. I thought she might be a little scared by this one about a shipwreck, but she was very interested and didn't seem to mind. It just happened to be the one I grabbed out of the folder.)
Thanks for the help!
Front of Card: (Here's a link b/c this was too big to upload here)
http://i1243.photobucket.com/albums/gg542/teachingmytoddlers/photo7.jpg
Back of Card:
http://i1243.photobucket.com/albums/gg542/teachingmytoddlers/photo7.jpg
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