Phonics Lessons

I wanted to write about my phonics teaching with Charmaine, I have not really got the time sitting down and writing it. I started this with her by following Tamarind in her teaching phonics and reading blog. This is a blog which i stumbled upon and i found it is very very helpful and encouraging. I thought Charmaine has not understood the technique of blending sounds of few letters. I had to do something, because what worked for Beth (i did not teach blending sounds to her), does not mean worked for Charmaine too (meaning that without doing anything, i should not have expected that one day she just got it out of the blue).

At least I know, she has mastered all the 26 letter sounds since before she turned to two, she simply just watched Leaf frog dvd, Letter Factory, together with her sister.
With this modal, i thought she would be able to follow the teaching that I was going to teach her.

So what I did was to refer to tamarind's method. Her blog is http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/

I started with 3 letters blend together, with all the 5 vowels, (a, i, e, o, and u)
http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/2008/08/3-letter-words.html
http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/2008/08/3-letter-words-i.html
http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/2008/08/3-letter-words-o.html
http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/2008/08/3-letter-words-e.html
http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/2008/08/3-letter-words-u.html

I copy and paste them (words) on the word document and print them out and cut them into cards. Every morning, i will go thru with her on dining table, just before I go to office. ( at the end I am always late to office). The best is to go thru 5 to 10 mins, but sometimes I was a bit kiasu and because of my impatience, I tried to make sure she absorbed all the words I went thru with her at once. I won't recommned this, but that was my experience, so......:) anyway I am not a good mother too. The 1st and 2nd week, it was horrible, in fact they were struggle weeks for both of us. I sometimes could not take it and yelled at her and passed bad remarks which later i regretted. Please don't do this......this is just me. So the time that I had everymorning with her can be dragged to 15 - 30 minutes. Anyway it paid off, the 3rd week onwards I started to see the result. She has grabbed the concept and method, and after that everything became a fun thing to work out for both. She enjoyed it once she knew how to blend the 3 letters. Everything was just flowing out from her. In fact, if I forgot to do the cards with her, she would ask me to do it.

Yes, that is Charmaine's character. When she is not confident about something, she will keep quiet and refuse to do. But once she is enlightened and becoming more confident, everything becomes effortless enjoyment. And she just enjoys doing it.

Later on, once all the 3 letter words are completed, I introduced her for more complex blending.
http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/2008/08/th-sh-ch-wh.html
http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/2008/08/bl-cl-gl-fl-pl.html
http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/2008/08/br-cr-dr-fr-gr-pr-tr.html
http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/2008/08/sl-st-sp-sm-sn-sw-sk.html
It took a while to get her warmed up again, because she was introduced by different sounds.
However, there is a technique that i find work for her. In Bahasa Indonesia, we learn about how to pronounce the letter accurately and there is no exeption. Meaning to say, even you do not know the meaning and it's the first time you see the word, so long you know how to pronounce the letter, you can't get any wrong. You will get the sound correct. So I used that kind of technique to teach her. And it worked for her.

The next one, would be the long vowels.
http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/2008/09/long-vowels.html

Our progress stopped here. And I think i have to continue from where we were left off.
Silent e will be the next one. I have already printed them, and tomorrow i shall start with her.

http://tamarindphonics.blogspot.com/2008/10/silent-e.html