Story about plaster

Yup, Charmaine has a special story about Plaster. You know plaster, don't you? A piece of cloth, plastic, or other material and applied to the body, esp. to cover the wound. She is overly concerned if she has wound, even a little tiny one, she will insist to plaster the wound, a little scracth or mosquito bites. If the wound is already plastered, it becomes a hard time for Rona my maid during shower time. She will be cranky and does not allow the water touch the plaster/wound. She will cry and cry as if the it is very very painful when water touches the plaster.

4th Birthday

We celebrated her 4th birthday twice. The first one was on 11 Oct night. Why was there two? It was simple, I just wanted we had a celebration with my family and loved ones, like my mum and my sister. My mum happened to be in town. That night after I knocked off from office, i went to Secret Recipe to buy a chocolate moist cake. Chocolate is Charmaine's favourite. I thought she would love this moist and melting in the mouth - chocolate cake. Yes, she was indeed loving it.

That night I asked Rona to dress her up to be like a princess. She was soooooo delighted. You know she likes to choose her own dress, and those dresses she chooses are those with gown and princess like. She will be unhappy if Rona does not let her wear the dress she wants.

I bought this princess like dress $49 at Kiddy Palace. I bought also a pair of shoes that matches her gown. It is really beautiful

Reading and Writing Programme

Charmaine is currently reading P&J Book 6B. She is progressing in her reading ability.

Last Sat 31 July we went to Mind Champ for reading assessment.

Here is the result and the Mind Champ consultant's feed back about her ability:

We have agreed to "stretch" Charmaine little bit more since she has the foundation of reading. We like to place her in Panda A (Intermediate) instead of Joey B. This is due to Charmaine able to read some high frequency words, books level 1, 2. In Panda A and B, she will be reading at least level 1-8 books. Upon graduation, Charmaine will be able to:- Has build the interest of reading - Read with fluency- Know the sounds and names of all the letters of the alphabet- Learn correct letter formation and develop penmanship- Verbally retell stories and verbally compose own stories- Demonstrate comprehension of texts using extensive spoken vocabulary- Produce simple writing about personal experiences using correct grammar and punctuation - Respond to questions and contribute confidently to discuss about the texts.

Though the programme itselfs sounds fantastic, I still find that it does not explain much about their approach and curriculum.

I do recognize Charmaine lacks of comprehension. Either she is lazy to think / think out of the box or she is less confident as to compare to her elder sister, Bebeth.

This encourages me to put more efforts in teaching her everything, especially Phonics, Reading or Math or Music. Her approach should be different....in order for me to pass the teaching accross, repetition might be the best and suitable for her. When she understands the lesson or books/ stories, she will be more confident and therefore she will be more interested in learning more. That's her, Charmaine.

She has a weak point in voicing out her mind/idea. Sometimes i really do not know what to do in forcing her to speak up her mind. Especially when she gets angry, she will be totally quiet and gives a very long face.

Progress in Reading

Charmaine completed Serial 4B this week. And she is now reading 5A. Though she is still naturally slow, ( when I say slow, not that she is slow, but slow in reading, as she likes do funny funny thing, :( very frustrated sometimes), like..pulling the pillow, biting the pillow, change her tone to low, and whispering...errrg.....)



Anyway....to compliment that I have to teach her phonics. She finished with "th, sh, wh, and ch".

In Jun 2010 she starts to read 5b.

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

Peter and Jane series

Like Bethanie, I started with Charmaine on Peter and Janes when she was 3 too. As she progressed, she is now reading series 4b. Everyday she will read 1 or 2 pages, sometimes she gives a miss too.

Turn to 3 Years Old

Charmaine is now 3 years old. We celebrated her 3 YO birthday at her childcare center : Sun shine Kids school. I bought a 2.5 kg birthday cake with letter C for her. I know she was very excited that day. She wore her new pink gown I bought at Suntec City.



I met her teacher for the first time that day, she was telling me about how good her hand writing and the purpose of having homework. Charmaine was said as one of a very few children who she could tell that the parents must have guided her at home. Some of her classmates do not even know how to hold a pencil.