It all started when Renee first asked us to teach her on how to read. It was then that we found that her phonics are weak, she can't blend, thus can't read. That puzzled us since she's already half way 'thru K1 now... After some home coaching for awhile now, she's finally able to do some simple blending and she's reading quite some words now(she'd ask for the meaning at times, which is good/important, 'cos not all the times I get to read with her and won't get to explain to her when she reads alone if she doesn't ask).
However, despite our home coaching, she's been requesting to be sent to English classes so that she can learn to read more and I've been on the search for a good phonics teaching school since. After her wonderful experiences with Lorna Whiston's S & D holiday programme, I thought I should just sign her up with their English Enrichment classes, without realising that they actually do have a pure phonics class, aiya! On the other hand, after the holiday programme, she began to prefer the S&D classes more but when I told her that I'm signing her up with the EE, she said "ok la"(light-heartedly :>), maybe because she likes LW's teachers from the S&D prog and thought they should all be as likeable. Indeed, she has enjoyed her EE class from day 1 and to my pleasant surprise as mentioned in my earlier post, they let the children read the books they've borrowed home out-loud and that, also help boost a child's confidence.
Here's some new comments on her reading :
Last week's
This week's - On the book 'Guess Who', I've told her that her intonation at the end, asking the question and giving the answer, must be emphasised differently, she remembered and... did it! :D
As the weeks went by, I slowly began to feel that the EE lessons actually do not concentrate on phonics and upon my friend's reminder, I briefly restarted my search on phonics schools. Found one, but before I decide on anything, I spoke with Ms Kelly, the teacher of her EE at LW and kindly, based on what I've told her, she said that indeed, phonics should be more of what I wanted and told me to check with their counter staff. They were helpful and when I asked if I could transfer Renee over to the S&D classes as we could not make it to their phonics class(Fri aftrn - she has nafa Arts...), they readily agreed.
I've earlier fixed the diagnostic test with the phonics school for this evening. The teachers there are locals but those teaching phonics are all qualified/certified in teaching pre-school phonics(need separate training in teaching this, aiya, now then I know. I bet many preschools teacher are not trained in this area). During the test, we can tell that Renee likes this teacher's style of approach - fun and that, also attributes to a child's learning. To my surprise, Renee was said to be ready to join their Advance group but for peers company, she suggested that we could also put her with the Intermediate. Oh, definitely, no point rushing up to the level with older kids, it would also serve as a form of 'revision' to her. Anyway, like I said, her current phonics skills - beginning blending, isn't very strong yet. I'm even worried that Intermediate might be too fast for her - 'cos it's left only 1 month to go. Anyway, will see how it goes for her. If really not enough, can always join another group again and in that case, I hope there'd be available class then, lolz. The only setback is, as the teacher's 'fun', the class(the children seemed abit older when we were there) was rather noisy. Nevermind, let her have a chance to fit into different types of learning environment, :).
No comments:
Post a Comment