Words, words and more words!

At the beginning of the year, we started with the workbook and it was mainly phonics every school day. Zech is not a fan of phonics. He has mastered his basic phonics and with the introduction of the silent e and other rules on vowels, phonics became very technical and boring to him. However, even with his dislike for this, Zech can read simple books and enjoys reading a lot. There are definitely other effective methods to teach reading other than phonics and besides, comprehension and not just decoding is important for reading success. This was my belief as a teacher and having experienced it as a parent, we should teach children to read using a variety of ways.

What Zech likes about the phonics lesson is, surprisingly, the writing component. Making booklets like these seem to be less of a chore to him. Usually while he does this, I'd be doing my chores. :)

 

 

He's contented constructing the booklet for animal tales too. 

 

I was about to look for alternatives to teaching English, besides doing the phonics drill almost every day. Then came the Bible reader and notebook, provided in the MFW package for 1st graders. How we adore this! It was refreshing for Zech and learning English became much more relaxing for us.



We love the Bible reader. Simple to read with big font size.

The Bible notebook is an extended activity after the Bible reader. It allows Zech to express himself creatively in drawing, colouring and writing after each story in the reader. I keep a Bible note book too and do alongside Zech.

Every week, I write new words on index cards. Zech learns about 5 new words based on the Proverbs and the Science topic for that week.

We review the words in the workbook too. Zech gets his regular practice of sounding out from there.



 One of the better days with the boys. Nathanael busy with his little hands while Zech went through the word cards on his own.

Sometimes, we do a show and tell (if I remember). Zech is very enthusiastic about it and often likes to choose a toy for show and tell. His favourite is his pet dino. We take turns to do the show and tell. Usually I start first then followed by Zech. Modeling is a great strategy.

Another very interesting activity Zech likes is this storytelling game. Bought it at a storytelling festival for a few dollars. This game was created by Roger Jenkins, a great storyteller himself.

 

To create a story, we need to choose the setting, character/s, problem and object/s. Using the pictures as stimulus, we tell the story. Zech has made up police and thief stories, accidents etc. Most of the time, his stories end tragically. :( He's still learning how to create happier stories.

Zech usually reads aloud to me a few times a week. Using readers from the library, hand-me-downs from friends, from my old stash of readers which were used when I was teaching P1 and the Clifford series. The library is really a treasure trove. Borrowed many readers from there without spending a single cent!

 

Some of the readers Zech is using these days... Do you notice books with a local flavour? Books by local authors are wonderful due to the familiar context.

 

 

Zech enjoys spelling too. For that I'm very relieved. After all, he will be in the mainstream next year and spelling is pretty much a regular task done weekly.

 

Through the struggles I have with Zech, most stemmed from phonics. I've learned to let go and accepted as I've finally experienced what it means by every child is different.  Just as there are alternative pathways to education, there are many methods to enjoying literacy. As a parent, we need to empower our kids to employ different ways to learn successfully, inspiring them to appreciate words and eventually the right way to live in God's world.