babee tales

Saturday, 8 January 2011

I've been a lazy mum, over the holidays, have slackened on teaching my babies their alphabets and phonics. But it's the start of a new year, and I have taken up the task again with a new passion and dedication.

For Luke, it's starfall every day. We go through the alphabets in starfall and as a reward, he gets to play with other programmes in the website, like the gingerbread man, pumpkin and snowman (which are more interactive than the alphabet section).

For nat, she has progressed from alphabets to phonics. One particular website that I have found very useful is www.readingeggs.com. I first started off using it as a trial with her. Basically, the programme is divided into different lessons/games focusing on different letters and words. It is very interactive and nat can play independently most times without my help. She will run through 2-3 lessons each time and she has learnt to holler loudly when she needs me to help with some of the more difficult games. She has been actually playing this game for about 3 months.

The reward: Yesterday night, I was watching CSI on tv when she trotted into the room. Usually when this happens, I will pause the tv as some scenes in CSI are not so suitable for kids. Nat looked at the screen, which happened to pause at a subtitle, which read as "Hey, Flack!". She turned to me and said "Hey, Black". Oh well, missed the F but I was pleased because she has learnt to blend new words, which she has not seen before together and this is the first step to being able to read independently. Most times, when we read familiar stories at home, I can't really judge if she is blending the words or if she has just memorised the whole story.

As for Mandarin, I've yet to kickstart my home programme on that, hopefully by Chinese New Year. Wish me luck!