If you are teaching a child to read....

[Chandra]

...in what order do you introduce the letters?

DS has a school bag in which a new letter is included every now and then... problem is, that because it took them ages to send the 2nd set I thought there was nothing new on the bag and.... have just realised there are 14 letters in it that I have not practiced with DS

I know I should introduce two at the time but can't remember the sets or the order... any clues?

I don't think there is any particular proper order, but I know that DS has been given letters which can make simple words quickly, ie C A T, then M, then S, then P etc.
I have always found that they like the disctinctive letters first, like O (like a circle) and S (like a snake) as it's quite encouraging to be able to remember them next time. p and b and d etc are more confusing.

I would ask at school this morning - he may have been doing work on some of them in school time.

BTW - I haven't heard of children being taught to read like this - how does it work?

Thank you.

In the school they have wooden squares with letters (in sand paper) stuck to them, the children repeat the sound of the letter while following the texture of the sand paper with their hand (nothing magical about the sandpaper, they just find it more interesting to keep the finger over it because it feels different).

So, every time he has a one2one with the teacher, he gets the same letters (in paper) in his bag so he can practice at home.

I remember long time ago, I talked to a teacher who was teaching her DGD to read and she mentioned that she started with some letters and left the more difficult sounds for the end to avoid the girl being frustrated with them.

The first 6 letters introduced in synthetic phonic schemes tend to be, s a t p i n, because these letters make many 2/3 letter words, the whole idea being to get children reading and spelling real words as quickly as possible.

Thank you Maverick

Ok, they are all in the bag, the next set would be?

DS is able to recognise all capital letters without problem (fridge magnets playing since early age) but is having a slight problem learning small caps. He recognises the vowels no problem, as well as the letters of his name and those of the family but seems a bit bored at the moment with the identify the letter game.

Is there anything I can do to make the learning a bit more interesting? I don't want him to feel pressured but nor do I want him to get behind

Besides.... he speaks 3 languages (one to me, another to DH and English at school), should I forget about teaching reading in 2 languges until he has mastered the third?

Actually, leaving out the other 2 languages would be quite a good idea if we didn't have this "should we move back?" hanging over our heads permanently...

i have the jolly phonics here

s a t i p n
c k e h r m d
g o u l f b
ai j oa ie ee or
z w ng v oo oo
y x ch sh th th
qu ou oi ue er ar

the last 4 are introducing blended sounds rather than single letters. DS1 is on the 3rd set at he moment.

Thanks Foxtrot, I think I will have to talk to the teacher, the third set pronunciation (he doesn't have it yet) is totally different in our languages... wonder if we can go around it without mixing all up

Chandra I was told that the dc should ideally learn to read in the dominant language first. For dd this would be English but I just didn't have the patience for it. I found it drove me mad and decided to leave her to learn to read at school (aged 6) in German which is what's happening now. In other words, pretty much the reversal of what Emkana did. I'm hoping that once she is reading German fluently, it will be a lot less work to teach her to read in English. She goes to Saturday school for Russian but is no way near as developed linguistically in that language. Hard to say what is the best approach. Everyone's situation is so different.

Are you dealing with different alphabets?

The *fourth" one I mean to say.

BTW Does anybosy agree with me that that "hmm" emoticon has a bit of an angry face? [not shamelessly changing the subject but afraid that it's expressive little face may make me look as if I were angry or disagreeing.. )

The alphabets are the same but DH's has 11 accents for some vowels, while mine has only 2, two vowels if combined don't sound different (like in ee, while in English may sound like an i, in our languages would sound like a very long e (e with the sound as in "elf")

I'm starting to wonder what is the dominant language SSSandy, he can switch without problems between the 3, is no longer mixing them together and speaks them regularly every day.

It's difficult, isn't it? I can't help thinking it would be very confusing to learn to read two languages at once using the same alphabet but pronouncing things differently in both languages. Here there are bilingual schools which teach the English native speakers to read in English, the German native speakers to read in German although they are taught some subjects in English and some in German. At some stage I suppose they just click with the second language. Not sure how it works.

A French woman at dd's school told me there is an institute in Paris which teaches parents living overseas how to teach their dc to read in French which I think is a great idea. She did a course a few weeks long and they explained how to teach the phonemes and letters in French, give you the material and explain the theory behind it, give you tips on how not to get frustrated etc. She taught her dd to read French before she started German school

I have a niece who attend a bilingual school, she has the lessons in the morning all taught in English and the ones in the afternoon in Spanish. She can speak, read and write without problems in the 2 languages.

Problem here is that teaching reading in our languages at home may not be as structured as it is in the school. ARGGGGH... I'm tempted to concentrate in Eglish and leave the other languages for later but I know DH's is going to give me the lecture (again) about his language being prosecuted during Franco's dictatorship.... he has very strong feelings about putting his language at the back burner.

hei chandra, I'm Italian, ds is starting school in England in January. I was thinking of waiting a bit before teaching him to read in Italian (although it would be easier starting to read in Italian and then english)

Hiya Franca! Give it a bash. I tried with English but I found myself feeling so frustrated and to be honest so annoyed with dd for not getting it that I thought it best to leave it rather than her ending up with a blockage and me turning grey overnight.

I trust the school to do a good job of it and we have a book which she brings home occasionally. Seem to be progressing very slowly Ole malt im Plan. Leo und Ole malen. That kind of thing.

I think (I hope because I really don't KNOW) that if you continue reading to your dc in your mother tongue(s), that will be sufficient. At some stage perhaps they'll just start pointing at the odd word in Italian or Spanish that you're reading out to them and maybe get there without too much parental input?

Otherwise, once dc can read fluently in English, could you arrange for a tutor (perhaps a qualified teacher) to spend some time on it with them when you're back home on holiday?

SSSandy,
If you want to teach your daughter to read in English get the jolly phonics handbook and just follow the instructions. You could probably teach her the basics during the summer holiday and it is just a matter of practice to improve.

Every language has its own phonics structure so I guess that german phonics is different to English phonics, but children are incredibly adaptable

SSSandy,
If you want to teach your daughter to read in English get the jolly phonics handbook and just follow the instructions. You could probably teach her the basics during the summer holiday and it is just a matter of practice to improve.

Every language has its own phonics structure so I guess that german phonics is different to English phonics, but children are incredibly adaptable

I could at least get the book, couldn't I Frances?! I'll have a look when I'm in the UK over Christmas. Do you know offhand who publishes those books?

Hei sssandy! Yes, I guess I will wait for now, and see how he does at school (I haven't come to terms with the fact that he goes to school at 4 and a half yet). I'll keep reading to him in Italian. And perhaps in a year time, if he seems to enjoy learning to read I'll try with Italian. I was also thinking about a tutor, but first i want to ask my mil who used to be a teacher in middle school, and is fantastic.
Did i understand well, is your dd also learning russian?

I think I have seen the Jolly Phonics book in amazon.co.uk.

Franca, if you are still in Italy bring plenty of Italian children books so your child can see the words in Italian and get an extra reading lesson while you read the stories to him.

The other day DH was practicing the letters with DS and... {translated rhoughly from Catalan)

DH: What's this letter?
DS: A de Poma
DH: No, Poma is written with a "P"
DS: NO! Mrs X says is A is for Poma
DH: Do you mean A for Apple?
DS:

Hence my worries about building up in his confussions.