Sarah, the lil' reader!

My little Princess is a reader! And I'm glad that she loves reading. Even when she was a little toddler, she expressed interest in reading. Now, being 4 year old (almost), she has already started reading. She recognises most words that are introduced in the books. Currently, she uses the Peter and Jane series books as her readers in class. They have not started any REAL readers as yet.

Peter and Jane series introduces words through repetition of the sight words. Some key words are used ever-so-frequently that children who are exposed to the book recognises these words and read them so confidently after much repetition.

Some children learns to read through pictures. They see a picture and they verbalise the picture with words that they know, not necessarily "reading" the words.

Well, what method works? Different methods work best for different kids. For me, I believe learning phonics sounds is very effective. The children will learn the different sounds of each letter. REAL kids introduces the phonics sounds of the alphabet through Jolly Phonics. Well, as for high frequency words... words that are being used frequently but not necessarily can be introduced phonetically, I do recommend using Peter and Jane and something alike. Hahaha! Currently, Sarah's my guinea pig!

I didnt know her kindi uses Peter and Jane until I send my girl over there. It started just last week, ie about 6-7 weeks since she started school, that I realised that she IS reading Peter and Jane. She came back one day and went to her book shelf. She took a few Peter and Jane book, ie 1a, 1b and 2a. I was just observing her as she did all that herself. And she started "reading" on her own.

When she has gained enough confidence, Sarah told me she wanted to read in front of me. After reading book 1a, she later took 1b on her own and tried to read. I think she did it pretty well. I then decided to "test" her and point words randomly for her to read. Earlier, I closed the pictures to test if she relies totally on the pictures to read. Hehehe. This mummy ar... Anyway, this is another of her great milestones. She is now learning to read and she is enjoying every moment of it. Every evening when we come home from work/daycare, she would go to her room, get some of her books and read while I do my cooking. Way to go, girl. Am really proud of you! :)

Here's a video of little Sarah reading Peter & Jane... and also, mummy's "random test". kekeke. My apology that the video + audio don't seem to be in sync.

1 week after the BBW...

... that was literally 1 week after the Big Bad Wolf sales and some story-telling times with my lil princess!

Sarah : Mummy mummy... i tell you something (she came to whisper in my ear)... allinthewestwing!

Mummy : Huh? Again?!

Sarah : allinthewestwing

(I had to ask her 3x to understand what she meant! hehehe!)

Mummy : Oh... All in the west wing!

Sarah : The clock said it! :)

Well, guess what? Last night, she asked me to read her the same story... not too sure how many times i've read to her already... :) I'm fine with reading to her the story books (again) at night, but at times, my body's just so tired after a long day at work. But anyway, last night was another "cute" night spent with my lil princess.

And so, mummy here flipped open the first page of Beauty & the Beast... and started yawning.

Sarah : Mummy, read!!!

Mummy : (yawn!!!)

Sarah : Once upon a time... Mummy, read!!!

Mummy : Oh, you remembered! OK... Once upon a time...

Sarah : Mummy, I don't want "and then... and then... and then..." OK? Not nice!

Mummy : OK OK... Once upon a time...

Mummy here started reading the story, and after the first page, I paused and closed my eyes. She didn't see my closed-eyes and said "tringgg!" instead. Hahaha! That was the exact sound effect from the CD when the page is to be turned. I just had to carry on. Her "tringgg!" just woke me up! :)

And then, there was one part in the story when Belle came to look for her father in the castle.

Mummy : .... Belle said, "Papa, we've got to let you out of here!"

Sarah : There! Not here!

I looked at the words again... it was "there", and not "here". That really amazed me! She could remember some parts of the story word for word! And I also noticed her mimicking the movement of my lips as I read to her the story.

Another milestone for Sarah in her reading development! God bless her!

Sarah loves to read...

Sarah likes reading a lot! I thank God for that because I dont remember doing that a lot in front of her. I know kids learn from observing but I hardly had time to do any reading.... LOL! Actually that's just a lame excuse... I don't really read and that's something I have to inculcate myself. However, I do remember when I was a kid, I used to like reading (err... or perhaps looking at pictures!). When my dad got me books, I was super duper happy and would read the same books over and over again. Some of my favourite story books were "Snow White & the 7 Dwarfs" and "Snow White & Rose Red". My dad bought lots of Peter & Jane Ladybird books too and my sis, bro and self actually had tonnes of books to read... (hmm... I wonder why I did not continue that reading habit... :-/) I also loved the picture dictionary that I had and would read it a million times!

Recently, I went to a book store and was browsing through some books. As I was looking through some children books, I was reminded of the times when I was a little kid. So, I send myself back to memory lane and thought what book would my little Sarah enjoy if I were her.

So, I got her this.....

And this is how it looks like in the inside... there are about 40+ pages and I find it very educational, ie to expose Sarah to many different things that she can find in various places.

She thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. There were nights when she asked me to read her the book. So I would turn to some pages and tell her a made-up story based on the pictures on the book. Of course, it was also an interaction time I had with my little girl during reading time. It was really fun.

I also got her another book which is a 16-in-1 fairy tale book. Simple and short stories which she also enjoyed reading it on her own and sometimes with mummy or daddy reading to her the stories inside it. Hope these 2 books would last her awhile... hehehe...

Here's a pix of Sarah reading her story book.... Looked like she was really into it, ya? :)

Below pix show the naughty look of Sarah posing with her books.

I happened to ask her last night... "Girl, why you keep reading the same book? How about the others?" I pointed to her other books in the bookshelf. Without looking at me and while reading her now-favourite-book, she replied, "Read already lor... Read finish already lor." LOL! I was amazed with her reply. To her, she has completed reading all her other books, and now, her next aim is to complete reading the latest addition of her own little library.

Keep it up, Sarah!

During my first semester of my ECE course, one of the subject was "Basic in Language Arts". It was a reminder or maybe best said as an eye-opener to me about the importance of literacy in children's development. My lecturer emphasized on the importance of inculcating the reading habit even when our children are young babies. One of the best way is having bedtime story routine with the child.

I must admit that I have not started doing so until recently. As parents (busy and tired parents), we sometimes forget to do this very important thing before we go to bed. So, if you have not already done it, start now! :)

Read previous post on Sarah's first reading activity.

Sarah & her body parts...

Last night before bedtime, Sarah chose the book "Me and My Amazing Body" for reading. She's already very familiar with most of the body parts, so this round, mummy decided that perhaps she would like to learn more about the parts of her body that cannot be seen.

New words for the day: brain, heart & lungs!

"Where's Sarah's brain?" and she then pointed to her head.

"Where's Sarah's heart?" and she pointed to her heart and says, "dub dab! dub dab! dub dab!" Hehehe... :)

This was really funny... I couldn't stop laughing hearing what she said.
She pointed at the picture of the lungs and said, "butterfly!" LOL! :)

When animals become food....

What's this?"Pork!"

LOL! She was more advance than us to see that this "pig" has turned into "pork"! :D

We couldn't help ourselves but laughed upon hearing her reply last night. So we went on with the other "meat" in the book...

That's "Beef!"... McDonald Beef Burger!

And that is "KFC"!

And the pix on top here is... "Mutton Curry"!

She just parroted all the way.... hahahaha! :D

[+video] Sarah and her books (at Month 13)

She knew where her books are kept. So, off she went to the book shelve and get her books.

Where's the frog? Where's the flower? Where's the tiger? Where's the bird? LOL! She flipped and flipped and flipped the little book but she couldn't find any of them because they are only found in another book! :p
Hope I didn't get her confused over there... I was a lil sleepy then actually. Kakakaka...




OK... there it is... we got the right book this time... the book with "tiger" & "flower"... :)

Another new activity for Sarah: Reading (at Month 13)

Uncle Ewe Boon & Aunty Kit Kuan gave Sarah "Tiny Treasures" for her 1st birthday. It's a collection of little books in a box. Very very cute indeed! It was still wrapped nicely in a plastic bag for until last weekend when I decided to let Sarah have a "feel" of these tiny treasures.

As always, Sarah was excited over this new "toy". She took it as a "building block" kinda toy. As you can see, they are tiny books in a box. So, she takes the books as tiny blocks and try to put them back into the empty slots in the box.

This was funny. I laughed seeing what she did with those books. One of the book was on "Fruits". She saw a banana and said "Ahmmm...", while trying to "eat it"! Another thing that impressed me was when she saw the picture of "shoes", she actually said, "shu..." :)