Reading...

When I brought RaeAnne to school today, I chanced upon the Peter and Jane ladybird book on Teacher Samantha's table. Wa... they are using Peter and Jane, I told hubby. The reason why I was so excited to see the book is because we bought the P&J key words books last year during Popular sale cos it was recommended by my forum mummy friends who were more diligent in getting their kids to learn to read. So we bought the beginner's P&J set of 6 books but never got beyond book 1A.

So today, I decided to fish out the book 1A again. Surprisingly, RA can recognise most of the words already. She does stumble on the words like here, their, but at least there is 70% hit rate. It is not that she could not read before. But all along, her reading was by memory especially her favourite books, she can remember the lines by heart and read it aloud without recognising the words. Kudos to the Elfa teachers for teaching phonics and sight words.

Although hubby and I do read to them, we can't claim credit cos most of the time, we just read. We even bought 2 sets of scholastic beginners' readers books but only read 4-5 of their favourites out of 20 books. We don't even point out each and every word in the story books cos we can't wait to send them to bed. After lights out at 930pm, it usually takes 1 - 1.5 hrs for them to knock out so that's why we are impatient to get the bedtime routine over and done with. I know of friends' 5 yr olds who read very well. And even a 6 year old who can read a full Roald Dahl book. So RaeAnne's progress in reading is considered slow.

The lack of effort is not only due to time constraint because I don't want to give her any pressure so young. Having taught lower primary school for some months, I feel that once they enter P1, they have so much homework to do. Their carefree childhood days are taken away from them so quickly. Easily 2-4 pages of HW or revision for English, Chinese and Maths everyday. I want RaeAnne to enjoy her homework-free days while she can so I have never given her homework to do especially since she is already at full day childcare.

But now that she is starting to read, I should play a more supportive role. I can't help her with phonics cos I never learnt them in school. But I can help her with sight words. Reading is a hobby that I hope both gals will pick up not only because it will help improve their language skills but also because it opens them up to a borderless world of knowledge. Ok, time to dig out that P&J book 1B. ;)