Word Recognition

Since Phoebe started nursery in SKMCC, she has learnt to recognise a few sight words. The school got for each of them a set of readers which consists of several titles. So far, Phoebe has brought home these three books :

1) Dirty Dog
2) What Is It?
3) Big and Little

From the readers, the teacher will identify the sight words from each book and keep track of the words that Phoebe can read. I realised that Phoebe is able to read some of the words such as :

dirty, dog, bird, sees, me, cat, big, little, is, a the, grandad, car, ball, I

I realised that sometimes, Phoebe uses the pictures to help her to guess the word. For example, when she sees the picture of a horse, she will know what the word is. It's an intelligent guess and I'm glad that she's able to use picture cues to help herself in reading.

However, I would prefer her to know the pronunciation of the words by using phonics to sound the words out because there may not always be pictures to guide her in reading. Phonics will be a more reliable source to aid her in sounding out the words. Phoebe already knows the sound of each letters but she is not good in sound blending. Sometimes I can see her trying out, for example, when she sees 'bone', she will say /b/ /b/ /b/ and then she says 'bird'. Well, at least she got the first letter right :)

To help her develop her skills in word blending, we borrow books for the library. Phoebe likes the books 'Hand Hand Fingers Thumb' by Dr. Seuss very much. So last night, we borrowed another of Dr. Seuss book 'The Foot Book' and I read to her before she slept. Using books like these, I try to teach her sound blending to derive the word, for example, Foot and Feet and Meet. I read the book to her but whenever we encounter these words foot and feet, then she has to read these two words. She likes active reading and that's how she is able to remember these two words.

I will test her word recognition by writing all the words she knows in flashcards. Hopefully, she'll be able to read the words on her own without the help of any pictures. :)