Comparing Pre-school English Reading and Phonics Enrichment

[HappyAvon]

Champion:

Hi HappyAvon,

Which branch is your girl attending? I have gone to see the Jurong West branch and feel that the classrooms are abit small. I did not ask much about the programme as there is only one lady at the counter and she is busy answering the phone and attending to me at the same time. My younger girl is also 3.5 this year and I just want her to be exposed to phonics and at the same time to socialise with other children :lol:

Thank you

Hi, my girl is attending the centre at Siglap- Burnfoot Terrace. If you been to GUG, its about the same classroom size...BTW, their class size is not very big-about 10 max and I dun find any problem. You can ask for a trial and decides later.

[Champion]

HappyAvon:

Hi, my girl is attending the centre at Siglap- Burnfoot Terrace. If you been to GUG, its about the same classroom size...BTW, their class size is not very big-about 10 max and I dun find any problem. You can ask for a trial and decides later.

Hi HappyAvon,
Thanks for the info - I will call up the centre to ask for a trial and hopefully my girl will enjoy it too :lol:

[joycemyl]

Hi


Can you tell me what is GUG?

Thanks

[HappyAvon]

joycemyl:

Hi


Can you tell me what is GUG?

Thanks

Hi Joycemy,

GUG is Growing Up Gifted in United Square. They have daily intergrated programme for kindergarten and also weekend enrichment classes. GUG is also using zoophonics.

[joycemyl]

Thanks.


Is GUG good? I am thinking of sending my 3 year old son for some phonic lessons during the holiday. Are they expensive?

[HappyAvon]

joycemyl:

Thanks.


Is GUG good? I am thinking of sending my 3 year old son for some phonic lessons during the holiday. Are they expensive?

I am not sure abt GUG holiday programme. My girl started with GUG enrichment class when she was 16 mth and it lasted for 6 mths before she was sent to half day childcare. She had recently started with Zoophonics School, they will also be having their holiday programme in December. You can check with GUG on their holiday programme.

[sunflower]

Phew! Exams are finally over!! Yipee! Err… looks like I more stress than my girl! :shock:


Oh, so much has transpired since I last post…well, my comments might be overdue, but thought I would just clarify some things…

ChiefKiasu:

sunflower:

After reading thru the posts, my personal opinion is that if your child's style of learning is kinaesthetic, then go for Zoophonics. If you feel your child is more of a visual/auditory learner and learns well with much repetition, than go for I Can Read. However, for younger children such as 3 – 5/6 yrs old, Zoophonics might be better suited, as at that age, children are in the pre-operational stage (Piaget’s developmental theory) where they learn better when they act or try things out.

Wah sunflower... my eyes crossed already with all those big words... only 1 word to describe your knowledge... GURU! :mrgreen:

Anyway I'm not sure if I fully agree with what the experts say about how people have specific preferred styles of learning... eg. visual, kinesthetic, audible, yada-yada. I personally find myself applying each of these styles depending on the learning subject. The way I learn math is very different from the way I learn literature, physics or chemistry. I learn my Shakespeare by reading aloud, my math by visualizing models, my physics by actually doing the experiments. We have multiple learning modes which we can apply in flexible manners, and teachers must know the right modes to use for instruction for the subjects they are teaching - eg. you can't teach physics by telling your students to memorize definitions of Newton's Laws by reading aloud!

Also, it is difficult to classify pre-school children in terms of their learning styles. Most children of this age are naturally kinesthetic as their main source of learning comes from the physical interaction with their environment. Most are also visual and audible - which explains why young children tend to be \"parrots\" and can reproduce the words and sounds they enjoy hearing. But most will also not understand what they are seeing or saying - their ability to process the information is developed later.

In short, I feel that the more important criteria for an early reading programme is its ability to hold the child's attention by making it fun for the children to do. My 3yo daughter right now can recite San Zi Jing and sing along all the Chinese nursery songs and rhymes much better than me, not because we made her recite it , but because they were introduced with interesting music, cartoons and games which she loves. She probably understand only about 30% of whatever she is saying... but the goal is simply to ensure she is used to hearing and speaking the sounds. There was the other post that said that exposing San Zi Jing to young children may make them hate the language. Personally, I think it has a lot more to do with how the child is taught than the topic itself.

I no guru lah…just interested in children’s learning and development and I do read widely on this subject. Pardon my unintentional “big words”, but don’t know how to put them in layman terms mah.. :oops:

Chief, you’re lucky in the sense that you sort of possess all of the learning styles quite equally and naturally used an appropriate learning style to help you best learn the respective subjects. While we definitely possess all the different learning styles, most have a dominant one or two that sort of override and which is used more predominantly than the rest. That is why some parents/teachers get really frustrated when even though the topic/subject has been taught and repeated the umpteenth time, the child just couldn’t get it!... but by presenting the same topic/subject in a different way (and this can be done, depending on the expertise of the teacher), the child understands almost immediately and could remember!

Some people learn things faster and are able to absorb and retain information better when they use (or the subject is being presented in) their predominant mode of learning.

Take “ting xie” for example, as I’m a more visual person, I can remember the words easily by looking at the words and “see” them in my head. A person who’s more auditory might need to say out the words and hear them before being able to remember. A predominantly kinaesthetic person might need to write them out before the words sink in.

I remembered some years back there was a program on TV that introduced some childcare, or was it kindy? (can’t remember) that used zoophonics with great success. That program gave me the impression that children who were too active (program seemed to define them as kinaesthetic learner) seemed to take well to zoophonics. Seems that some of these children did not strive in other phonics/reading program due to their predominantly (almost entirely) kinaesthetic style of learning.

I do agree that an important criteria for an early reading programme is its ability to hold the child's attention and interest by making it fun and I guess most programs that cater to the preschool age group do that, to make it fun.

However, I think there are some programs that utilise and incorporate the “fun” element better and more so to cater to certain specific traits and characteristics of children, so that children can learn and remember easily. Of course, teachers play an important role to sustain the child's interest and they need to have a certain calibre to apply the principles behind the programs and to deliver them effectively.

That’s why although there are so many systems of learning, not all children who go to the same enrichment centre will benefit and produce the same desired results.

[ksmummy]

Hihi,


Has anyone tried Mrs Sam’s phonic? comments, pls.

thanks!

[Irene66]

Has anyone tried Mrs Sam Learning formula? they have: Sight Reading Programme (4yrs and above) and Phonics Reading & Spelling (4yrs and above).


How is it different from I Can Read programme and the Read Phonic? So which is better?

[conniepng]

My son is currently attending ICR program in Kovan and I would recommend. Beginning of this year, my boy was still unable to read. And attending the PRP, he can read simple words. And with current Stage I ICR, he is doing better.


So, you might want to give it a try.