Tara came home asking me things like, "Mummy, what letter is the word 'window'?" She meant what sound does 'w' makes. I looked at her, dumbfounded, not knowing how to answer. Phonics is something new to me. I have no idea how to make the 'w' sound!
Bob has been thinking of letting the little girl take some enrichment classes. So I was taking note of the things she's interested in. All the while, it was singing and dancing. Her teachers said she loves to sing and dance, especially to fast music. And she loves to perform too. But she's also very interested in phonics now. So I looked around for some phonics classes instead. Dancing will come later. I'm not going to overload the little one now.
2 weeks ago, I casually mentioned to Tara that I will send her to phonics classes and she has been asking for it since then. When we were on our way to breakfast yesterday, she asked if we were on our way to her class. So enthusiastic!
Anyway, while going through the websites, I shortlisted a couple of centres that I'm going to check out tomorrow, including a speech and drama centre. But then I also came across this wonderful website. This is one cool website that teaches phonics right from basics, for free (that's the best part). A mummy from one forum mentioned that it's good to try this website before sending the kid to classes, especially if it's a fast paced one. So I thought, I give this a try first.
Thus tonight, I sat Tara down in our study for our first lesson. I kept it short, only 15 mins on the laptop and 15 mins on the worksheets. I'm quite against young kids spending time in front of computers so I felt 15 mins is more than sufficient. And when I said it's our first lesson, I meant it because it's my first lesson too.
I wasn't comfortable with the distance of the laptop and her eyes. But I guess we will make do for now until Bob has the sound card of the desktop replaced.
Surprisingly, I enjoyed the lesson tremendously. This was Tara's first time using the mouse and she took quite a while to get used to it. And when she finally managed to do a drag and drop, I was ecstatic and so was she. I gave tons of encouragement, and applauses when she managed to get a right answer or drag the item to the right places. And so happy was she that she gave me bear hugs after each praise that I gave her. This was one moment that I felt truly bonded with her. I'm going to keep up with the lessons for as long as I can. And I will try to keep to a routine so Tara knows what to expect every day.
We learnt 'a', 'o' and 'w' today. And she's pretty good at it!
Tara on her worksheet.
Tara was asking for one lesson tomorrow too. And I will keep to the 30 min routine until she's ready for a longer lesson.
Oh ya, I finally know how to sound 'w'!
