Good Learning Session with Ryan Today

Ryan has made good progress with the flashcard method. In my earlier post, I mentioned that I bought this 3in by 5in index cards to make word flashcards for my boy. And I store all the flashcards in this IKEA container with a lid that I bought in the children's section in IKEA. Very handy. Anyway, this part is 'syiok sendiri' only :) What I'm really happy about is that Ryan has shown marked improvement with this flashcard method.

Actually I did some variations to this. For certain familiar words on the flashcards, I get Ryan to write about 10-20 times. Then I would ask him to spell for me without looking at the words. So far so good. Now I'm getting him to try spelling new words by listening to the sound of the words. Slow but progressing. Praising that he is able to spell even new words helps to boost his spirit and interest. I also got him to read the new Clifford Phonics Fun series (see the post on 'Scholastic Books for Early Readers and Young Children') and he gets very excited when he recognizes some words that he knew from the flashcards. He would tell me 'Mummy, this word is in the cards'. At the same time, I would transfer some new words from these books on the flashcards to reinforce word recognition. I'm trying to get him interested in reading and it helps when he realises that he can read. Really proud of it too.

Tonight, I had him spell and write out short sentences for me on lined papers. These are words that he would have seen in the cards and books but now, I told him to string them together and spell them out for me. Not bad! I'm proud of him. I can see that he is a lot more confident now.

I intend to use the same method to teach him Malay. But first, I'd get him comfortable with English first, amongst others.