Any early years (bilingual?) teachers about?

notanewuser

trailingspouse wrote: »

Welsh is strongly phonetically regular, so teaching it using predominantly phonics makes perfect sense.

Hmmmm. I'm not sure I agree with that. There are 4 pronunciations for "y" in Welsh. She has y in her name, so will always call it "why", then "ee" as in electric, "yuh" as in yellow, then "uh" as in umbrella etc.

They've taught "c" as "Kuh". Makes building words like "ceiling", "celery" and "cecelia" (our neighbour) fun!!!

iammumtoone

notanewuser wrote: »

Thanks iammumtoone. She uses the phonics to build new words, it's just the repeating of it she's frustrated by.

I am not surprised. I don't see why she should be repeating it. Is that something they do at school or something you have started at home.

notanewuser

iammumtoone wrote: »

This is how I helped my ds with reading at home.

When reading your dd isn't expected to break down every word she is reading if she knows the word just let her say it. When you come to a word she is unsure of then try to ask her to break it down, if she can't, break it down for her, ask her to repeat using phonics, then ask her to repeat the word in full, if she doesn't get it from the phonics just tell her and ask her to repeat and read that line again. This is how I taught my ds there is an element of look and learn in it but along with that and learning the phonics at school he picked everything up ok.

The important thing is to keep them interesting in reading whilst at the same time trying to introduce the phonics where you can even if it is just you saying them at least she will be listening and some of it will sink in.

That's fine for Welsh books. But when we're reading or playing I-spy etc in English I'm having to give her the sounds and letters as they are often different.

notanewuser

iammumtoone wrote: »

I am not surprised. I don't see why she should be repeating it. Is that something they do at school or something you have started at home.

She got given a game with building 3 and 4 letter words (non-rude ones!). Instructions were that she should be making the sounds not naming letters and building the words on her fingers first. So we tried to do that. She would do it one, occasionally 2 times and then the next time I said "man" she just put the letters on without sounding it out. Feedback from school was that she needs to be sounding the words out. Over the weeks her teacher has realised that she doesn't need to do that to know the word but seems to be pushing phonics pretty hard (although she acknowledged the look and see preference when we chatted about it.)

I can see the benefits of the phobic method, it's just easier as you said to not use it for English when she's showing frustration around it for Welsh!

iammumtoone

notanewuser wrote: »

Hmmmm. I'm not sure I agree with that. There are 4 pronunciations for "y" in Welsh. She has y in her name, so will always call it "why", then "ee" as in electric, "yuh" as in yellow, then "uh" as in umbrella etc.

They've taught "c" as "Kuh". Makes building words like "ceiling", "celery" and "cecelia" (our neighbour) fun!!!

Yep thats the same as English phonics luckily ds is past that stage and I don't need to help him with it now, I have forgotten it as it was so complicated (to me, the kids all seemed to pick it up )

When she gets older she will learn another way of saying "c". Thats what I found the most frustrating about it, as an adult I knew "kuh" did not fit with every word containing c , but at that stage as children they don't as the books they will be given will always pronounce c as "kuh" when they move up to learn the next phonics version of c those stage books will include both versions.

This does not help that as a parent you want to help your child to read further than stage the school are at, but are unable to do so as you yourself don't know the phonics which are needed for the word you are trying to teach. I don't envy you OP having to go through this twice for two different languages.

notanewuser

Thank you! I'm purely following her lead. There's no pushing. I don't make a fuss about the school activities either (although she usually only needs to do those once too!). She loves books and stories, always has. She's stolen a book I bought for me about fossils and evolution and put it in her room as its her "special book" apparently!!

iammumtoone

For english (if you to get ahead but I can see you probably have enough with getting to grips with the welsh version!)

This website helped me loads as it speaks the sounds

http://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/for-home/reading-site/expert-help/phonics-made-easy

Scroll down and click on the "Say the sounds" section and you will see what to have to look forward once you get to learning english stage!

In the meantime I would not worry about doing look and learn with english after all this was how I taught my ds english before he got to school and started the phonics and it didn't seem to put him back. In my opinion it is much better to do look and learn than get the phonics sounds wrong as that will only confuse her if she has to re-learn them once she gets to that stage.

moomoomama27

They only need yo be sounding out the letters until they learn to blend them! I would be concerned if a child who had been screened to know specific blends were still sounding them out.

Of course we start with single sounds, and then blend them together but it should be a relatively quick process for an able learner.

I'm not sure how children in Welsh medium schools are categorised for the purpose of teaching and planning. But I would typically gave 3 groups/levels lower ability, average ability, higher ability, and plan accordingly, and my expectations would differ depending on the group.

We would recognise and identify quickly each child's learning technique, and while we would use standard teaching methods, would encourage, especially at home, whatever method suited the child. As long as they are making good progress, and have a clear comprehension of what they are reading/learning, we wouldn't be concerned.

moomoomama27

Apologies for typos, phone is rubbish!

j.e.j.

So at school she's learning mainly in a language you're not fluent in? And you're teaching her to read English at home. Sounds like a good idea, as it takes a long time to learn to read English fluently, due to all the silent letters and the regressive spelling system. Fwiw I think she will differentiate between English and Welsh. Bilingial kids tend to know which adult speaks what language, and they adapt quite naturally to it.