I get stressed hearing what your kids having. Samuel still do not have any 听写 or spelling leh.
I am the one who give him daily maths worksheet, phonics consonant, digraph exercises, spelling using phonics and chinese writing.
No homework at all from school except to read a book they distributed daily.
He does all the above in the evening with me after practising violin.
In the morning on the car, I give him and Joelle phonics lesson eg. words with sh or pl etc. They are proficient with blends but still need brush up on their long vowels. And a few sight words a day. They read at least one page of Peter&Jane daily and a small chinese reader book I chose.
Samuel still does not read as well as I like. He is ok with sight words though.
I am still pondering on ICR and CMA... scared later got a lot of homework or does not value add.
re: spelling
actually I am trying to coach the kids to use phonics to spell out words. They can spell any 3 letter blends now. But still weak in long vowels and silent e... memory is still required in those I feel. Another thing I am going to try is to introduce phonograms to them to help them further improve their spelling.
Frankly at times its really tiring to be coaching them in the evening followed by a series of story book reading (by me!). But no choice leh... maybe I allowed them to slacken too much in the last 2 years so I feel K1 onwards is the time to really prepare academically. Its a dillemma, at times I still to remind myself to take it easier by allowing them some days in a week with their own chosen activities like lego or painting.... cos next time when they enter P1, sure no choice but to do homework daily. So now, is probably the only time, in their next 15 years, to be slightly more relaxed.
Another thing is the time constraint, trying to split my attention between coaching them and taking care of Joshua.... poor Joshua gets the least attention.
