AA: the books are not the same as what Ash posted. Ash posted the chinese reader. mine are activity cum learning systems in a book aka assessment books! haha
hmm. i think we got to align our definitions to make the discussion clearer..
ur reading english = sounding a word?
if that is what it means.. then yes i agree sounding words mean u need to have good phonics skills and relies on memory..
BUT my reading english is more than sounding words. It involves the comprehension and inference part.. the ability to interact with a text at a level that is beyond just mere sounding out of words... from what you have clarified.. i think, u get what i was trying to say.
then.. ok.. pt by pt..
>>>>[What got me confused over what you said was you're worried Teng learns by memorising words, which makes me think you feel that is not the "smart" way. Being able to recall words seen before (ie from memory) is a way of learning by association and assimilation, isn't it? So that's a smart way too, granted it may be the most primitive way. Incidentally, learning to read chinese is all memory work.]
a few pts here.
Pt 1: if the first point of entry to any learning.. is via rote.. via simply learning by saying it one time and memorising it the same time.. then when given another smilar word.. and can't react other than to be told and to memorise again.. then it is not smart and not the best way to learn.. let's trace back to the first trigger.. i was trying to comment on teng learning to handle a list of sight words given to him.. so in a sense.. those are raw data waiting to be 'decoded' and making sense of .. what i was trying to say was.. i want teng to be able to do in in a smarter way.. using rule and apply it across contexts and acheiving the learning by himself.. and not having to rely on me to sound out the word for him for him to memorise and aagain and again. If it is the latter.. then i would still say .. it is not a smart way to learn because it is so tedious.. in a way. i am trying to teach teng how to LEARN too.. coz learn to learn smartly. in future everything is half the effort, twice the result.. tihs is what i believe in..
Pt2: The chinese and english langauges are vastly different.. syntax, phonology etc. Chinese lends itself to exposure and memory.. by that i DUN mean that we all are not learning it the smart way having to remember the character by memory.. i have always felt that there is this charm in chinese.. which somehow is less eminent in english.. the 'simplicity' in the abstractness of the lang.. ha.. cheng yus in chinese best typify this for me.. v powerful.. ha.. ok.. this one i hope u can get what i mean.. this is the best i can try to express..
english on the other hand.. appears to be rule bound.. a medium when there are some rules for you to try to handle the first line of representation - the letters and words.. SO.. if it is already there.. this structure in the lang.. then teng shd do well to be able to maniuplate and handle the structure.. which is why i say. it is not smart to handle english and to read english words by pure memory..
>>>[BUT comprehension is not the same thing as reading. There are many times when I've finished reading an analytical piece/news article, and find myself not understanding the meaning, and I have to go back to read the passage again. Doesn't mean I can't read, just mean I don't understand the passage. This is the same as what Mejo encountered with reading Macbeth.
And this is what I mean that comprehension comes after learning how to read, not vice versa. I want to add.. The former is easy to teach, the latter , tough.]
this is the definition part.. if it means sounding the words as reading english.. yes. then yes.. in this case, there is a 'reading' of english.. but like i said earlier. my definition of reading means interacting with the text.. to get a sense of meaning.. for a person who read the words. but can't get the meaning.. then with this defintion, i would, in my opinion, the person can't read english.. maybe it is a matter of how strict we want our definitions to be..
I would concur that sounding words is so much easier than to comprehend.. this is what we all went thru when our kids were younger. i think.. we said soemthing like.. he understands our instructions. but cannot express in words..
hence yes.. being able to sound out the words phonically is the first step to reading and understanding.. because u need to manage the 'interface' behind u can get any meaning out of anything..and hence.. for teng. i have diagoised his needs as phonics first.. appreciation he is strong.. but without the abilty to manage the interface more effectively.. his appreciation will be hampered resulting him being an ineffective reader (coz he will have problems reading and hence can't read.. when he can't read. he loses interest and he wun have the backround knowledge to handle any more future reading.. it is a vicious circle)..
hence i choose ICR over lorna whiston.. coz lorna whiston builds the environment.. that is good.. but teng needs the tool to handle the environbment more critically now..
dunno why. but another quite common utterance comes to my mind.. i am sure we all have a situation when we say soemthing.. then we go 'what was that?'..like i can sound out the word.. hmmmm.. say 'se-rendi-pi-ty'.. but what is that? this brings me to another pt.. learning vocabulary in langauges.. ha. but i think i need to stop here.. for the timing being..
ha. what a long post..
