Any Mommies in mid-late 30s or over 40 with small children?

Reading
I guess I'm quite slack in this area. That is why I panicked when my #1 still can't read at the end of K1. I have to put him to Zoophonics (and #2 too since they are on the same timing) and heed Tam's advise and support and everyone was cheering for me when I have to painstakingly get him to read P&J everyday. I remembered the heart-thumping, blood pressure shooting, my eye ris enlarging, the pulling out hair feeling i got when i made him seat and read!
 


Snowball,
Does your 4yo read books by herself? Mine wants me to read with her though she can read by herself. didn't try level 3 to see if she can read or not though. I'm still part-timing P&J with her. slowly slowly... :p

I think my next trouble will be my #3... He has some traits of my #1... I'm really really very very scared!!!
 
toto,
have you considered sending your ds to phonics class? it helped my #1 a lot during his time. Coupled with P&J, tears and blood, he managed to learn to read by end of K2. It was a relief!!! I think he managed to finish up to book 10?? can't remember liao, but the important thing is he finally can read...

Phew!
 
Joy.
Wow is really expensive liao.

Fairy/snowball32
hmmm. Kawai piano it is good ? piano can cost from 3,000 - 15.000.
S just finished 4 lessons , she is learning E.
the fingers are not strong enough will have do a lot of practice.
 
tree nymph - do you have any good phonics class to recommend? i understand what you meant by blood boiling instances with home teaching. i guess it has to do with the child's personality. my ds1 does not like to sit still and write or learn to read. i tried to home school him while in the US to no avail. teaching him his alphabets at 3 yrs old was the toughest. my ds2, on the other hand, loves alphabets and would never let his magnetic/foam alphabets leave his sight, even when he sleeps, he would like to hold on to his alphabets. at 18 months, he knows all his alphabets, upper and lower case. think he can read before ds1. and i even went thru flash cards, shichida, etc with ds1. for ds2, nothing much, except jg playnest.

yawn - i din know Kumon accepts 3 yrs old. i will have to find a centre near me.
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how many hours of lesson per wk is considered ideal?

re reading - just finished drilling my ds1 on PnJ. we finally completed book 1. to ensure he remembers the words, i will have to make him spell the words daily. i will have a long way to go and much more heartaches and pain before my ds1 can read....
 
rona

of course missed you! did you see me paging for you above?
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Which drama have you conquered recently ?
After korean drama 'personal taste', I've yet to start a new one, don't know which one to watch leh


toto

It's daily worksheets so not that critical how many hours at center, more importantly is to do the worksheets at home on a daily basis. She attended twice a week but subsequently reduced to once a week because center was quite far, daddy has no patience to send/wait/fetch

Most centers take from 4yo. Some accept 3yo or younger as long no separation anxiety
 
rona,
Glad to see your post
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I am also from NUS, but I became very lazy, the lectures and tutorial system, and the fact that we didn't take attendance, was bad for me. I needed discipline ! I prefer the system of sitting in one classroom and have teachers chasing us for homework.
OK I will try to bring back the dryer, I am trying very hard to find a cheaper way of shipping back to Singapore.
I already bought more than 10kg of books from dangdang !

toto,
I don't advise you to let your spell the words in the books daily. Make sure he has a strong foundation in phonics, then he can spell any word, this is the most effective method to learn to read and spell. Otherwise you are going to waste a lot of time making him learn to spell by rote memory which is unnecessary. Don't forget kids still have to learn Chinese before 7 years old.
 
sharon, where did u get ur 2nd hand digital piano? the trade-in clause for piano sounds good... the MYC teacher also say that the child will outgrow the kbd within 6 months.. so for me, i might need to get a digital piano first before swtiching to a piano (since my gal is < 4 yo so its bad for her fingers to use a piano so young).

tam... ehehhe.. ok.. cos right now i am hanging my clothes in the living room (kitchen has no ventilation.. need some space if i were to get a piano soon :p did not get a front load when my washing machine kaput recently cos i always got this fear that my gal will climb inside ahhahaha

toto, my gal will be turning 4 soon too and she also cannot read
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re travelling for tertiary.. thing is that last time all tertiarys are in the west.. i also have to wake up at 5am+ for 8.30am lessons..nowadays there are more polys all over the islands..but i have to admit that some of their standards not so good...

rona...wow.. u even work parttime during study..peifu!!!!
 
Hi Yawn/ Rona,

I think I championed both of you in travelling. During U days, I travelled everyday from Simei all the way to NTU. I have to leave home at 5.45am to rush for 8.30am lesson &amp; reach home at around 8.30pm if the last lesson is at 5.30pm.

After grad, I shifted to Pasir Ris but I work in Tuas.....travel lagi further :p

Hi Toto,

When my gal was in Music Wonderland, they teaches mainly singing and listening. At home, I do not force my gal to practise but I do play the CD before bedtime twice a week for her to sing along (aka practise).

She just started YJC last week, already got homework. Just bought her a keyboard and she got quite excited about it. I have reminded her that she has to practise twice a week in the evening.

Reading - My DD1's CC teach them phonics since PG class, this makes it easier for me to start her off with P &amp; J series. On average, I finish 1 book in 4 - 5 weeks. Now, about 1 year into this series, my gal is in middle of book 6a now. She can remember about 90% of the words taught. She still get some words mixed up like she will read "boy" for "bag", "take" for "talk". But, she will read correctly after some prompting.

I spend about 15 - 20min with her on P &amp; J series, making her read 1 pg every night, before bedtime. I start off with the new words introduced in the page and encorage her to descibe what she sees in the pictures before we start with reading. So far, this works quite well for her. I have not started on the "c" books yet. Now that she can write a - z, I will start her with the "c" books which will further enhance her phonics skills.

Spelling - My DD1 recently started to learn to spell words she come across.

Hi Rona,

Really missed you leh....thot you busy scouting for your new home :p

My 4yo can pick up books and read by herself. I bought different storybooks from level 1 onwards (few words first) then progress her to level 2 and 3 books. I personally find the those read-it-yourself books by LadyBird and the storybook series published by Popular quite good to start them off - lotsa colourful pictures with simple and not too wordy. I just need to read to her words she do not know. I find that this further re-inforce her learning from P &amp; J series. My DD2 is also taking interest in these storybooks too.

She is now interested to read the Disney Princess storybook which my hb brought back from US but still too difficult for her. I am reading to her those books now.

Hi Mumusings,

I have a dryer by Indesit. I bought it 4 yrs ago in a bundle deal with the Washer. Paid total $899 for Washer and Dryer. I use the dryer mainly to dry my bedsheets only and for drying damp clothes during rainy days. Hence, electricity bill is not that high. My average PUB bill is about $220.

Hi Tam,

At the rate you are going, think you can book a 20-ft container to bring back the things you bought in China. Sea voyage will be much cheaper :p
 
Rona- welcome back to the thread...I had a hunch you must be busy watching your k-dramas! Hope your kids recover in time...

Calling all mummies- how do we ensure our kids remember common words?? By writing or by reading lots?? My younger K1 gal is now on book 6 of P&amp;J, can read quite smoothly most of the time, but at times, can still get stumped by common words which she read many times already e..g where; when; what; whose...she will pause, and I will say- use phonics to make up the words...she tries and can make it, but then after a few lines, can get stumped again with the exact same words that we just read...anyone knows why this happens? I did not recall this happening to my elder kid- she remembers all the words she read...now can read very smoothly, even long words e.g. "unfortunately"- she can also read with no pause at all...

Tam- you better buy whatever interesting things that you find...just enquire from the post office about sending by sea post...if you do not buy- you may regret! unless you are going back to China again soon...otherwise, just buy!
 
Sharon,
your digital piano looks very good. I like it and the clause too. In fact, my boy's piano teacher teaches using the digital piano and she has a unique way of teaching. don't know if that is good or not though. but at least my boi is learning. I'm not going to register him for his piano grade one exams though...
 
So nice to know that I'm missed! heheheee... now stylo is missing... got to call the police soon!

Yawn,
Lee Min Ho is cute right? my fav is now him and my all time fav is still oh jin ho... don't tell my hubby...

I will share with you my k-drama list in a while, colleagues waiting for me for lunch!
 
Hi Sharon,

My DD's school did not teach spelling yet. But, now, when she comes across "intersesting words" while doing her reading, she will spell out the words and ask me for pronunciation. Eg, adventure, hippopotamus, interesting....I guess she is learning how to make up words using the phonics she learnt in the CC.
 
Hi Sharon,

The digital piano looks nice. Think Yamaha selling around $2k for a brand new one? So paying $650 is worth it.

Hi Bloom,

For YJC, the school told me that usually its advisable to switch from keyboard to piano/ organ after 1.5yrs into the course where we can already decide if our child wants to continue with piano or organ.

By then, my DD1 will be 5.5yo, time for us to decide then.
 
Toto,

My 2cents - don't try spelling first with your DS. If your's is anything like mine, then doing spelling may kill his interest in learning even more. I sent him to zoophonics and he had a fabulous teacher whom i'm very grateful to. Only thing about zoophonics is I felt you have to start during the first lesson on the first term - that means you will have to start with letter A. especially when the kid has no background at all. else he will feel very lost if you start him in the middle of the term.

YOu will still have to continue the P&amp;J. else you can also try to find books equivalent with P&amp;J for the sight words. Have to say that P&amp;J maybe boring to some, but its really a very good english foundation book. I started him on 1a, 1st lesson I think I did 5 pages or 8 pages... then 2nd lesson revision on those pages, 3rd lesson I will start from page 3 then another 5 or 8 pages from there. but this really depends a lot on the child's mood. you can also try to observe when is a good learning time for him, my #1 function well in the evenings, but he has very very bad attention span, prob only 5 mins. So I have to keep pulling him back. I didn't make him learn the spellings. But after 2b, you can see some improvement. mine reads all the a and b books - a is the learning book and b is the revision book and by the time he finish b books, he can remember the new words, maybe not be all the new words, but I think 70%?

My mistake is that I was too worried about his English that I didn't do enough for his Chinese, so now his Chinese is suffering, which we are trying to catch up now. So you also must try to spend some time with your boy to do Chinese.
 
Snowball,
The house prices still high leh. Flip through the newspaper, called and still the prices still not nice yet...
 
Tam,
have not seen this soya drink maker yet in singapore. Have you personally tried it yet? Yah, if you buy enough, you can consider seafreight back...
 
Yawn,
I've finished Oh! My lady, and a old drama by Rain - Full House. They have similar story line, but I like Full House better. I have the DVD for Full House, if you want, I can lend you. and I've just finished You're Beautiful too. I love the songs!!! so much so that I've downloaded all from the net. I'm wondering if the songs are sung by the actors? Have you watched this? any ideas?
 
mummies, thanks for sharing on phonics. my boy learns jolly phonics at school - and he is at the same level as my twins.

tree nymph, i will follow your suggestion and start with Tam's phonics games and reading PnJ. will take it slow - one pg a night. last night, we read book 1 again, and ds1 is able to recall most of the words.
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i hv only gotten 1a/b and 2a/b. btw - which zoophonics are you attending?

sharon, your piano looks v good. i am using a casio keyboard to practise with my ds1. will only buy a piano if he is really keen in continuing. he will be learning violin nx yr and it is complusory for him to buy one.

re Chinese, i am looking for a private chinese tutor, if you have any recommendations, pls PM me.
 
Fairy, Snowball,

My gal is the same age as Snowball's 4yo this year. I let her choose what she wants to read in the evenings. But the problem is that she doesn't want to read by herself, she wants me or someone else to sit beside her and read with her, be it Chinese and English. I also let her decide how much she wants to read. She is starting 8a soon, can read 7b with 80% accuracy. I've not been consistently with the kids with the siwukuaidu... but when I teach my boy his P1 chinese (not higher chinese) book, she can read 65% of the words.

I have never pushed her in any way, she just wanna stick around when I'm teaching her bro and just wanna prove to her bro that she can do better then him ... :p She also pester me to give her spellings.

She can do up to 10 addition and subtraction accurately - i think she understands the concept. I may try up to 20 this Dec and see if she can handle.

In general, I need not worry when she starts school lah, at least academically.

But I sincerely think that its really a gal - boy thing. BOYS are generally more playful and shorter attention span and they are really better with hands-on stuff. My boy also likes science more and can retain information on science - and he can't remember his basic grammar rules after one year of teaching - still making TONS of basic grammar mistakes! Whereas gals are better with language and they are definately and naturally more hard-working then boys. But my gal is really more clumsy for sports...
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And I have a younger boy - and I think he is worst then my #1. while my #1 is milder in character and more obedient, this #3 is headstrong and very super cheeky. He tests limits all the time and he knows how to get away by giving you his innocent smile or showing his sad face. and when you ask him to read with you - he runs off to another room or look for another person who will entertain him. Or he will go and hide and he really knows how to hide and keep very still and quiet! I'm very very scared that I will have another 'life-shortening' experience!
 
rona

Already bought! Told you I kiasu mama
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Phrases not bad, quite interesting. However I find the book too thin leh, insufficient examples, unlike the creative writing books from popular, give plenty of examples to illustrate each theme/scenario. If compared this way, I find that book too pricey. Overall, I feel that the purpose of the book is more to showcase the center's teaching method. Anyway, creative phrases the more the merrier, can buy lah

You plan to sign your ds up for their regular classes?
 
snowball,
Hahaha I am trying to find a container, my colleagues also have a lot of ship back, they bought bicycles !
Your DD1 is doing very well
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bloom, snowball,
Did you consider staying in the NTU hostel ?


Fairy,
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I will not be going back to China to work again. I have been buying tons of stuff from taobao, it is so convenient since they send to my doorstep :p and things are really cheap compared to Singapore.

rona,
You are absolutely right that learning to spell by repeating the letters many times will kill the interest of learning. For some kids, this method may not even help them to remember. Once I tried to teach Jerome to spell "Jaguar", I said J-A-G-U-A-R, and asked him to repeat after me. He said "J" then forgot about the rest, I repeated a few times, he still could not remember. I gave up. Once he knows phonics very well, he can spell most words just by listening to the sounds. He is now able to write compositions of about 50 - 80 words on his own.
Your girl is doing really well for her age !
 
Hi Tam,

I stayed in the hostel for the 1st 2 terms of year 1 in U. I got chxpox and shifted home to recuperate in towards middle of 2nd term. That was when I realised that I have been playing &amp; playing and not studying at all. So, I withdrew from hostel after that. I did not mind the shuttling actually as I can zzzz in the MRT all the way :p

Hi Toto,

From my observation of my DD1's progress, once they learnt phonics, they will develop a "keeness" to spell. No need to teach them to spell actually.

Hi Fairy,

My DD1 can "forget" how to read those common words this moment and the next moment, she remembers to read all those words. I think it depends on her mood to read too.
 
Hi Snowball,

Thanks. There aren’t many brands of dryers around so just trying to see if I can make a comparison based on the moms’ experiences on this thread. If I do get it, it’s for (literally) rainy days and certain items like bedsheets.

Hi Tam,

The soyabean milk maker looks very compact! You have enough space to hold all your new purchases when you get back here??
 
snowball

my brother stayed in hostel for 3 years. I heard must be very active in CCA to earn sufficient points to continue staying in hostel or something like that
 
Hi Yawn,

1st yr got privilege. Usually apply and can get a room. Yes, for subsequent years, need to be very active in CCA to earn points to retain your room.

But, luckily I shifted home else, dun think I can grad as there are too many distractions and I need to discipline myself to study.
 
snowball, oh yes NTU.. one of the reasons why i never entertain going to NTU..its really TOO FAR! What kind of homework does YJC does??? Cos MYC has homework.. so I am abit scared liao...

sharon.. ur digital piano is beautiful!!!!!!
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re P&amp;J.. the whole set is so expensive..any cheaper alternatives???

tam, did not stay in hostel during year 1 cos no money.. 2nd year tried of travelling and tried to apply but as mentioned by snowball, need to have very good cca which i dont have... so end up travelling for 3 years.... luckily i love travelling on the bus ($50 concession for all travels.. no money to take mrt hahaha)

re kids.. my gal hor.. got 2 funi 'habits'... duno if its 'normal' or not..so need to consult u mommies..

firstly, she always like to repeat... like my sis got her a bracelet from overseas. we put it somewhere for months before i dig it up and show her..and i ask her (test her memory) if she remembered who gave it to her. she didn't, and i reminded her again. next few nights, everytime she see the bracelet..she will ask me who gave it to her... if i ask her back,she will remember..so i have no idea why she is asking that Q everynight (testing me? or jst repeating what i have asked her previously cos she thot that is how conversation goes?)

2ndly, sometimes when she cannot/don't want to sleep, she will say she want to sit there and watch me.. abit spooky..but abit sad (cos i always dont have enuf time with her)... anyone's kids like taht?
 
Hi Bloom,

Kids parrot what parents do, especially speech patterns and the way we speak. Very often, we use rhetorical questions, like, "See?" "What do we have here?". I know my son is traying to talk to us like we talk to him. Instead of telling us there is an item in front of him, he goes, "See? See? Where? What's this? Truck! Truck! See?"

Sometimes he will answer his own questions (using the answer I give). One time he missed my husband when he was working. When he asked to go look for daddy, I said in Mandarin, "liu4 dian3 ban4. Too early. Wait till 6.30". Subequently, he went "Daddy? Ban4. Yee Yee (my sis)? Ban4. Popo? Ban." Same with sweets. "Sweet? No more. Juice? No more."

As for sleep. Yes, sometimes he will wait for me to doze off a little before he decides to also ZZZ. May sometimes open my eyelids to check if I'm really sleeping or bluffing him.

Today, I asked him to take his Tigger on a ride on his Maclaren MX3 toy stroller. He treats the toy as like the way we try to coax him to stay in the stroller when he was smaller! He will ask Tigger to drink and stop to check the hood of the stroller and whether seat belt is fastened properly. Quite interesting to watch.
 
Hello mummies!
Re. Dryer
I hv a Electrolux dryer at home, primarily used for drying clothes during rainy season and for jeans/towels/beddings. I actually dont like how my clothes "smell" aft going through the dryer
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Due to the space constraints, the dryer is stacked on top of my front loaded washer. As compared to the air con, the dryer indeed does not consume too much electricity.

Bloom,
Agree. The P&amp;J series is so expensive. I hv been keeping a look out for second hand sets or discounted P&amp;J series since learning about it from the ladies here. But no luck. Do let me know if u come across a cheaper source
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TIA.

Your dd not weird lah. Maybe to her, this particular topic just goes this way lor
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. Sit n watch u sleep ah? Hmm, wonder where she learn that from. Somebody in the family always tell her to do this n then say I'll watch u??

Mummies,
I also need some opinions here. My dd2 will turn 2 this dec. Is it too soon to enroll her in Berries next year? Berries takes in kids at 3, regardless of birth month. I'm not planning to send dd2 to any kindy or cc till K1. Do u think she will learn something by going to Berries? We don't speak much mandarin at home, and i dont want dd2 to struggle with mandarin like her sis. Or do u hv any other suggestions? Any mummies have experience with Beijing Language School to share?
 
Tamarind
I need to check with u ! how to 分辨 phonics sound end with "tion" and "sion". like word
"resolution" and "profession"
Is this two same sound...
By memories the words ???? please advise!
Thanks in advance
 
On English Spelling and Pronunciation:

Hi Sharon,

You can check the dictionary for the way each word is transcribed. Unfortunately, anomaly happens for many English words, so, reading widely helps one 'see' that there are exceptions to the rules. Well, I guess there's no way out but to remember the unique cases.

Example:
One house, 2 houses
One mouse, 2 mice

As for the 2 words you raised,

Profession = prer-fair-shen (I don't know how to type the exact transcription using this programme)

Lots of Singaporeans call it Proe-fair-shern, just like 'pronounce' is often misread as Proe-nauns and Computer 'Korm-Pew-Ter' rather than kem-pyu-ter (with the stress on the 2nd syllable)

Resolution = rare-zer-loo-shen, not rare-so-lew-shern

Well, it doesn't help that lots of English words evolved/were taken from Latin, French and Arabic etc so the spelling/pronunciation greatly depends on the type of words you're looking at. Quite a confusing language. Eg. 'finesse', 'tongue', 'Aphrodite', 'curriculum vitae' and 'resume'. They don't sound like they are spelt.

For adults, you may want to borrow books by a lecturer called Adam Brown (available at libraries). He's written books on common mis-spellings and mis-pronunciation by Singaporeans. Easy to follow and read.

Books:
Brown, Adam.
1999. Singapore English in a nutshell. Singapore: Federal publications.
1992. Making Sense of Singapore English

"Brown is a phonetician, British by origin, but lived in Singapore for many years, and has written this book for general readers with both Singaporean and non-Singaporean readers in mind. Especially useful for non-Singaporeans."

Hope this link is of use to all
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http://www.leeds.ac.uk/english/staff/afg/singeb2.html
 
mommies

re: iherb order

have you ever received your package opened?

I received my parcel but the box was wide opened. The postman who delivered the parcel left in a flash, didn't have a chance to ask him. I called post office to enquire and they aren't sure too, said maybe custom open it for inspection.

ever happen to you before?
 
Hi Yawn,

So far I ordered from iherb twice. Both times the package was sealed when received. Your pkg could have been opened by Customs for random checks. That is why it was received opened?

Hi Bloom/ Aly,

You can try ordering the P &amp; J series via Spree in the Mktplace forum. You can get 1 book around $3.80 (if I am not wrong). I bought the whole series from Popular (with 10% disc), paid about $4.20 per book. Total paid about $150 for the whole set. I will be using the books for 2 kids, so its not so expensive actually.
 
Bloom, aly-nat,
if you can, go get the books when popular is having 20% discount. then you can get one for about $3.80 each, but you may not be able to get all the books at one go. If you just get the 'a' and the 'b' books, you prob pay around $85 for the whole set. Divide it by the number of kids you have, its only $30/$40 per kid, cheaper then two lessons of any enrichment centre you may want to sent your kids to! Even if you have only one kid, the early literacy for your kid is still worth the money lah.
 
Sharon,
my gal not smart, so is average only but she is super chao kiasu... she wanna win her elder brother in everything, so she make an effort to pay more attention when i read to them.

But I really think your Sabrina very very smart! naturally too.

Think our kids are all smart, in their own unique way!
 
Snowball, Rona,
Thanks for the tips. I will wait for the next storewide 20% discount at popular. Any idea if any overseas website is selling this series at a cheaper price? I tried looking but hv not come across any.

Mumusings,
Thanks for the link. Will check it out.
 
Sharon,
Mumusings is absolutely correct. There are many unique cases which cannot be read using phonics techniques. In fact, if we try to use phonics to read words like salmon, almond, etc, we are reading the words wrongly.

That's why it is important to teach both phonics and sight words at the same time.

aly_nat,
Berries take in students all year round. You may want to enroll her in June or later part of the year. I think it is not too late to start in N2. For N1, kids learn only 2 or 3 words a week, no sentences.
 
mumusings,
I actually did not bring much when I come here, so there is enough space in my luggage. I bought about 20 kg of books, going to ship all of them back by China Post.
 


snowball, bloom,
I never stay in hostel when in university, I prefer the comforts of home.

bloom,
My boy also repeats his questions many times, even after I told him the answer. I think he just wants to find a chance to talk
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My kids also don't fall asleep easily. My boy will keep talking and talking to himself non-stop until he falls asleep.

Don't worry about your girl. Kids very often do things without a reason, just for the fun of it
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You don't have to buy the whole series of Peter and Jane, just buy one book first. When the child completes one book, then buy the next book. Some kids actually only need to read the "a" series. It is also not necessary to complete the entire series. My boy read only up to book 11a. Then he went on to read other chapter books.
 
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