Which method?

This question has been on my mind for quite some time now. Which method to use to teach Nigel to read? Phonics or the whole word method or a combination of both methods. I had taught Sarah to read using the phonics method, and it was a breeze for her. As for Nigel, I have taught him all the letter sounds, and has been using somewhat the whole word method to teach him to read and it was quite successful in that he is receptive and is able to recognise and remember the words. But because I am familiar with the phonics approach, I thought I should give it a try. Well, I would say it wasn't as easy as using the whole word method, with him having difficulty in blending, but to be fair, we have only done this for 2 days.

Right now, I am more inclined towards the whole word method, but I need to research more on it as I have yet to find a structured approach which will eventually teach the child to read all words. Unfortunately, most of what I have read so far tends to favor the phonics method, and almost all parents I know used the phonics method. Hopefully I will be able to find some answers soon.

Thursday's Things, Friday's Fillings

These 2 days have been easy for us. I have not been feeling well for the past week, been feeling giddy and tired. So, homeschool for these 2 days is light, mainly going through the sound of the week and lots of coloring for the little girl.

I noticed Sarah's coloring skills have improved greatly in these 2 weeks. She used to hate coloring and will refuse to do any coloring where the lesson calls for. I did not force her then as I thought it was partly due to her weak pencil grip. Although her grip is correct, I find that her hold is not strong enough. So I laid off coloring for a while. On Thursday, as part of our lesson on the sound of the week, she had to color a picture of a goldfish. I had wanted to skip that as I doubted she would want to color, but surprisingly, she said she wanted to color. And color she did, choosing lots of different colors for her fish. Her improvement came along at a time when I discovered her pencil grip is better and stronger now, perhaps that's why she don't find coloring that much of a strain on her fingers.

Here's the picture of the fish she colored. Though not a masterpiece, I am very happy with it, cos through the process, she had shown patience and most importantly, she loves doing it.

Seeing her interest is there, I continued with an aquarium craft. Here's her hard at work and the final product.




Today, she had fun time painting with her Grandma.

Outlining the snake and whale painted earlier