To add to the stress of juggling kids and chores and food and everything else, I now have another stress of teaching Vic to read.
It wasn't just so sudden. She was read to by her Popo when she was a baby and when she moved back with us, I read to her almost every night with her seated beside me. I would point to the words and read and she will initially look at the words, then the pictures, and then the pictures and finally the pictures.
Well, the habit kinda died when William came along and I had to nurse him at night, put him to sleep, and then off and on we still read a book at night. Then when we changed her to her new (current) school that starts at 8am and is pretty strict on children arriving on time, many night activities have been cancelled including this.
I didn't think much of this until lately. All these while I thought her school teachers will be able to pick up from where I left off.
Oh, how wrong was I!! A few days ago, her Mandarin tutor commented to me that Vic may not be having a good focus and attention span because she cannot read. She suggested that we start her on very basic books, and not the story books that we have because Vic may not be reading because of frustration when she sees difficult words. So her Mandarin tutor has offered to bring in some Q-Dees english story books to guide Vic. Wow, that's nice! So I naturally agreed (but I hope no extra charges).
The past few afternoons, I picked up where I left off a year ago. To teach her to read. I don't know if there's any impact on her, if she's even grasped pronounciation, or how a collection of phonic sounds from alphabets joined together will create a word. Look, I'm not a teacher, never was and I think I make a lousy one even if I was. I have no patience, I have no creativity (that's why I did accountancy, haha) and time is really not on my side.
Reading should be a joy. Reading should be done when one is relaxed, and a child should not be stressed or pressured to read when not ready. But when is ready ready? She is 5yo and I'm told kids her age can at least read some words. Yea, she can read simple common, short words.
Vic can go into her freeze mode when she reads. That frustrates you. She can even say words that sound totally out of line from the word she is reading, eg the word "said", she simply tembak "go". Haiyoo, I tell her, at least look at the alphabets and guess the sound of the word. And what Vic does is to memorise the stories so you actually think she can read the whole page.
On another note, a couple of months back when Vic came home one day with her Chinese homework, and neither hubby nor I could guide her on it because we are total "bananas" (cannot read chinese), we became frantic. So the decision to get external help was made. I researched chinese enrichment centres like Bao Bei and Skylace, and also called a couple of private tutors. Then we were introduced to a chinese teacher in her school who teaches the 6yo class, and who could come to our house to guide Vic on Mandarin.
These days, Vic looks forward to her Mandarin classes, and is doing well in this subject. Her other strong subject is Numbers. She reminisce doing Arts & Craft in school though, and she tells me that her class is very naughty and that's why they are not allowed to do any A&C. Hhmm...
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