After a long hiatus, I am finally back to writing. Been just too busy and this is mainly due to the little one. This has been because missus and I have lately become more preoccupied with trying to raise our daughter’s literacy. She will be going into elementary school next year and we’ve been fretting over her lack of sight word recognition.
We sometimes wonder why we’re so stressed over this. Thinking back to the time when we entered the first year of elementary school, we never had to be able to recognise words or read. I recalled that all we probably knew were the letters of the alphabet.
Now children in Singapore in pre-school have to learn phonics. We tried to help her by enrolling her in after school enrichment classes. We also had started to use the evenings after school and work to practice with her.
I have one major gripe with phonics and it is that English is too syncretic in its origins and has too many exceptions for phonics to work. A simple word like “my” for instance. M is mer and y is yee so how did it end up being pronounced as mai and not mee as is the case in the word astronomy?
Another source of frustration. I realised that I can’t pronounce the word “author” without making it sound like “otter” — something which the missus had mercilessly teased me for. How we discovered this was that our daughter’s class was supposed to be visited by a children’s book author. But when I told my wife, she thought that some zookeeper was bringing a wild animal into class…😑
Slowly but steadily, despite the challenges (the little one’s and us as tired out parents), the lil one had been improving. Something we can count our blessings for and to remember that each child develops at his/her own pace and that we should be patient so as not to dampen their enthusiasm and curiosity to learn. Something I must try hard to live by.
Ask the Clueless Middle Age Dad 