Which good English Phonics Book&CD your kids use?

I wonder that which good English Phonics Book&CD your kids use?
My kid is very young English beginning learnner and I need a good English Phonics Book&CD for my kid (three years old) . Do any parents can introduce me any good good English Phonics Book&CD to me. Thank you very much.

Virginia
warpwoof@gmail.com

Dr Suess worked fine for us. :slight_smile:

I agree- reading (age appropriate) books together and doing other fun activities that use and explore language are what I would consider enough for a three year old. Your child will probably fare better with language learning if he’s had lots of positive experiences with the language. If your child shows a strong interest in knowing what the letters and letter sounds are, you can follow his lead and support him, but pushing can lead to him getting turned off to learning in the future. Even if you know other three-year olds who can already read in two languages (which may possibly be the case here in Taiwan), don’t worry- many studies have proven that kids who learn later on (when they are more developmentally ready to do so) eventually catch up to their peers and show no disadvantage in the long run. Actually they are at an ADVANTAGE, since they know how to read well, AND they’ve had a childhood that allowed them to explore and play. Good luck!

Virginia,

I can understand your desire to help your child to learn English and to develop good phonics skills. As nyteacher says, the beginning experiences of language learning are so important. Rather than just focusing on the phonics skills, there is much more benefit for your child if you provide lots of different opportunities to have fun with English, to develop a large vocabulary, and to generally think English is something useful and interesting in his three-year-old life. Reading to your child has so many benefits. I read English-language books to my son everyday, and sing lots of English songs and rhymes, and even though we live in a Chinese-speaking home (with grandparents, cousins and father here all speaking Chinese), his English language skills and his motivation to learn English are much better developed than his Chinese.

That said, if you really want to introduce phonemic awareness and phonics to your child, I would recommend you develop a library of different materials, not just use one textbook and CD. My son is almost two and he really enjoys the following materials. (I didn’t buy them specifically for him, it is a collection I have from my teaching years)

From Scholastic
My first phonics readers - 12 little books and 2 cassettes.
Alphatales - 26 books, each one focussing on a letter. Comes with CD recording of stories
The Reading Line/Reading Train series of phonics books for preschool and kindergarten

From Harcourt
Steck Vaughn Phonics Readers Plus alphabet set
Steck Vaughn Pair It books

I also recommend going to the Scholastic website and reading their information about teaching literacy and language, they have lots of information for parents there. And my two alltime favorite parent/teacher resource books:
Starting Out Right - A Guide to Promoting Children’s Reading Success by the National Research Council (Chinese translation is also available in bookstores like the Hsin-Yi foundation or ESLITE)
Phonics from A to Z by Wiley Blevins (Scholastic)

Both of these books give lots and lots of easy and fun activities for parents and teachers to do with their children, to develop literacy skills and to make it all an enjoyable experience.

Hmm, the phonics program I use with my own kid? Not the phonics I used to teach to other kids? :smiley:

I opted for a full-fledged intro-to-reading system instead of a book and CD, namely Frontline Phonics.

IMHO, it’s the hands-down single best phonics program out there for young children. It doesn’t come cheap (US$300 new - I found a used set for far less), but it’s outstanding and ideal for young learners.

There are two levels. The first comes with alphabet cards, picture flash cards, punch-out alphabet characters, a music CD, a how-to video, a lesson manual, three “pre books,” and two sets of ten books (blue and red). The second has blending cards and two more sets of ten books (green and yellow). The first letters taught are MAPST - that means that after teaching five letters, you can dig right into the books – once one is mastered, then you move on to the next one, and so on. There’s also a bonus material booklet with suggested additional activities for each letter. There’s a review lesson every five letters, and once you finish all the letters, there’s a vowel song and long vowel lessons.

The system recommends three lessons a week and daily practice. Here’s how a typical lesson works. Every lesson begins by listening to the CD alphabet song as you rifle through the picture flashcards (cute characters), then a quick review of the last few letters and sounds. Then you introduce the new letter by showing the letter card and saying its sound, then play the letter song as you point to the vocabulary words and pictures in the lesson manual. Next, you tell the story about the flash card character. Wrap up by doing the worksheet (child points to the picture that begins with the new letter) then give the child the punch-out letter character to keep at the end (major motivator for the little ones). Whole thing takes about fifteen minutes, and that’s for a new lesson - on off days you just spend 5-10 minutes a day reading together.

I have some quibbles with Frontline. Although the new lesson plans are great and easy to follow, there isn’t bonus material for every letter, and some of the activities are pretty lame. But if you have a little experience, you can think your way around these. Besides, the music and cuteness aspects more than make up for any deficiencies.

My daughter started on Frontline Phonics when she was 3. It was slow going in the beginning, especially when it came to blending, but I kept at it anyway. Sometimes I only did two new lessons per week, but we never missed a day of practice (it’s a Suzuki thing). Now she’s 4 and we’re just about finished with the first level. She can read the first twenty books on her own, and has taken to sounding out words she sees elsewhere (and suddenly shouting with glee when she sees a word she recognizes on a street sign). The whole experience has been fun and motivational, and she even knows most of the songs on the CD by heart. In fact, I even worked phonics into her bedtime routine. Since we’re done with all the lessons, we blend and sound out a few words together, she reads one of the phonics book to me, then I read a story to her.

BTW, there are parents who sing the praises of Hooked on Phonics, one version of which (tapes instead of CDs) is available here at Costco. Yuck. Just not appropriate for the little guys, especially with all the lists of words, teaching the whole alphabet before reading, etc. Maybe once the child already has a foundation, but certainly not as the foundation. Actually, that seems to be the general consensus. See here and here.