LET'S LEARN ENGLISH TOGETHER!

Mew will continue her French education for at least 4 more years. While her French will undoubtedly improve, we are afraid that her English may be negatively affected due to the lack of interactive environment. We want that she can not only speak fluently English but also read smoothly. It is important that she can learn how to read English methodologically with a private tutor or an ESL teacher. We are thus trying to find one at affordable rate. In the meantime, we decided to teach her by ourselves. 

After reviewing a number of phonetics materials for kids, I opted for DOLCH SIGHT WORDS as the first step in teaching Mew to read English. (In his 1948 book, "Problems in Reading", Edward William Dolch published a list of 220 frequently used 'service words' and a separate list of 95 common nouns. These lists are estimated to contain 50-75% of the words in children's books. Dolch words, or sight words, provide an excellent base for reading at an early age. They are often called sight words because some of them can't be sounded out, and need to be learned by sight)

I use Dolch sight vocabulary words compiled and designed by Mrs. Jill Perkins to learn with Mew. Her website provides word lists, phrases, worksheets and activities with downloadable Word and PDF files. It is a good idea to have a master printout of the word lists and flashcards for further practice.

If every 3 days Mew learns a column of words (about 10-15 words) and memorizes them by heart and we repeat checking her on those words for 3 subsequent days, her percentage of retaining the words reaches 90-95%. So far, Mew has finished Dolsch Pre-Primer sight word list and she has been able to master about 40 words. Some words she still has difficulty in recognizing and remembering, but it surely takes time to strengthen a kid's memory. Once she has broadened her vocabulary to certain extent, I write down various short and long sentences using all the words that she has learnt so far to test her. For example:
- I go up and I run down to find you.
- I cannot find it where it is. Help me!
- It is big, blue and looks funny.
- I said one, two and three and we can run away (not quite correct grammatically)

And she can read them all!

During the storytime before bed every night with her Daddy, Mew can also recognize a lot of words in the book - that's another positive sign for our joint effort!

We are now working on the Dolch Primer Sight word list and have already finished about 36/52 words. I hope that Mew will be able to complete this list by the end of this month. My homework is then to create new long sentences to test her newly acquired vocabulary. I plan that after mastering (in fact, memorizing) all Dolch sigh words, Mew can read some simple stories. At that stage, we will embark on learning English formally with phonics and grammar. It is a long way ahead, however!

Here are some useful resources for Dolch sigh word learning:
http://www.theschoolbell.com/Links/Dolch/basic_lists/List1.html
http://www.zianet.com/hrmp/sightwrd.htm
http://www.fishforwords.com/sight-word-lists.php
http://www.mrsperkins.com/
http://www.abcteach.com/directory/basics/abc_activities/dolch_word_cards/