Thanks for all the links!  I'm off to the library to get the book tomorrow!

Oh wow!  That's exciting!!!!!  woohoo!  She's only been at preschool for about 3-4 months and I really do love it there (and so does she!) and they do heaps of early learning stuff, BUT I'm already learning that I'm really the one responsible for ensuring my child's education.  I've been worried about if she'll be extended once she's in school, but I realise now that even if they don't, there is nothing stopping me from keeping on extending her myself at home.  We will be putting a lot of time into choosing a school for her though when the time comes!

Thank you so much Akalori. You're right, I had a look at the other kids' writing.  Apart from 2 who are a few years older, the others, when asked to write about what they have drawn are just drawing random letters that they know how to write.  I don't see how that will help develop reading skills.  I think if I were to wait until she could physically write everything I would be holding her back.

We have done lots of phonics the last week and she's made so much progress.  She loves just doing it in teh mornings in bed.  I say a 3 letters word, and she tells me what the first, middle and last letters are.  Then sometimes we do the letters on the fridge and sometimes we write it down and I write the letters she can't write.  We also have started learning to write some more letters so she improves in that area too. 

I came home from that talk with the teacher feeling like I had been "hurting" my child by teaching her wrong, but now I just think her way probably works too but I believe my way will also work, because I can SEE it working!  I'm thinking, just you wait until another 6-12 months and let's see what she can read and write!  I just hope the teacher doesn't take all the credit!   

Thanks Tanikit.  You make a good point about the tracing.   she does know how to write her name (it's only 4 letters!) but sometimes gets the s backwards.  I agree with you about the pretend writing.  In some ways I'm "proud" that she doesn't want to do pretend writing, that she wants to do it properly.  So I'm going to focus on teaching her to write letters, but not push her, only when she's ready, along with the phonics work and then I think as that all comes together she will really fly 

Thanks mandabplus3!  I'll get her some tracing books / worksheets to get started on.  We had a lovely phonics session today with the fridge magnets - already showing improvements with the sounding out after only 2 days!  I think we're on the right track!

One more question - she's left-handed - do lefthanders find it harder to learn to write?

Thank you for all the replies.

The more I think about it, the more it all sounds a bit odd!  The other children are not being shown words at all just letters and how to sound them out. Then they are supposed to try and write words down how they sound, without ever having seen the words written down before.  I understand the reasoning, but seems like making things harder for me.  The teacher says if they've seen the words written before, they will be worried they are not spelling them right.  Actually, I must point out, she told me if my daughter was doing ok with her writing and not worried about making mistakes, then she wouldn't have said anything about me teaching her sight words.  I personally think the 2 issues are that a) she needs to learn it's ok to make a mistake, and b) she needs to start learning to blend sounds.  But I'm still going to do that by using letters on the fridge and by me writing them, while at other times doing activities to help her draw the letters.  Then when she can actually draw some letters I'll get her to try writing the words - I liked the idea someone had of us taking it in turns to sound out the words and write them down.

But until she can write letters, I see it as quite pointless to say to her "write this word" - of course she will say "I can't".  The teacher doesn't ask her to write particular words, but to write down a story to go with the picture she has drawn.  Maybe she's just not good with the whole imaginative thing.  The other kids seem happy to just do their dawdles "pretend writing" - but my daughter wants to do real writing if she's supposed to be writing.  I can understand that.  I don't think her writing will improve by me saying "go write a story".

I'm also giving her lots of fine motor activities.  The teacher said threading and sewing activities are great so we got some of those sewing boards.

I don't know how the other kids her age are doing.  I'll have to ask next time I go, or actually I might just have a look at their work on the wall first.  I know how old some of the kids are so that will give me an idea.

Another question - do you think it's good to have her tracing letters, or to do it on blank paper / blackboard?

Hi.  M daughter is 3.5 years old.  I started her on the doman method with sight words from about 20 months, on and off.  She is now reading easy readers and recognises lots of small words outside of context of a book, like my, and, the, said, dad, live, etc.

I was really pleased with how she is going until her kindy teacher spoke with me the other day.  She said she is behind in her writing and believes it is because she has been taught to memorise words rather than work them out phonetically.  She does know the sounds of the letters, but I know we need to do more work on that and practice building words now like sat, cat, bat, etc.

I'm interested in opinions on the way they teach literacy.  She says they DON'T teach reading.  Instead they teach phonics, and they focuses on getting the kids to write.  They will draw a picture and say "ok, now write about what you have drawn."  My daughter will say "I dont' know how" because of course she doesn't know how! (she can write a few letters), whereas the other kids just either do scribbles or write whatever letters they know.  The teacher reckons in time as they get good at their phonics, they will just naturally start to from real words (not with correct spelling) and then once they get to a certain point with their reading, they give them a book and the child will be able to read it without having been taught how to read.

I saw examples of the other childrens' work so I believe it works, however I don't want to give up on the progress we have made so far with her reading.  I also don't want her to have problems at school/kindy because of how I'm teaching her at home.

I guess this boils down to the phonics/whole word debate, but with the writing aspect brought into it.  Just after anyone's ideas - if your child has learnt to read and write this way. Or if your child had trouble learning to write after being taught whole words first.  The teacher is concerned she won't try to write a word if she doesn't already know how to spell it but I can understand my daughter saying she doesn't know how to if she doesn't even know how to write the letters first.

Any input would be most appreciated!

.

as long as we're not teaching them the wrong stuff

If you're going to sing in "re major", you can't call the 3rd of the scale "fa" - that would be a minor 3rd from the tonic re.  You would sing "fi" which is a semitone higher.

Oh and modes are not diatonic scales.  ONly major and minor scales are diatonic.  Modes are an additional 6 scales to the 24 ones you are talking about. And then there;s the pentatonic scale, the blues scale.......

You seem only half educated in these matters - a little knowledge is a dangerous thing!

My point is the actually sounds you are singing in the video when you sing re mi fa so la ti do re are WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Doesn't matter what system of solfa you want to use.  When you start on re and sing only the 7 basic solfege words, you SHOULD be singing the Dorian scale ie, the same intervals as if you played the white notes from D - D on the piano.  In fixed do, you WOULD  be starting on the D and playing the 7 white notes.  But you sang starting at the do sound.

I agree, kids don't have to know the words Dorian and all that.  But you need to sing them the right sounds or else it's pointless, confusing and just plain wrong.

I agree Chris in having tolerance to different approaches but Hellene is just plain wrong here in her video.

I have a music degree and am a teacher of advanced music theory and aural training.

OH and there aren't really 24 "tonalities".  There are 12 major keys and 12 minor keys - that's only 2 different tonalities, or to use a different word, 2 different scales, starting on each of the 12 different notes.  And all these can be sung using both fixed and movable do, but much easier singing movable do - you just start on do for major, and la for minor and then off you go.  With fixed do, if you want to sing in C# major, you'll be singing the seven sharps like fi instead of fa, si instead of so.

The other tonalities are the other 6 modes:  dorian, phrygian, lydian, mixolydian, aeloian, locrian and of course ionian which is just the major scale again. Dorian is starting on re, phrygian on mi, and so on. But you MUST sing the same intervals between the solfege notes and you will get a different scale starting on each note.

In the moveable do system, do is only the tonic if the song is in a MAJOR KEY!  If it's a minor key, la becomes the tonic.  If it's in the Dorian mode, re becomes the tonic.  In this video, you said the solfege as if you were singing the dorian mode (re, mi, fa etc) but the pitches you sang were just the MAJOR SCALE AGAIN!!!!!  (which by the way means you MOVED re!)

It sounds like you have a fundamental misunderstanding of pitch training.  As I said, whichever system you use, fixed do or moveable do, the intervals between each pair of notes must always be the same.  do - re is always a tone, re - mi is always a tone, mi - fa is always a semitone, fa-so is always a tone, so - la is always a tone, la-ti is always a tone, and ti-do is always a semitone. 

Hmm.....it appears this video was posted by Hellene on Youtube just 4 hours ago.....I think we all know who "radiocat" is.....