Readers Mania "Aa"

In December last year, I managed to get Auntie Cherish (in US) to buy a box set of Alphatales by Scholastics from Amazon and bring it over to Singapore for us. Lately, I saw loose copies at Popular at $4.50 each so if you are interested, you can buy from there. However, they do not include the teachers' guide (not really useful). Anyway, it consists of 26 short stories, one for each letter of the alphabet; also a little chant on the last page. I have read Sophie all the 26 books but we are reading them again. This time, we will spend more time on each book.

Around the same time last year, I also bought Now I'm Reading : All about the ABCs which comprises 26 little readers on the Alphabet as well. These are much simpler because they introduce independent words which can be joined with connectors to form a sentence at the end of the book. My feelings are quite neutral towards these readers, but Sophie loves them especially the stickers that come with them.

Lately, I went to Edventure and bought another set of readers - Sunshine Phonics. It consists of an Alphabet Pack, a Word Family Pack and a Letter Blend Pack (the others are freebies aka loose copies of whatever they have left in their warehouse). I asked the salesperson if I have money for only ONE set of readers, what should I get? And this is it! They are not real stories, illustrations are simple yet functional, and they are meant to teach reading through repetition and rhymes. I am using only the Alphabet Pack for now... When asked, the salesperson told me that the readers do not introduce capital letter because they are not as commonly used as the small letters. And each book doubles up as a flash card as well.

Am I done yet? Nope. Before Sophie was even born, I bought Read With Phonics - Songs & Rhymes that comes with a CD. It consists of 26 songs (same tune), one for each letter of the Alphabet (consonants and vowels)... very catchy. I have not exhausted my list of resources but honestly, some are not as effective as they claim to be. Besides, I cannot really recall them all.

Even with all these, it is still challenging to get Sophie to learn the Alphabet etc. It really depends on her how much she can absorb (if she wants to learn at all). I like to quote salespersons at times as such because they can so convicted in their products sometimes...

"... even if they look away or even walk away when you are reading to them, you must continue doing it everyday... they will somehow learn... then one day if you don't read to them, they will come and ask you why... aaahhh... that's when you see results!"