Me, too. I kinda enjoyed being unpopular. Now I feel like my posts are on the equal ground with other star members'. :lol:

No one said anything against teaching phonics. Ellie argued there's no need to teach memorizing words by sight at all so we were talking about whether a 100% "pure" phonics method is possible. My son and I went through a full phonics program with sight word flash cards, and it worked beautifully without causing confusion with multiple sound rules that don't apply regularly. ETA: I mean, to know which sound to choose when requires memorization, too. Memorizing "irregular" words by sight also requires knowing basic letter sounds. So I don't really see a point of arguing using one method exclusively is better for such a "highly non-phonemic" language, or there's even a significant difference between methods. A "true" phonics method can only work for "purely" phonetic languages like Korean, and English is not one of them.

If English is to be phonetic ideally or at such a high rate, there should be a complete one-on-one correspondence between each letter (grapheme) and its sound (phoneme), but as you pointed out, it is far from the case. So no "pure" phonics program exists. In linguistics, English is in the category of "highly non-phonemic" languages.

So how do you phonetically teach "the, give, put, great, who, was, into" and so on? I'm really curious. ETA: Oops you explained. Yea, how do you teach which sound to choose, for "give" and "hive"? Think that's just another way of teaching exceptions by introducing more rules to the same phonogram.

They can't be because English is not a phonetic language. ETA; In Korean, a phonetic language, each letter always has the same sound (including the vowels) and once you know to put them together to form words, you can basically sound out every single word you see. No exception to the rules. No "easy readers" needed. Just a comprehension level matters for children books.

Just curious. How would you explain a child why "give" doesn't follow the silent e rule like "five" does with the "true" phonics method? Why does "put" sound differently from "cut"? And "great" and "meat"? Simply too many rules get broken so I'm curious how you deal with those irregular words when teaching. OPGTR also tells to memorize those.

:iagree: It'd definitely discourage people to send "invisible" likes because what can't be seen matters less in the public forum.

Oh, I just realized it. What's behind the change?

So, if the kid is too young to understand the meaning, is it ok to watch an erotic or violent adult movie in front of the kid? It's not a big deal to listen to the gansta rap songs with her as long as she doesn't understand them? It's ok to dress a 8yo like a slut or a Playboy model because it's not "sex"? How could it possibly be "a lot more extreme" than that? It's not serious because there's no nudity or sex involved? Com'on! ETA: It may not look sexual to you, I bet it does to many pedophiles out there and such provocative image wouldn't do any favor for Asia herself. As parents, that's why we feel against her parents' decision to promote it.

I know such pushy parents exist. It's probably worse in my home country. I don't understand such obsession nor do I want to. Among homeschooling parents, however, I think that's a pretty extreme story. I don't believe there are many homeschooling parents who push their kids to read early before they are ready or against their wish. For what? Homeschooling is to meet individual needs for each child, right? But still, so many people seem to quickly call anybody doing it hothousing even in the homeschooling communities. You ask suggestions on educational apps or tv programs for 2yo, you get countless enthusiastic replies. You ask where to start to teach reading to 2yo, you get reproaches. (Not that I want to do it to my younger one. She won't be ready at least for another few years. And I didn't start teaching my son until he was showing signs at 3.5yo.)

I have an early reader and a non-verbal toddler. Honestly, I can't even imagine that anybody can possibly "force" her child to read or learn anything early before they are developmentally ready to do so without causing trauma or tears. It'd be too exhausting for both sides! To me, keeping my kids happy and healthy all the time is far more important than teaching anything to them. In most states, your children don't even take a national standardized test in early grades, so what's the comparison for? How do you assume what others are doing with their kids is a "fad" or "push" for forcing reading? How would you know if it's not driven by their kids? What kind of parent would ever have her kids suffer or feel miserable for the sake of early reading? There may be a few like that, but I think it'd be realistically much easier to find parents who don't hesitate to hand over an iPad to a 2yo or spend hours on iphone while putting their kids in front of TV. And being a natural early reader does not mean the kid will always enjoy reading or have no issues later, either. Every child is so different that some teach themselves, some others love to do seat work at an early age and others don't want to have anything to do with learning until much later, so why so many people freaking out when someone's asking advice for teaching reading to her precocious 2yo? It seems too easy to judge others for hothousing or pushing only with what you see from the outside, and that's the fad I see more often here or in other groups. Just my thought.

Hooked On Phonics introduces some of the sight words ("helper words") as the lessons go. I also used sight word flash cards separately.

Why buy the pre-printed curriculum then? ;) I got the pre-printed lapbook kits from HOAC because it saves time for me to gather all information on each topic and I'm not crafty at all. But it doesn't mean you should strictly follow what it tells you to do or limit your lapbook to what it offers. The kits tend to have a lot more pages than we can do so we just choose what we want. And we still draw and creat our own things with other resources. I don't think it's a disservice to use those pre-printed materials. Depends how you use it.

It is not strange or uncommon but it is very sad because it is too obvious that Asia's parents seem to care more about money and fame than what's best for the little girl. We've seen so many cases like that... Look how Lindsay Lohan and Macaulay Culkin turned out. Asia seems to be a talented dancer but there are so many out there, so this whole sexualization was probably her parents' idea to get attention and it's going to be a disservice to her future. I'd never want my daughter to be looked at this way by the public, ever, even if she's an adult.

Now a TV drama but, try the movie "New World" on Netflix. :) ETA: TEN 2 and Sign are crime dramas and available on Hulu but I'm not sure if they're even comparable to the CSI series. I enjoyed both.

I'm sorry for posting too many... this is my last one tonight. :) Here are my K-movie recommendations. I just looked through the whole lists: <Hulu> SpellBound (warning: ghosts), Sunny (80s comedy), Helpless (mystery, based on a Japanese novel), Secret (mystery), My Scary Girl (romantic comedy) <Netflix> Oldboy, The Man from Nowhere (warning: cruelty), 200 Pounds Beauty (romantic comedy), A Werewolf Boy (a must-see!! warning: very sad), War of the Arrows (historical movie), New World (warning: gangs), My Girlfriend is an Agent (romantic comedy), Tidal Wave (Tsunami), Masquerade (a must-see historical), The Thieves (good but a rip-off of Ocean's Eleven, IMO), The Berlin File (political action), The Host (good monster movie), The Good The Bad The Weird (a must-see action), Welcome to Dongmakgol (historical human drama), Running Turtle (not bad, cop and criminal) The rest movies on Hulu and Netflix are either not my taste or not worth watching. Snowpiercer(2013) is another good recent movie but you need to rent it either on Amazon or iTunes. A bit philosophical. HTH :)

I can't believe you mentioned White Christmas!!! This is one of the best Kdrama series I've seen, but couldn't find it on Hulu nor Netflix. Most actors and the actress are former models and this was their first drama. Many of them are all successful in acting now. Think you know about the recent shows more than I do. :)

They have no relation since Hyuk is not the last name. Korean full names start with the family name, so Jang and Choi are their last names in this case. But like PP said, both are their stage names. Jang Hyuk(from Busan)'s real name is Jung Yong Jun and Choi Jin Hyuk(from Mokpo)'s real name is Kim Tae Ho. :)

I agree Queen Seonduk was epic. That was my DH's first love for Kdrama. We recently watched Empress Ki but it was not as good as Queen Seonduk. If you like a historical show, you might like . It's the biggest movie in Korea now and the main actor is the guy from the movie Old Boy. Think it's coming to the U.S. next month. I hated Bad Guy, too. What a depressing story and weird ending.

You picked the wrong one! Just drop it and try something else we've recommended. :) Kim Tae Hee might be one of the prettiest faces in Korea but she's not a good actress. Most of her shows didn't do well.

LOL. I like that song, too. :) I wonder what you thought about Psy's Hangover ft. Snoop Dog?

I know. It's always all about love!! I'm a Korean but I can't even stand it when they make it too melodramatic or mournful.

I'm in the same boat and using the teacher's manual only. So far it's worked well for us, but I know that feeling... I supplement AAS with Evan-Moore's spelling workbook.

You can buy either WWE Workbook or Textbook but you don't need both. I got the workbook because I liked it all laid out for me. I usually order Peace Hill Press books from Amazon with Prime. The prices might be a little higher at Amazon (21 cents difference for WWE1 workbook) but Rainbow Resource Center often puts your order on backorder without a pre-notice and the delivery takes longer so I don't order from RR unless I have to.

That's why I didn't send my DS to the Montessori in my area. I did a multiple tours and chose a more free play-based almost-non-academic private preschool. Whatever the school was going to teach him, I wanted it to be the least amount of time spent (His pre-K class is still working on letter recognition and counting numbers in a very light way.) because it was not possibly even close to the level I was teaching him at home anyway. My DS is a social butterfly and needs this social time. I wanted him to have fun in a group setting so I carefully chose the school with friendly teachers and lots of hands-on activities. He has been learning a lot more than academics at school such as manners, group rules and life skills. He paints, plays games and runs in the sprinkler. He even loves having lunch with friends. So, I'd like to suggest you give it a try. She may end up having a lot of fun there. Three mornings a week are not a long time (Mine spends two mornings.), and you will still have a plenty of time to give her an individual attention on academics at her level. With that said, however, don't get your hopes up too much on the quality of education/child care even if it's the most expensive school in the town. We're also locked up in a year contract and so far it's been a very expensive investment for what we got. What preschools do here is basically babysitting IMO. If my DS was any less social or did I not have a terrible-two at home, I'd probably have saved that money and taken him out to various places or activities myself.