Looking for Phonics Tuition in Singapore?

Get A Qualifed Phonics Teacher 1-to-1 at your home!

We have a group of certified Phonics private tutors and preschool teachers who offer personalised tutoring services for your young child. 

Our phonics tutors use picture books, songs, games to build up your child's interest in English for primary, kindergarten preschool level; improving their oral speaking skills, memorising alphabets, recognising simple words etc. They are dedicated and focused in what they do.

How much do phonics tutors charge?
The average hourly fees for phonics tuition ranges from $20 per hour to $50 per hour, depending on the tutor's credentials, experience and the level to teach.

Top 5 ways in which a private tutor can improve your child’s Phonics.

English is one of the most difficult languages in the world, and teaching it to non-native speakers can be rather difficult, especially if the students are small children who are yet unable to grasp complicated concepts and linguistic structures.

Luckily there is an easier way of teaching your child English and that way is called Phonics.

Phonics method has become rather popular when it comes to teaching English language all over the world.

During the Phonics lesson a child learns to match sounds of spoken English with groups of letters or individual letters that exist in the English alphabet.

This method helps children decode and learn the language faster. With enough determination you could teach phonics at home, however a professional tutor may yield better results faster.

So let's have a look at exactly how they are able to do that.

1. Synthetic method.

Synthetic approach of teaching Phonics is probably the most popular one nowadays.

It begins by teaching children 40 sounds that exist in the English language (the number of the sounds is an approximation, as the actual number may differ depending on the variety of English one wishes to study).

Despite there being almost 40 sounds there are only 26 letters in the English alphabet.

Knowing how to pronounce the letters in any given word has always been one of the most difficult parts of learning English. Luckily the English language tutors have found the way to overcome this problem.

A tutor will teach your child which particular sounds (or phonemes as they are officially known) are associated with which letters or groups of letters.

For example the sound /k/ can be spelt in several different ways such as: k, ck, ch, c.

After the child has mastered single sound-to-letter associations the tutor will blend these letters together to create short, most often single syllable words.

Learners synthesise letters and sounds to form words, hence the name ‘synthetic method’.

2. Analytic phonics.

This is a popular method in some countries (for Example Scotland) for teaching reading. A tutor will give your child a set of specially selected words. Initial letters of these words correspond to the phoneme the child is supposed to learn, and it is called the onset. For example, the set of words may be dad, dog, dig.

The child is then supposed to analyse these words and identify identical phonemes.

By identifying the phoneme the child is able to see how it is connected to the letter at hand.

3. Analogy-based method.

One more method that your tutor may use is called analogy-based method.

After your tutor has made sure that your child has learnt a number of basic sounds and letters they will introduce the child to new and familiar words and the child should decode the unfamiliar words based on their previous knowledge.

For example if a child has been taught how to read the word ‘book’ and understands that ‘oo’ gives us the sound /u:/ they should be able to read the word ‘cook’ or any simple one syllable word that contains the ‘oo’ even if they have never come across those words before.

A good phonics tutor will know what types of words to mix and match in order to make the learning process efficient and engaging.

4. The importance of positive reinforcement.

Children especially at a young age have a notoriously short attention span, so knowing how to motivate them and how to make sure they don't get bored during the lesson is a trait that every good tutor has.

Tutors may use a number of positive reinforcement tools (such as rewarding them with stickers after the successful completion of the task).

Other than knowing how to utilise different teaching methods a good tutor is also aware of children's psychological condition. They know how to motivate their students to study harder.

They know when to push them to reach their goal, and when to pull back and give them some time to rest.

This is very important, because if the child is extremely bored during the lesson or if they start associating Phonics lessons with stressful environment this may have a negative effect on learning.

This type of knowledge only comes from years of experience of working with children.

5. Tutors know how to pronounce things correctly.

Then there is the issue of pronunciation. There are approximately 40 sounds in the English language and some of them are either unique to English or sound remarkably similar to each other.

So knowing how to differentiate them is no easy feat.

Pronunciation of English sounds has been a painful obstacle for all non-native learners of English for as long as the languages has existed.

If a person has initially learnt to pronounce a sound incorrectly it will be significantly harder for them to tell their brain to ‘switch’ to the correct pronunciation later on in life.

For this reason it is better if a child learns phonics from somebody who is well familiar with the intricacies of English pronunciation i.e. the professional phonics tutor.

To conclude, teaching your child English phonics is one of the most beneficial things you can do to ensure their bright future, whichever way you decide to do it.

However if you are after high quality results, delivered in relatively short period of time it is definitely recommended to entrust an experienced private phonics tutor with your child's education.

Teaching phonics is not as easy as it seems at first glance. There are many nuances that should be taken into consideration so, hiring a good private tutor is definitely a worthwhile investment
.