Mumsnet Talk

My DD1 is a lovely little girl who seems to me to be quite clever, based on what I see in playgroups and with other children of the same age. She speaks in long, complex sentences with subclauses and uses words like "unfortunately" and "similar" correctly. She is not a chatterbox, though. She doesn't do that running commentary that many 2 / 3 year olds do, though, she waits and then says what she wants, very precisely.

However, she is just ^not interested^ in the letters. At all. For months, my DH especially has been showing her letters (magnets on the fridge or foam letters in the bath or on signs or whatever) but she does not seem to recognise any. Not even the initial letter of her name.

Now, I am not worried but during a casual chat with some friends, I learnt that all their DCs can recognise letters and can pick out some of the letters of their name.

I --want to-- feel like this is fine and that she will learn her letters at school in due course. She is in nursery at the moment and they are not at all learning letters; they are doing things like learning about farm animals, where does milk come from, where does wool come from, and she loves all of that and is taking it all in.

I want to leave her be and feel like nursery surely know what she should be learning, much more so than me (no experience as a teacher or with small kids other than my own).

But I do wonder if I am (a) doing the right thing leaving her to her own devices and (b) if this is a sign that she is behind her peers. I can't imagine trying to force her to leanr her letters at this age.

Posted too soon. Sorry.
Point is, should I continue to try to get her turned on to letters or just leave it for now?

She doesn't need to learn her alphabet.
She will pick it all up v quickly when she is good and ready, and because she is not being force-fed she will enjoy it more which will set her up fo life.

Resist competitive parenting!

Definitely leave it!

She sounds lovely. She will be fine.

I wouldn't worry about it, if you taught her all the letter names her reception teacher would prob disaprove as they prefer to teach them the synthetic phonic sound for them first now (ime)

Let her watch that new alphablocks programme on cbeebies are just leave the rest

why on earth does she need the alphabet at 3 and a bit?

My DD only started pointing out letters on street signs and things just before she started at school aged nearly five. She is very bright abd way above average reading age now she is 7.
When we took her to school before she started pre-prep they actually asked parents to plaese NOT try and teach letters. If the child is interested then fair enough but apparently they get children amongst each inatke who have either been put completely off the notion of reading by angsty pushy parents, or have been taught in a different way to the way the school will teach and are confused.

Leave her be

BTW - not suggesting you are pushy

I just mean don't let yourself get drawn into worrying about a non problem but pushiness/ different abilities in children/adults around you

She is 3y, still littl more than a baby.

She should be playing with toy, learning social skills with friends her own age.

She has no need to learn her letters yet.

Ignor th competitive parenting stuff. yes, some 3y may know their letters, but the majority won't at just turned 3y. There are lots and lots that don't knwo then when they start school.

Answer to (a) yes you are and (b) no it isn't. She sounds bright and lovely.

Memorising letters is not a sign of intelligence and is only part of learning to read - some pushy parents (ie not you) forget this and drill kids to learn letters before the kids are old enough to distinguish the different sounds within a word etc. and place the letters into context. Also parents who are teaching kids letters often are mistaken in pronunciation so that their poor kids have to learn the whole thing over again once they start learning them at school - twice the workload for kids who are already being worked harder than they should IMHO.

She's only 3.2, she should have no concerns other than what flavour ice-cream she wants and whether she's a princess or a fairy today.

DS1 started school aged 5.1 not knowing any letters except the ones in his name. He learnt the mvery quickly at school. He would have had no interest at this age either.

Some children are interested and learn earlier, but most are not.

Leave her be. She is not behind her peers. She is 3!!!

Perfectly normal IMO, dd wasn't interested at all til she started preschool (age 3.4). A couple of weeks after she started I got her this after she played with it at a friend's house and she played with it non stop and learnt her letters really quickly. I don't think there is much point in trying to teach them stuff that they aren't interested in, just having the letters around like you do in the bath/on the fridge is enough.

Have to agree with others - it is amazing how quickly they learn when they are good and ready for it.

My DS2 who is just 3 loves trying to play eye-spy with his older brother who is 5, but I wouldn't expect him to recognise any written letters.

DS1 knew a few letter by the time he started school at 4.8 but very quickly 'got' them and now enjoys sounding out everything he sees.

Keep on doing it as a game, but don't worry if it doesn't click as an actual recognition.

I know, I know!
It's just that when it came up in conversation, all the other mums (all) were very, "yes, ^of course DS^ knows all the letters!" and "oh yes, my DD has known them for ages". It was mostly that which made me a bit because to be honest, I don't know what I could do to get her learning letters; we already try the fun, relaxed way, in the context of seeing her name or DD2's name written down. Very happy to wait for school to take the lead.
Phew.

Something that takes a year to learn at 3 can be done in two months at 5, anyway. What the reception teachers really want are children who can do their own shoes, and coat zips, and follow instructions. Not ones who think the letter "b" is pronounced "bee" or even "buh".

She's only 3. Take her out and teach her to recognise different trees by the shape of their leaves, and then look all when your friends' kids can't do that .

You need to take other mums with a pinch of salt.

I used to listen intently until I realised that the ones who told me their children were so well behaved were usually little nightmares challenging... the ones who said their children were polite were generally farking rude brusque.... the ones who were gifted were very often equally rude mouthy... etc etc

Mix with the mums who can joke about their children and don't need to brag.
I can't actually think of a conversation in my whole lfe where I raised the issues of my childs abilities without being prompted with two specific exceptions... explaining DS2's special needs and the day DS1 got his GCSE results .

I got that from some friends - asking me what DS could and couldn't do, telling me what their DCs could. Must admit I did play with their minds a little bit. 'Tis evil but couldn't help myself. eg
Mum in park: 'Tarquin is doing really well with his alphabet. How is [DS] doing with that?'
Bec: "Oh, you've been teaching him have you? That's brave. I've been keeping DS clear of all that just because of that research - you know, about how being taught to read too early causes [...insert whatever you like - attachment disorder, dyslexia, stuttering, racism, poor personal hygiene, tourettes...] but I probably shouldn't worry, I'm over-protective I guess. Oh didn't you read it? It was in the Guardian or something. But I'm sure Tarquin will be fine..."
Cue other mother looking terrified.
Then DS learned to read and they said 'What about the research?' and I said 'What?' and looked blank.

I know, I know, I'm going to Hell for that. But they were so gullible in their desperation to compete, I couldn't help myself.

Shes tiny still.
DS1 is 4.4yo and is in the same position as your DD. I'm not pushing it. He is far more interested in numbers and will come to letters in his own good time.

Children don't learn evenly. She sounds like she's ahead in talking ability. I wouldn't worry about her not recognising letters until she's at at school at 4.5 ish. She'll be ready when she wonders what those marks in books mean and recognises her name.

BTW
Did you know that the most common first letter a child can recognise is the M for McDonalds?

Really? Does the research show that it is from macdonalds.

mine recognised M first - first letter of her name and ( more importantly) first letter of mummy. Her first paintings were here and me and she wrote her name first and mummy second. M for mummy must be pretty common ( along with d for daddy) as a first learnt letter

and the first things she wanted to write were about her or about/to me

( and she's 7 and never been in macdonalds)

My dd is 2.8, has feck all clue what MacDonalds is apart from the word from one of her favourite songs and knew 'm' first because it's the first letter of her name and the first letter of 'mummy'.

When DD learnt her letters she would point out letters in all signs - so, yes, M for McDonalds (not sure if, at that point, she had been n on, but she new what it was, she asked, we told her), W in Waitrose, S at start of Sainsburys, etc.

She would have known m first as it is the first letter of her name plus obviously m for mummy.

My DS is around the same age (he is 3.3) and has recently started asking about learning to read and write. I give him a book and ask him to "read" it to his baby brother. Obviously he isn't reading the actual words but his take on the Owl and the Pussycat is pretty accurate!

For writing we've been doing lots of drawing with paints and pens and he pretends to write our names. Some of his symbols are getting pretty letter-like but I have to say that phonics scare me so I might have to leave that for nursery.

I've bought a couple of Jolly Phonics things in case he really wants to go for it but I haven't got my head around it yet. To be honest I think I'll probably just carry on reading to him a lot and talking to him about the stories. I am pretty lazy tbh an Jolly Phonics seem like hard work!

So no, I don't think your DD is behind her peers. I'm pretty willing to bet that the mothers who are scaring you are the same mothers who used to lie about their babies sleeping through.

Don't worry about it, and try not to get sucked into the competitive parenting - there's plenty of time for that when they start school .

If it makes you feel any better, my DD is in nursery class in school. She was 3.4y at Xmas, and in almost all the Xmas cards she received from her classmates they had written their own name! I was shocked, as DD wasn't ready for that at all! I tried to ignore it, and didn't push DD at all (not hard, as she is so stubborn, she wouldn't listen to me anyway!!!). And then in this last week she has started writing her name for me all on her own (well obviously with help from school).

If she's not interested now, then don't push it. Maybe just comment now and again if you see the letter that her name starts with. My mum reminded me the other day that a boy in my class at school could read by the time he started school (4.5yo) and it gave him no long term advantage - he didn't turn out to be some kind of Einstein, just average.

Yep, you could line up all 6yr olds and not know which one started recognising letters first. You'd probably recognise the braying parent behind them though.