Reading

[MarathonMama]

My lovely DD is 3.5yo and has started to read. Only three letter words (cat, dog etc) but she's getting really good at it. Should I encourage this? Her nursery doesn't do anything (they don't even teach letters until next year) and I don't want to teach her incorrectly only to find that her school has to correct her learning. Any thoughts? Thanks!

[HSMMaCM]

It's fine to encourage her if she's interested. You can ask Pre school about their methods if you like, but your own seem to be working

[MarathonMama]

Thanks, I don't want to seem pushy, I know there's no hurry, but it seems silly not to make hay if she's interested

[StitchAteMySleep]

If she is ready and interested I would.

My 3.11 year old was the same so I have been teaching her the letter sounds and doing cvc words and reading early reader books with her.

Just make sure you teach her the phonemes correctly from the beginning to avoid confusion (for example M is mmm not muh).

I initially followed the Jolly Phonics phases. My dd1 really enjoyed the and Jolly Stories.

We did lots of rhymes and rhyming songs too to help her hear the ending sounds of words (Julia Donaldson books are great for this too).

We now read stage 1+ Songbirds books and Usbourne Very First Reading.

There is also Ruth Miskin's Read Write Inc. which is worth a look.

Whatever you do, make it fun with lots of praise and encouragement.

[Galena]

Definitely go with it. Dd was 2.8 when she started with 3 letter words, and now at 4.1 reads really well. She's now reading blue bananas and other early chapter books.

[kimmills222]

Yes, its ok to go ahead with it if she is interested and likes reading. There is nothing like you have to do what you daycare is doing or teaching. And I would say that it is a very good indication of your child's development.

[MarathonMama]

That's really helpful, thanks all. stitch I'll look at the jolly phonics stuff as I have no idea what I'm doing, I'd never heard of a phoneme or cvc word so will have a look. I'm just going to do a word or two a day, I don't want to push it and put her off.

[TheBakeryQueen]

Marathonmama, a phoneme is the proper term for letter sound. So C would be 'cuh' for example.

The jolly phonics books start with the letter sounds for S A T I P N, so once they've learnt these sounds they can read lots of words from combinations of these letters.

I bought a set of jolly phonics books for teaching the basic letter sounds (phonemes) and also the sounds they need to learn to decode more complex words.

2 letters 1 sound, is called a digraph (I think), so SH would be read as sshhh, for example, and they can then move onto words like shop etc. you teach them to segment the word into the 3 sounds 'sshh' 'o' 'puh'.

Hope this helps.

[MummytoMog]

Although you may find that your DD learns by sight rather than phonics - definitely do the phonics, as she'll need it at school, but if you find you're losing her interest, you can always just learn some fun words. My DD doesn't really get phonics yet, but enjoys learning favourite words (pink, princess, witch, butterfly and so on).