Worried knowing her ABCs will ruin Phonics?

[Bells3032]

Probably dumb and may end up being called a troll or stealth bosting etc but ehh who cares.

My daughter is just turned 2 and loves her ABCS, she can do the alphabet in order missing maybe one or two and can recognise about half the letters out of order. I'm not saying she's a genius or anything, she's just obsessed with those youtube simplesong videos where they do the alphabet and has learnt from there (although it annoys me she says zeeee instead of zed).

I really want to encourage her as she loves to be read to and pretends to read herself too but worried in teaching her this way I am going to really confuse her when she learns phonics in school. I don't really know or understand phonics?

If i am going to encourage her letters should i be using phonics rather than letters? are there any good resources for me to learn the letters that way myself?

Thanks

Please don't teach phonics unless you're absolutely confident you're getting it right.

It's so difficult to try to teach little Maya that her name starts with an mmm sound when she says "Mummy says my name starts with "muh"".

Oh also an.activity.a.day on instagram has a whole highlight reel on phonics and how to teach and introduce sounds. She’s an early years teacher and v helpful.

My DS was very keen on letters when he was little and knew his alphabet before he was two. We encouraged it by labelling things all over the house - like doors, fridge etc - and he was reading at 3. He didn't learn phonics at school because he could read by then. It's definitely worth encouraging as some kids just love it. I wasn't pushing him to read - just encouraging something he loved doing. I got the labels idea from a friend and he loved taking them down and then figuring out the right places for them to go back up.

Our DC was reading before school. It didn’t stop him enjoying phonics both at nursery before school and at school. At nursery they taught phonics but also had all the letters of the alphabet on the wall and sang the abc song. This didn’t hold anyone up or confuse them as far as i know.

No it won't! DD knew her ABCs by age 2. She's now 5 and has the reading age of a 7 year old! She picked up phonics really quickly. DD2 (just turned 3) also knew her ABCs at 2!

This ! of course learning the alphabet is absolutely fine, a lot of fun and nothing to worry about

I should add that we had several abc and phonics games/teaching aids at home. There was an abc thing that attached to the fridge and recited the alphabet in an American accent - not my choice, but a present he loved. The phonics cards - he’d spread them out and teach me the sounds 😂

You need to learn the alphabet

How to spell

How to pronounce words

Phonics is just the latest fad way to teach reading. Look and say is a tried and tested method.

Explain it to her this way. Animals have names, and they also make a sound. Get her to look at pictures of dogs, cats and cows or whatever, say the name of the animal and then the sound it makes.

Letters are just like that, they have names (the alphabet) but they also have sounds (phonics). So she can learn the names of the letters AND the sounds they make.

We had this in our family - over half a century ago! We moved around a bit which probably made it more complicated, oldest sibling learnt the alphabet, next sibling down learnt by phonics, (and the alphabet at home) third sibling, parents refrained from letting him learn the alphabet and stuck to phonics, but education had switched again, and he learnt the alphabet at school. Next sibling it had switched again, and parents had given up totally, and they learnt phonics at school, but already knew the alphabet at home.

Honestly, whether education is going through a phonics phase or an ABC phase, all children learn both in the end, and the struggling to enforce one over the other is a major and unnecessary stress.

Honestly you're over thinking this massively.
Kid's brains are sponges let her crack on with what she enjoys.

My kids learnt their abcs at 2 and phonics at 3. Just don't sweat it. Some kids love words from an early age, some take their time, some never really enjoy it. No need to worry.

Na, it says buzz. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

OP - I doubt knowing letter names will be a problem but as others have said sounds will be more helpful for reading.

Just relax and stop over thinking

And let her watch alpha blocks

It's an interesting debate. Look and Say seems, from what I've seen, to work quicker for those children for whom it works. Phonics works slower, but it works for pretty much everyone in the end. It does therefore make sense for schools to use phonics.

I'm not sure I'd teach a child who's heading for school by Look and Say. I'd be concerned about it causing issues later as schools are all very much into phonics at the moment.

On the other hand, my three year old isn't heading for school, and I am doing Look and Say with her (though with some phonics on the side, so to speak), and the speed with which she's picking it up is phenomenal. But I have the option of going to phonics at any point if I feel Look and Say doesn't suit her. Teachers can't work like that.

Your child is just parroting what she has seen on YouTube. TV is no way to teach children I'm afraid

Hilarious. Surely this is one of the least problems in a classroom these days!

Ultimately children have to know phonics to be able to decode words they haven't seen before.

Using 'look and say' is maybe fine to get many children reading initially, but if you don't then teach phonics they either have to work the code out for themselves, or they won't be able to read words they haven't seen written down before.

Im dyslexic and still cant use phonics, but can read and write perfectly adequately. The trouble with phonics is that it is completely impossible for some children, and they will never learn to read through that.

Alphablocks is great for showing how letters/ sounds build up words.

I picked up how to read at a very young age by watching Seasame Street.

Absolutely agree with this, really don't overstress. My eldest learnt using look and say. She constantly asked what words said and then memorised how they looked. My youngest, who went to a different infant school, learnt with phonics. Eldest was very quick to read, though couldn't grasp phonics at all when young. Youngest was slower to read but could work out unfamiliar words before the eldest could.

None of it made any difference in the end. They're both adults now, both have done fine. I don't know why I ever stressed!

Phonics isn't really a fad, as it's been around for a long time and well supported by evidence.

But Look and Say also worked for the majority of children, which is why it was used for so long too.

In general, most children will learn to read regardless of the method used to teach them. Phonics is better than Look and Say when you look across a whole population cohort, and has various advantages such as helping children understand the rules behind certain spellings. Some children will struggle regardless of the method. Some children will struggle with one method and succeed with another.

While it is probably not best phonics practice to teach alphabet names, it really doesn't matter that much and is unlikely to cause a problem in the vast majority of cases. The important thing is to engage with your child and have fun, and the message will also vary depending on where you are e.g.

Parent stressing that they can't/haven't/don't know how to teach child alphabet
> Tell them not to worry, alphabet sounds not really important anyway/might even be detrimental, focus on enjoying stories or talking to your child or singing, making animal sounds, whatever you both enjoy doing together. Lots of different activities support future reading and writing.

Parent stressing that they have already taught alphabet and now worry it might be harmful
> It's not that important, don't worry, the positive thing is that you've had some fun together and it might help them later to understand that letters have names.

I taught mine to read before school with look and say, purely because I didn't know about phonics and hadn't learned that way myself. They then learnt phonics at school too, but it was just an additional thing as they could already read. Doesn't seem to have done them any harm and they are young adults now. I wouldn't put this on the list of things to worry about.

My DC sang the alphabet song and learnt phonics sounds at nursery. Didn't seem to cause any confusion - it fact it seemed to help later on when learning about the 'e' (tap/tape) they picked it up quickly.