First reader/phonics books

[Avotoast9]

I am thinking of introducing my daughter to some phonics or early reader books but am not sure where to start.

It may be a bit soon: she has had an alphabet puzzle for less than a week and can identify half the letters from their sounds. I've noticed that she recognises some simple words eg. Bear and hat which she points to when I'm reading. She enjoys books with lots of small details.

I would wait until she starts school but she is showing an interest now and enjoying it so it would like to encourage that.

I don't want to confuse her so it would be better I think to follow the same approach as the school curriculum. Any suggestions or recommendations from teachers or parents would be greatly recommended.

Thanks in advance.

Hi OP! No problem starting now if she's interested and happy. Alphabet letters are a good place to start - do make sure you are teaching lower case letters not upper. Also make sure you are teaching pure sounds (so 't' not 'tuh', for example)
My son loved letters from 2 and we did a lot of 'find the letter' game around the house with the magnetic fridge letters. We also had foam bath letters which were great.
Once she can recognise letters and their corresponding sounds you can look at simple 3 sound words (consonant-vowel-consonant). There are a few games that you can use for this (orchard games has one I think)
For books, we liked the Julia Donaldson songbirds ones. I think the first ones are called Bob Bug.
Be led by her, and as long as you are teaching a phonic approach (sounds first, sound-talk and blend) you won't confuse her as the phonic schemes are very similar.
I'm a send teacher by the way, and very passionate about reading 😁

Thank you! I had a look at some phonics books in the library but they all seemed quite random in terms of the different levels. I'll check out the Julia Donaldson books.

At the moment DD seems to have great comprehension but isn't vocalising as much. For example, she will correctly identify more obscure words eg. watering can, badger, pylon, seeds, belt, cushion, globe, nest, policeman, goat etc. but isn't yet saying all the words. She has pointed to some simple words as I've been reading her stories such "hat" and "bear" that she's seen a lot so I think she's memorised.

I'm not sure whether I should be supporting her speaking more or reading or a bit of both. She's interested in letters and loves searching for things. (She does a little proud wiggle when she correctly identifies something).

It's sort of a strange in-between stage and I'm not sure the best way to support her.

I subscribed to a company called Storychest (?) when mine were small.

They send you simple books, based around early phonics, every couple of weeks. My DCs loved them and could recognise all the sounds and read simple texts when they started Reception.

A magical time, enjoy!