Please can any teachers or childcare workers help with a question?

[twobabiesandapup]

Hi everyone, just wanting any hints and tips if anyone has anything to share with teaching my little boy phonics? He’s young to be starting (only 20 months) so it’s more a bit of fun more than anything else as he seems to really love learning (doesn’t get this from me 😅) so it’s just something to challenge him a bit - he’s currently able to count to 20 and recognise the numbers in isolation and similarly with the alphabet, he can recite this and also recognise and name the letters out of sequence (i.e. he pronounces them the proper way and not the phonics-y way with sounds). He loves to read and will sit with books and name the letters one by one on each page so I thought this would be a natural next step for him, is phonics the best “next thing” to teach him or is there something we could do before then? I’m a bit confused really on what to do next with him so if anyone has any suggestions that would be amazing x

Thank you! It's been fine for him but I think some of that is the school's approach, it's a 4 form intake primary and the children are split into 12 small groups across the year group for RWI daily, and reviewed every 6 weeks so it's been small focused groups at the right pace which has worked well for him. We're also a big reading house which possibly helps. I have no knowledge of other schemes so no comparison but know some of the other children and parents haven't got on well with it

It's really important not to miss phase 1 phonics before teaching the letter sounds. If you google the old Letters and Sounds document there are some nice ideas that you can do together at home. I also enjoy using the singing phonics books with children https://collins.co.uk/products/9781408104729 and the BBC have some listening skills activities but you can buy similar games online too which are more child friendly https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/school-radio/articles/zbc4y9q.

These activities can be really fun to do together so an added bonus!

Before starting on phonics think about things like can he hear how many syllables are in a word, recognise words that alliterate or rhyme?

With maths, does he understand shape, symmetry, patterns? These things are more important at this stage than number.

It’s great that your doing so much and your child is doing so well, but be careful that you aren’t skipping stages of development that are important in order to make him learn the more obvious things that he will still have to learn at school when he gets there, even if you have done it all already.

Just out of interest, What's his language and communication like?

Thank you for some of the amazing advice that some of you have offered! I will be reading all the suggestions in much more detail later on when my children are asleep. I was of course expecting some negativity as is standard for some reason(!) but thank you to most of you who have given me some wonderful tips!

For anyone wondering, my son already does lots of messy/sensory play and everything in between, but he has organically learnt a lot through song and play and has been obsessed with books since he could physically hold them. He’s already learnt shapes, colours, animals, vehicles and lots of other things through reading, song and play so I thought it would be worthwhile to do phonics as a new things that I know he’ll enjoy learning, as he has done with everything else. The purpose of this with him is for it to be fun, if he ever didn’t enjoy it I’d stop in an instant, he is still a baby after all, but as long as he’s having fun I’m going to try my best to continue to teach him new things!

communication is great, his words are properly pronounced, we’ve always chatted to him non stop since he was born so he speaks clearly and people who don’t know him can clearly understand him. His word range of all the words he knows and says are probably in the region of 60/70+ if I’m including all the general words, vehicles, colours, animals, foods etc. he can say three connecting words at once like “look daddy’s car”, “kick the ball” etc but he’s never done more than that or spoken in full sentences. He’s my first so I don’t have any guidelines or any comparisons

Well what I need now is a programme explaining digraphs and graphemes and whatever else there is 🤣