to not be teaching my 2 year old phonics?

[nancerama]

It seems that competitive parenting is creeping into my social circle of what were, up until now, laid back lovely parents of toddlers.

DS is 2.5 and his friends are all of a similar age, give or take a few months. Of late, everyone seems to be dashing out and purchasing Jolly Phonics packs or similar, because, apparently, their DCs really, really want to read.

DS loves books and we read together for around 1 hour a day, but I just can't bring myself to start formal education. My heart says we should have lots of fun reading together and understanding books, but my head (and my fellow parents) tell me that it's important to give him a head start before he starts school.

Please, fellow mumsnetters. Reassure me that they are all bonkers.

It always makes me chuckle how some parents feel the need to push reading. Why isn't there the same pressure for maths or science?

By sharing books, singing songs and generally talking to your child, you are teaching them to read. Decoding is only part of reading - I would be able to read an astro physics book, but I couldn't tell you what it meant

I work with 2 and 3 year olds. Teaching "reading" at this age is more about encouraging repetition, rhythm and rhyme, reading familiar stories, allowing children to fill in the words they know in repeated refrains or guess the rhyming word. Being able to handle books and know which way the print goes, that written words convey meaning and start to recognise familiar words and letters.

Most children of 2 years don't have clear enough speech to use phonic sounds, and many parents don't teach the sounds correctly anyway.

It's great if children can recognise their own names by the time they're 4, but being able to dress/undress, follow instructions, toilet independently and sit quietly and listen are more important skills than phonics before then.

@ jollypanics
magic I feel even more panic about maths, because we are still trying to force our 15yr old to learn times tables, due to primary school not teaching them to her. I just wish I'd taught her them by rote when she was little so she wouldn't have to struggle now.

I didn't do them before DD started this year in reception and I'm so glad I didn't.

She is utterly filled with joy coming home from school telling me all about the letters and words she learned today. I wouldn't have taught them as the school is teaching her (Ruth Miskin phonics, not Jolly Phonics) which would have been confusing for her plus it would have taken away some of the excitement and pride of learning something new at school.

TBH she was ready last year to start phonics, but I'm glad I waited, she is learning something new each day and so proud of herself.

I just made sure that we had lots of fun reading books together, with lots of trips to the library.

I agree that it's unnecessary, unless your DC wants to do it. If they do start asking about letters and words, then the various resources available can be quite handy so that you get the pronunciations right.

magichamster - I do "push" maths too, actually. I'm not into hothousing, but literacy and numeracy are fundamental building blocks, so if my children show an interest, I will absolutely encourage it. As I will any other interest. With the possible exception of Zelda.

A lot of schools (including ours) are moving away from Jolly Phonics to Read Write Inc. I have to say I love this programme, the books are great and it is easy to teach. The people that come round with books and things to workplaces have a set of books and some sounds magnets for £13 at the moment-that is a bargain. I have bought a set for a youngster I know, safe in the knowledge that her Mum will just read them to her, not attempt to formally teach it.
Let them be babies and toddlers for as long as possible!

Bonkers! My dd is 2 and loves books too. She pretends to read to her teddies and can recite certain books that we have read over and over from memory. This led dh to believe that she could read when she was about 20months! She's was an early talker and dh got all excited when she appeared to 'read'. In a teacher, as if dh and we will not do any formal education with our toddler at all. Just enjoy your toddler!

My heart sank reading that.
They're bonkers.
Plus they will likely turn their kids off reading.
Carry on reading stories for fun. My DS had a reading age of 12 when he was aged 6 because we read together, went to the library together and he loved stories.
He still does.
Fostering a love of reading is more important than Biff and Chip before school.

My child taught himself to read by watching Superwhy. Everyone thinks I am a pushy parent rather than a lazy one who lets her kids watch too much tv

The Jolly Phonics songs are on youtube.

Sorry, fostering a love of books rather than learning to read.
Long day!

Utterly bonkers! There are about a billion other things your 2 yo could and should be doing instead.

at jolly panics.

Bonkers! Go with your instincts. (Reading isn't a race).

@ jolly panics !

Ds1 is now 16 - I do remember when he was about two, someone bought him one of those v-tech alphabet electronic thingies - it had different setting for the phonic sounds, and for the 'name' of the letter etc.

I do remember that at two, he gave it a good solid two year old hammering for the noises

I also recall that if you put it on the phonic setting, and pressed 'F' and 'C' in quick succession, you got a passable imitaion of 'FUCK' - amused me and ex-dh endlessly

at about 2 and a half, he started to show an interest in letters, and we played alphabet bingo, and alphabet snap, then later he caught onto blending letters into words yadda yadda - same for ds2 really... it was like watching something catch fire - the transition from letters, sounds,blending, reading happened really quickly.

we didn't do jolly phonics etc, we just played games with them, but they were reading by nursery so nursery did biff chip and kipper, with the dodgy bloke hiding in the bushes..

It was a bit like potty training - you read all the bumpf, and it sounds like splitting the atom - looking back, it was a case of keep reading to em, keep em interested in stories, and engage with them, and let them lead you - it's not a contest.

Mine were early readers, but by yr 2, the ones that took more time had all caught up.

Oh - and on a long car journey recently, I found that I could still recite 'Peace at last' verbatim boys are now 16 & 10 and were ptsl!

Crazy! I think they get it much quicker at 4 and would rather just read to them at any younger age. Dds have done super well with reading regardless in the top sets. Not that that's really important, generally, by adulthood we can all read :-)

YANBU they are sad!!!

OP, they are bonkers. No matter how far advanced or ready to learn a child is, by 18 years old they are all the same.
Let him enjoy his childhood, you are doing brilliantly reading to him and that should be enough until school. imo anyway.

Madness. Although like someone upthread, people might think I am a pushy parent whose 3yo can spell lots of words but the little weirdo taught himself by asking what the track listing on various CDs were and using magnetic letters to copy

He scorns phonics though, prefers letter names!

Apart from anything else, it really doesn't do children any favours to learn phonics before they know the alphabet and letter names. I think that gets forgotten in this craze over phonics, and we should go back to the days of Sesame Street and their alphabet songs!

If kids are interested in reading then just read to them its easy,if they want to know what letter sounds like what they will ask!People are so pushy these days.

I've just learn how to teach children to read so I thought I'd try it out on my son who just turned 4 - school next year.
He's very bright and comes home from preschool showing lots of learning and excellent memory.
Was he interested?
Not at all!
Did I continue?
Nope - he'll learn when he's ready.

Theres also lots of research of how learning to read too early can limit childrens learning capacity of other things,in Steiner schools they dont even begin to learn to read or pick up a pencil til they are 7,yet by the time they are 11 they are further ahead in reading and writing than mainstream schooled peers.

Can you link the research about early reading being detrimental? And do you happen to know off hand how they evaluated the method and competence of delivery of teaching in those studies?

BTW, there is no need at all to know the alphabet in a sequence or to say "letter names" in order to read.

Can you link the research about early reading being detrimental? And do you happen to know off hand how they evaluated the method and competence of delivery of teaching in those studies?

BTW, there is no need at all to know the alphabet in a sequence or to say "letter names" in order to read.

I think Finland has the highest literacy rate and quality between teenagers and apparently they learn to read at 7.

Most continental countries start teaching at 6 years old and there's plenty of recent research that points to better outcomes.

I don't know about better outcomes, but I live in a country where they start school between 6 and 7. Most kids know their letters when they start and can recognise/write their names but their reading abilities usually don't go beyond that. Give them a year and it's all in place. I did start teaching my two phonics (yes, using JP) at around 5 or 6, i.e. before starting school, but that was to get their English literacy solidly in place before they started reading in the local language.