Ds1 (3.8yrs) wants to read

[SilveryMoon]

Tonight when I was reading the ds's their bedtime story, ds1 asked me to show him how to read. He then pointed out some letters and asked what they were and what a few words said.
I would really like to encourage this if this is what he wants to do, but haven't a clue how to do it.
Any tips on what I can do??

He attends a nursery 3 hours a day. They are quite structured in their lessons and he brings letter homework home twice a week. He also has to trace-write his name every day at nursery, so he does spend a fair bit of time looking at letters and getting to know them.

Perhaps start by familiarising him with the letters that start his name, his brother's, mum dad etc and he'll start to recognise them everywhere.

I bought my ds a pack of bathtime foam letters (from supermarket, just a few £) which stick when wet to the bath or tiles. When he knew his alphabet I could make up simple words which were easy to read like mum cat dog run etc and he easily worked them out, and then began to make up some of his own which worked well.
The supermarket also sells write on wipe off work books with lovely big colours, Priddy Books make them, and there are simple letter stencils to write over and words to fill in, we have a few of them and they are great.
HTH

If you want to teach him to read, then Jolly Phonics is very good for the pre school age group. The Jolly Phonics teacher's hand book explains how to teach your child to read. Jolly phonics have DVDs, songs and lovely finger phonic books for learning letter sounds. My son learnt to read at four years old as he was very keen. He picked the concept of blending letter sounds very quickly and learning to read early was an enjoyable experience.

It did not cause him any problems when he started in reception. He had a good reception teacher who knew how to cope.

This website www.starfall.com might be useful to you.

Thanks bramblina We have some wipe on wipe off work books, he struggles to actually sit down and do them though and I don't like to put too much pressure on him so I never make him do any of it.
We also have the foam bath letters and dp often spells out those words on the wall with them.
He can recognise his own name written out. So yes, suppose you're right, I will stick with the gentle encouragement with those sorts of things.
Thanks

I have taught my 3 year old to read - she actually read her first word at 2.10 which gave me a surprise. She is reading simple phonics based books fairly fluently now at 3.7.

We used a combination of jolly phonics, the book with accompanying CD was really useful and the phonics based reading games on the website Starfall. When she was ready, she just started to hear that b-e-d said 'bed..'

We have the Julia Donaldson Songbirds phonics books and she puts her finger under each word and says each sound before blending it.

She knows some of her blends like 'sh' 'ch' and 'ee' and can sight read lots of common words like 'you' 'the' 'my' (we got some fridge magnets to help her to learn them).

She is now starting to master the 'magic e' rule - there are some videos on this on Starfall.

Thanks reallytired Will have a look.

He is already looking at letters and sounds at nursery and the homework he gets is that of a reception age.
Will look at the jolly phonic. A friend of mine has just recommended them too

That's great Ladyloo

Thanks all

My DD is 3.4yrs and for about 3 months has started asking what letters are and ''reading'' from memory using her finger to trace words (I do this when I read to her) I used to work as a Teaching Assistant before she came along so am familiar with the Jolly Phonics system we used to teach reception children and know it is important to teach both letter names and sounds so I do a couple of letters a week with her saying names and sounds and she has picked it up so quick.

Sorry this wasn't supposed to be a boasting post.... what I wanted to say was maybe find out the method used at school, ie phonics or letter names etc and use them to ''teach'' your DS... I agree with brambalina by starting with his name he will then start picking out those letters in all books, if you use his older board books (I am assuming :) ) they usually have a word or two per page and then you can ask him if he can find any letters he knows... this is what I do with DD and as the words are large it makes finding those known letters easier...

Has any of this helped? I have posted a couple of times now and I think I ramble too much, I am sorry x

I must be a slow typist lol when I started writing there were only 2 posts on here.... sorry I repeated what others advised :)

Mummyloves that's perfect advice, thank you. That's great that your dd has taken to it so well!
I think the plan is to have a quick chat with his teacher tomorrow and take it from there.

Aww thanks... I do get nervous ''helping''... good luck x

Mummyloves, don't be nervous! This is what this site is all about, throwing ideas around. The best way to know that something works is to hear other people success stories and so you should tell everyone asking for help what you and dd have achieved. She sounds like a very clever girl with a very supportive mum and you should be proud of you both.
It's the only way to give good advice, 'this is what I did, and this is the result'
If anyone tells you different, try to ignore it.

I've been on this site for 3 years now and have had very few 'bad' experiences and rows. Some threads and subjects get people very het up and passionate. I steer clear of breast vs bottle now and most of aibu (mostly) but am getting to the point where I realise that my opinion counts as much as anyone elses, and if it isn't in agreement to other people, as long as I am not instructing, but just airing my view, no one has the right to take that from me.

As you can see, I waffle on a bit too ;-)
Enjoy minute, we all have important lessons and experiences to share and learn

That was supposed to say enjoy mn
Stupid blackberry and it's predictive wording