"What does that say, Mummy?"

[PerchanceToDream]

So, it turns out I have quite a precocious little thing of a DD who is 22 months and chats for England. It's lovely, of course but sometimes she really surprises me with her seemingly unquenchable thirst for knowledge: "What's that? What's that? What's that, Mummy? X 1000 every day.

Suddenly she's obsessed with letters and is asking me to read out anything and everything - labels, signs on the bus, ingredients on the back of packets. I really didn't expect to be doing the old ABCs so soon so how should I start?

She's my first so I'm clueless as to what they learn in school these days - I've heard of jolly phonics through a teacher friend. This seems totally ridiculous. She's not even two, damn it. She's growing up too fast!

I'd suggest just enjoying books with her and not worrying about the technicalities of reading. Read to her, let her repeat the words and point to pictures, chat about the books. Let her choose all sorts of books from the library - audiobooks are brilliant too.

You could point out to her the first letter of her name, that kind of thing. My DD did this too from the same sort of age and could recognise a few letters by the time she was 2, but it's just a case of following their interests. DS is 2 and has no interest whatsoever, but he does want to know about colours and numbers, which DD was never into. Don't push it, and I definitely wouldn't buy any jolly phonics stuff yet.

We got dd a chalk board around that age and she loved use writing the alphabet which she quickly leant, then we moved onto numbers. The way I thought of it was that if she was obsessed by drawing I would get coloring books so why not.

She could recognise her name and mummy and daddy as well which was good.

Just keep answering the questions. As tedious as it may become. :)

Have a look at alphablocks on cbeebies for how they spun out the letters and read the words. (it's how they do it in schools)

Ds was like this with numbers. It was/ is a bit repetitive but at 3.9yo he recognises all numerals, tens number (on speed limit) and impressed his preschool teacher by counting to 38. :)

He's now moved onto letters/ words but is no where near as obsessive!

They are amazing aren't they. My DS is now 2.7 but started a fascination with letters at the same age. I went with getting a few books/puzzles that had the alphabet on and whenever he wanted to play with it or asked then I would go with it. I found out the letter sounds for each letter and taught him those. Now he has started blending letters and reading simple words, all pretty much due to an obsession with Alphablocks on the tv and couple of apps on my iPad.

If she's that interested then just follow her lead, answer her questions and she'll learn what she's ready to. Whether the fascination stops next week or whether she's reading Shakespeare at 4 is up to her!

Thanks for replies all. Really helpful. Yes, I'm already spending all day, every day explaining the world to her.

We've just discovered the Alphablocks games on the CBeebies site too. They're brilliant!

Will make sure I don't push it though. It has to be fun. But I've also realised her attention span has improved hugely so that'll help.

I agree with others - just keep answering her questions rather than worry about the technicalities of reading. So if she asks what something says, just tell her and she will either remember and impress random people with her advanced reading ability or she will forget which doesn't really matter either at this age.

As others have said just answer her questions and you'll be surprised how much she'll learn.

Dd1 became fascinated with typing at about 20 months. She'd ask me to write, say "mummy" and I'd say "m for mummy, u for umbrella, m...etc." pointing to the keys as I said it. Didn't have any particular thought of teaching her letters or to read. However after 2weeks she knew every letter, upper and lower case, and could read a number of words. She loved doing it because it was her choice, so never felt under pressure to "perform" which I think helped her learn better.

Ooh, that's really interesting, DeWe. DD's always on my laptop and has just started saying things like "press the buttons, Mummy" so I think that may well be another fun way to learn. Thanks!

You can get her to write her own thank you letters
Dd1 wrote her own at 2yo and it saved the excrusiating task of me doing it. And she thought it was a great game!

DeWe- getting my two to write thank you letters is far more excruciating than writing them myself !!!! Please let me know your secret !

We got my step daughter one of those wipe clean books for letters/numbers - she loved it as could colour in the pics of apples, boats, cars...etc and could rub it all out when she went wrong good job as she has a hissy fit otherwise

Haha! She actually has a little table with a chalk board top to it so I think I'll invest in some chalks for her. I've been putting this off for entirely selfish/it'll be too messy reasons.

DD scribbles her own thank you letters - maybe I should just leave her to it. They'll know what she means...