Learning to read when young.

[mrstigs]

Hello everyone. My dd is 2.5. She loves books and being read to and often remembers her favourite books and 'reads' them back to me. She seems to really enjoy me showing her the words too and will ask me 'what's that one?' whilst pointing them out.
I want to help her with her love of books but I'm aware she's really little still. I have two other children but didn't teach them to read until they were school age so don't know if I would be 'pushing her' if I taught her to read a few words now? What age do people think is appropriate and does anyone have any recommendations on books or maybe apps that would satisfy her curiosity without being too difficult for her?

Children want to learn to read at very different ages. I think it can be a huge boost to their confidence if they enter school already reading, but only if it is just one of many things they happen to like doing.

My son learned to read very early, partly because we were travelling a lot, and looking at books or fooling around with writing was a good thing to do on airplanes and trains to keep him entertained and happy. He happened to be very interested in letters and numbers, as some children are.

It sounds like your daughter is also interested, and you are not too pushy, so why don't you see it as something fun to do together, with no particular feeling that it is more or less important or significant than any of the other things she likes doing. If you follow her lead, you shouldn't go wrong.

I think magnetic fridge letters and scrabble letters, and putting up post it notes with one word on them can all be fun. You can read street signs, the letters on car registration plates, find the letters of her name, etc. I think it is fun for them to recognise various letters as they walk around, rather than teaching them words.

Both of mine (1.5yo and 2.5yo) recognise letters and numbers and sing the alphabet. We had a nice framed print of the the alphabet in their room and sang it to them occasionally and they just picked it up from there and the numberjacks/numtums. I've been thinking about trying DS1 on a spot of reading actually, I think he'd love it!

I'd like some apps too if anyone knows of any

Jolly phonics have some lovely resources. The finger phonics books and jolly songs DVD are really good for this age. Alphablocks is an enjoyable way for child to learn phonics.

www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/alphablocks/games/alphablocks-games/

starfall is a good website.

Follow her lead and see what happens.

It's not pushy if she is asking you & you are following her interests & leads. Any nursery teacher who was worth their salt would do the same. Just don't let it over take your interactions. Look for short, meaningful teachable moments, start naming letters as their sounds.

Look for opportunities to link knowledge e.g If her name starts with T you might point out other T words you find written, emphasising the initial letter sound. You might play 'sound' eye spy while you are waiting one day, you might underline words with your finger as you read, to introduce the concepts of words.

Thanks for the advice everyone, I was worried that I would come across as a pushy parent determine to hot house their little genius. .
I'll definitely try all the tips and look at the websites. If she takes to it then it will be another fun thing to do (and that doesn't involve playdough glitter and three hours of cleaning after like most of her favourite things!) If she gets bored really quickly then we can just leave it till later.

It's amazing how kids learn isn't it. I've watched both my older kids learn to read and I still find it an amazing mystery how we suddenly learn to sort out these little squiggly marks on paper into words and read them. Today she pointed out her name on the card her brother had wrote for me and said 'that says Xxx (dd's name), That's Me!'

Mine all started learning to read before 2yo. Dd1 was very keen, much like your dd. She taught herself all the letters typing on the computer in about a fortnight, and very quickly wanted to learn how to write proper words.

Dd2 and ds wanted to learn from similar ages because they saw dd1 reading and wanted to be the same as her.
Dd2 was particularly quick, and was reading books by 2yo, ds (whose hearing and speech was not good) struggled a little at first, but once he discovered that operating the computer (and youtube videos!!) was easier if he could read and type, he shot on. Probably one of the few 3yos who could spell "Concorde", and "Sonic Boom" to get the videos he particularly liked off youtube. Also because of his poor hearing he often chose to have the subtitles on DVDs, which also helped his reading.

I did it by the whole word recognition, but found that when they did phonics at preschool and school, they just applied it in retrospect to the words they knew. It didn't hold them back at all, if anything it helped them because if they came across a new sound they would immediately think of words they knew and whether that sound was using that letter combination in that word.