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Original poster

how to teach 2.10 yr old about Capital and lowercase letters

117 replies

LauraGas · 03/04/2009 14:08

DS is 2.10. The last few weeks he has been almost obsessed with letters and knowing what they are and what word begins with them. He can recognise all letters of the alphabet - in captial letters. When we do drawing he mainly just wants me to write words for him. I'm keen to encourage this but am struggling with trying to explain about capital and lowercase letters. Is there a good way to do this so that he understands that the same letter comes in 2 formats? Not sure if there are any good books that anyone could recommend.

Just as an incidental, he can pick out all the letters of his name when asked - it's Joe. But, he insists that the O comes at the end. Can't get to the bottom of why, but think that it's maybe because that's the last sound of his name? Anyone have an experience of this?

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itchyandscratchy · 03/04/2009 14:10

why does he need to know this at his age? Just write it correctly - I don't think you need to explain why some letters are different - he will just copy some and make up others.

he's very young!

Iklboo · 03/04/2009 14:12

I'll be watching this too - DS is obsessed with letters to (great) but we're wondering how to introduce lower case. We're thinking of getting the flashcards that have both on so he can associate

licquorice · 03/04/2009 14:12

Please don't push your child with this. Just let him explore and have fun

hotcrosspurepurple · 03/04/2009 14:21

this is exactly the reason that lots of experts say you shouldn't teach children of this age about letters

you have taught him in capitals, now he will have to unlearn all of that and learn the lower case letters

capitals come after lowercase letters
and the reason he can't spell his name is because he is too young!

just to have an awareness of letters is enough at this age

don't rush him before he is ready

MargaretMountford · 03/04/2009 14:23

absolutely agree with hotcross

Iklboo · 03/04/2009 14:23

DS is 3.5 and loves shouting out all the letters he knows. He asks what the lower case ones are and we tell him 'it's a little a' or whatever. We're not actively teaching him to read, just answering his questions (I hope)

Original poster
LauraGas · 03/04/2009 14:25

Don't really think we are pushing him (I hope!). I only ask about the lowercase and capital thing because he can recognise a "J" but when he points at a "j" and asks me what it is he wont accept it's the same letter and gets quite upset.

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PinkTulips · 03/04/2009 14:30

ds1 is 2.8 and letter obbsessed too.

i've just been saying 'big a/b/c' and 'small a/b/c' and he seems happy enough about that, not confused at all, can read the whole alphabet in both now.

littleducks · 03/04/2009 14:30

we have big 'A' and baby 'a' as dd has both in her name she was immediately aware

this website can be fun

i disagree with the other posters i bought dd a magnet board as a distraction during birth of new baby present at 20 months, from a charity shop, it had a few letter magnets, she learnt these letters the same way she learnt her shapes colours etc. she asked i told her, she lost interest and is only now at 2.10 starting to ask about letters again

Original poster
LauraGas · 03/04/2009 14:31

We haven't intentionally "taught him about letters". When he points at a letter and asks us what it is we just tell him. What are we supposed to do - say we're not allowed to say? He's picked up all his knowledge gradually, it's not something we've particularly concentrated on. I only know that he can recognise all the letters as he pointed them out one by one on a friend's older childs chart yesterday.

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bigTillyMint · 03/04/2009 14:36

He probably thinks the O comes at the end because that's the last sound he can hear, and particularly if you have referred to it using the letter's name - O, (as opposed to the sound of the letter)

PinkTulips · 03/04/2009 14:37

ds1 doesn't understand about reading left to right though, insists on going right to left every time

hotcross, i don't teach any of this stuff, dd is 4 and can barely tell you what letter her name starts with and i'm happy with that, but ds1 is obsessed. if he sees letters he wants to know what they are and now that he can recognise them his favourite activity is finding letters when out and about and reading them. he's started asking what letter everything around us starts with too and as a result i've been doing a little bit of phonetics to help him figure it out himself, so now he can tell me the sounds fot at leat half the letters too.

it's exhausting and i'd prefer he waited til he was older but equally if he wants to learn i refuse to deny him based on what 'experts' say.

stroppyknickers · 03/04/2009 14:39

Buy him a big wall alphabet chart from smiths, it will show both the capital and lower case together. btw you are geeting a bit of stick unfairly imho. ds is 3 and loves letters and woeds, runs over if the big ones are reading out loud etc, let him know stuff if he wants to.

Acinonyx · 03/04/2009 15:19

Dd got very obsessed with letter at about 2 - it has come and gone in phases since then. We called them 'big' and 'little' letters. You don't have to 'unlearn' the capitals to learn the lower case any more than you have to extract the alphabet song names from your child's brain before they can cope with phonetics.

You will soon learn that you bring down much rightious wrath if you talk about your dc reading or writing as preschoolers on mn

Original poster
LauraGas · 03/04/2009 15:28

Yep, have just learnt that Acinonyx!

Thanks for all the tips and support and good to hear some similar stories too.

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stealthsquiggle · 03/04/2009 15:32

Big and little letters. He will probably argue with you (I know DD does but will get there in the end.

DD (2.5) is beginning to be obsessed as well - we have lots of lowercase letter magnets, and she has problems understanding why the start of her name looks different when written than when she finds 'her' letter on the magnet board.

They need to know letter names as well as sounds at some point. They also need to know what the capitals as well as the lowercase letters look like. People get way too worked up about learning them in the 'right' order IMHO.

fishnet · 03/04/2009 15:33

People get very competitive about litte ones reading and you will get stick about letting your child read at this age. I think each child shows an interest though at their own pace when they are ready. DS1 is 3 and can read phonetically. he could for example do "drink" but not "the" because we haven't taught him the blended sounds or any of the common words that they just have to learn.

As long as you do phonics and not letter names eg a as in cat not a as in hay, then he'll be fine and when he goes to school he'll just build on what he alraedy knows.

We did "big J" and "little j" and they generally just accept that. People are right though that its better to focus on the lower case letters.

Don't let people put you off or make you feel like a pushy parent. Its good that you spend time with your child encouraging his interest in whatever that happens to be whether its letters or dinosaurs!

MilaMae · 03/04/2009 17:18

I am an ex literacy co-ordinator now a parent. Children do have to unlearn capitals if taught first. If I had a £1 for the amount of kids I've taught liberally sprinkling capitals throughout their writing because parents thought they were helping I'd be rich. Believe me it does take time to get out of the habit.

The other problem with parents "teaching' their kids is they often pronounce the phonics wrong and clutter their brains needlessly with schemes like Letterland and reciting"a is for apple" etc.

Also if you teach phonics incorrectly it does set them back they have to re-learn the sounds.

My son was obsessed at 2 and before. He could read roadsigns and many other common words at a very early age. I trod very,very carefully.

The way I handled it was to read masses of quality picture books,answer his questions when he asked what a word said and read a lovely alphabet book a couple of times(obviously pronouncing the sounds correctly) . I didn't touch flashcards with a bargepole. My son is a very advanced reader for his age which brings it's own set of problems believe me. Interestingly his twin brother who was never interested isn't far behind.

If you must "teach" reading please,please,please pronounce the sounds correctly(Jolly Phonics show the correct sounds),read masses of quality picture books step right away from flashcards.

Also don't force anything at all. A child becomes and stays a good reader if they love books and therefore read a lot. If they are sick of the whole thing before even starting school,feel forced/nagged they will do anything rather than pick up a book. This particularly applies to boys.

Also bare in mind most countries teach reading far later than we do and have far better literacy levels.

I hope I don't sound full of wrath. As a literacy co-ordinator,ex early years teacher and mother of 3 under 6 I do feel I have a fair amount of experience on the subject.

Acinonyx · 03/04/2009 17:29

I bow to your superior wisdom MilaMae but in our case and I suspect many others children aren't taught capitals explicitly - they seem to like them for some reason and most alphabet books and toys do show them even if the lower case is there too.

pointydog · 03/04/2009 17:33

I shouldn't bother

PinkTulips · 03/04/2009 17:35

thanks milamae, that's really helpful

i spent my early years of education in holland and germany where reading isn't touched til 6/7 so had always felt really strongly that later is better... hence why i don't do any of this stuff with dd... 4 is too early as it is imo.

that means i'm really at a loss with how to cope with ds1 though, i don't want to discourage him but similarily don't want to actively teach and am trying to tread a fine line between the two.

dp is a disaster with phonics ds1 keeps asking what 'daddy' starts with and he attempts to do it phonetically because he's heard me doing it but can't seem to get his head around the fact that it's 'duh' not 'deh'... am going to have to show him your post so he understands it's better to not say it at all than to say it wrong [sigh]

thing is, dd isn't even at school yet so i don't know what system they use here, i don't know if they do jolly phonics or not and don't want him confused when he starts (or rather when dd starts and he insists on learning from her homework lol!)

PinkTulips · 03/04/2009 17:37

acinox is right though, ds1 asks about letters in books, magazines, on shop signs and road signs and unfortunately alot of those are capitals!

pointydog · 03/04/2009 17:41

duh not deh?

Acinonyx · 03/04/2009 17:45

Phonics is quite hard to get across even though dh and I have both taught phonetics in the dim past. I am a bit concerned about that - and just last week I had a seemingly dissaproving note in dd's preschool book about spelling using letter names instead of phonics. I'm going to get a phonics dvd so we can all do it properly - I don't want and lectures form her school in Sep about teaching her letter names (which I didn't - they were from a much loved toy).

Sometimes it seems you can't win. If you leave them to it they obsess on capitals, sing the alphabet names and write their letters backwards. But if you intervene you bring down the Righteous Wrath.

Been thinking about this a lot lately with school coming up.

PinkTulips · 03/04/2009 17:55

probably not spelling those in a way that makes sense but instead of saying the right sound for D he says it like the beginning of 'death' iyswim? it's very annoying

does anyone have any links to studies that talk about why phonics are better and have statistics to back it up? i find phonics very confusing myself tbh as it's hard to explain to a toddler why D is 'duh' but not always and C is 'cuh' but sometimes sounds a bit like S

dd wanted to know her whole name last week and i was trying to sound it out for her and realised that there's silent H at the end and was at a loose for a good explanation of that!