when showing dd a alphabet puzzle toy, should i say the letters or sound the letters out?

[JeanPoole]

like should i say a b c d
or aa bb cuu duu etc

shes 2 years old and i'm wondering if i teacg her say d is d, will she find it harder to understand it makes the sound duu

Will be interested to see responses to this! I think that children can understand pretty complex concepts very well - look at how they acquire grammar, etc. and I'd say letter names.

But that's partly because as a child I hated phonics with a passion, and curiously have given dd a name which can't be spelt out in the usual "phonics" way...

Say the sound. Make it as clipped and short as you can - ssss instead of suh, and mmm instead of muh. Valuable for blending later on, you see.

Why don't you just say "letters have a name and a sound. This letter is called 'dee' and it makes the sound 'duh'"? After all, just teaching the sound doesn't take into account the difference between c and k, or the name/sound of an x etc. Alphabet toys usually come with a picture that helps to illustrate the sound of the letter, e.g. an apple with the a. Use that to help you make the distinction.

DS is just two and knows the names of the letters to his name. I did think too late that maybe we should have done sounds instead, but he picks things up so quickly we'd only said 'A' once or twice when he'd seen a capital A and called it a star, then after that he was pointing out A's everywhere.

I'm not too worried though, I'm sure he'll be fine, and we can teach him the sound an A makes etc

Sound them out, but I agree with Habbibu that most a lot of children will have no issue whatsoever with understanding 'it called em and it says mmm' - after all, they get that a Lion is called a Lion and says roar!

That's what I was just thinking, stealth - animal noises are a good analogy. And dd is working out that there are lots of birds, but they have different names - so she says "that is a bird that's called a crow", etc, and I don't think that's any simpler a concept than the letter name/usual sound one.

When you're reading, there is no difference between c and k.

x makes a "c-s" sound - b o cs = box, f i cs = fix, etc.

Yes, there is - c can have a soft sound - as in receive, which k doesn't have.

do they still say "curly c" and "kicking k"?

"soft sound" - you would not believe I'd actually studied phonetics, would you? Do I mean fricative?

And ceiling, hab and cement

(possibly a little bit advanced for a 2-yr-old )

Oh God, Ponders - all my freaky childhood hates re-emerging...

oh dear - sorry...

You are right, of course, but I would stick with one sound per letter at this stage!

It's ok, Ponders, you can just pay for the therapy...

I'm another like Hab who has studied and now teaches phonetics on a daily basis....I'd say the question is, are you trying to introduce your child to the Alphabet per se, or to reading skills?
If it's the first (which is the first thing I did with dd) then the old Ay, bee, see, dee is fine. Once they get onto looking at letters-as-part-of-words is when you'll be needing the phonics (which I'm not a huge fan of either as a reading skill, although as a language teacher phonetics is my lifeblood!)

But that's where my sneaky trick with dd's name screws things up, Feenie. Must be true of lots of names - Amy, for example.

We do 'Dee says duh (for dog)' each time on the animal noises analogy. Quite laborious and the kids are pretty inconsistent for a long time, using names and/or sound when they see a letter, but it has worked for three kids so far and getting there with the 4th.

DD is going to have to get to two-letter sounds before her name makes sense phonetically - but so did DS and he seemed to cope .

Again, when children first learn to read, we point out that usually the case that names aren't phonically regular, and have fun finding the ones which are and reading what other names say when you employ the sounds.

These names, and 'harder' words, won't appear in the first few reading books when they are learning!

Names come from all kinds of languages, so often don't follow phonic convention. For the same reason, most names aren't recognised by spellcheckers, dictionaries, etc.

At DS's nursery they teach phonetically (he is 4)which I think makes it easier when they start to learn to read.

All schools/nurseries have to do this now, and it does make it easier for most.

Oh, I am aware that I was very contrary! But I can't tell you how much I hated phonics - one of those weird things that really brings back a real reaction. But then I also hated that you worked out what everything said and then it turned out to be a really dull story...

so what age is jolly phnics aimed at then?