Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Christmas

From present ideas to party food, find all your Christmas inspiration here.

Letters / reading toy

7 replies

Breadfoam · 16/11/2018 16:39

Dd will be three Christmas Eve and she’s absolutely useless at maths and numbers but quite likes letters and trying to read. She has about half her lette sounds already and is keen to learn more and to put them together to make words.
Any recommendations for a toy that would help with this??

OP posts:
Breadfoam · 16/11/2018 21:57

Anyone??

OP posts:
drspouse · 16/11/2018 22:41

Jolly Phonics magnetic letters? It has digraphs too but you don't need to use them to start with.

Isadora2007 · 17/11/2018 02:51

Just let her play and stop trying to “educate”. It’s worrying you’re saying “useless at maths” about a toddler. Get her toys and back off from formal numbers OR letter work.

Scotinoz · 17/11/2018 05:52

Awww, she's only 3 so she's not rubbish!

But, Melisss&Doug do lovely magnetic letters. And 'learning resources' do lots of numeracy things, 'mathlink' blocks are what our preschool use but to be honest you can count anything!

Alanamackree · 17/11/2018 07:07

She might enjoy playing with the phonics bus

There isn’t any great advantage in learning letters early but a lot of dc can struggle with writing later if they’ve not done a lot of gross motor play as toddlers that promotes coordination and shoulder strength. Things like crawling through play tunnels, building tracks on the floor, finger painting or “helping” wash the windows with a sponge are all building towards writing skills. Playing with play dough or baking, washing and squeezing doll clothes and then hanging them on a line with pegs are creating fine motor strength.

In terms of maths skills, a set of cups for sand or water play (either at the sink or in the bath) or a box of dry rice, can teach them loads without you even saying a word. Just by holding and building towers with wooden blocks they are learning foundational skills that will help later with measurement and fractions. Helping to set the table for dinner covers a whole swathe of the Primary maths curriculum (number, categories, more/less than, what’s missing, set completion, etc)

A good primary teacher will teach letters and numbers in no time, but they can’t teach in a classroom what toddlers are learning through free play and from being with you.

You sound like a really caring mum and there are lots of blogs about early childhood education that might give you ideas for things to do with her.

To get back to letters and reading though, the phonics bus is fun. If you can find sand letters it adds another dimension to the letters. Magnetic ones that stick on the fridge are fun too. But one of the best things you can do is snuggle up and read to her so that she learns that reading is a pleasure and not a struggle (the same book over and over is also fine). Reading your own books too is great - mine used to come and tuck in beside me and sometimes pick out the letters they recognized, or rifle the pages and smell my books. All of that contributes a to an eventual love of reading.

Hope that helps. I’m sure you’re already doing lots of the above but sometimes we don’t see the educational value in the “ordinary” stuff.

helly29 · 17/11/2018 08:39

We got our ds a leapreader pen for his birthday - would recommend. There are different books with stories and we've got one with learning letters - keeps him entertained for ages.

ivebeenwaitinginthedarkness · 17/11/2018 19:06

Oh I've ordered a leap reader 3D for my toddler. I did have a thread asking is anyone would recommend but didn't get any replies. So hopefully that doesn't mean it's rubbish Confused I've ordered a couple of books for it too, but not the letters and numbers ones (yet as think he's too little.) Think they are level 1 age 2-5

New posts on this thread. Refresh page
Swipe left for the next trending thread