at what age do/did you try to teach your child to recognise numbers and letters?

[nailpolish]

at a birthday party last week dd1 was playing with another little girl who could recognise letters and numbers - im not sure how old she was, i think she may have been a year older, and i was wondering if i should start more thoroughly talking to dd1 about letters and numbers when she is 'reading' her books etc

TIA

how old is your dd ?

sorry, she'll be 3 in oct

(im not showing off, but can i add that i think she has excellent vocabulary) and she takes a great interest in letters and numbers

I think we started about the same age with our DS1 or maybe a bit before. We had a book that my Mum had given us and we just started with a few letters like his initial and his friends and just took it really slowly. Go for it - it won't do her any harm. If she's not interetsed or can't be bothered then she'll let you know

Hiya np - i did numers and stuff with dd when she was about 18months-2ish. Just lots of simple repetition etc, it's amazing how quickly they pick it up. I did her alphabet with a big wooden thing with flip-over blocks with a pic on one side and letters on the other and she loved that.
I was really surprised when I took her to playgroup and they said they don't bother to encourage them to recognise numbers and letters until they start school!!

my ds was 3 in june and he talks like us can count to 13 and knows all them numbers. alsoknows 20 30 ,40 50 because of road signs, but only knows some of letters so all kids are diffrent

DD is nearly 3 and knows some letters and all numbers up to 10.

Magnetic letters and numbers on the fridge help - she wants me to spell stuff out to her.

She IS very interested in letters and numbers though and they encourage this at her nursery.

DPs DD who is now 6 started the alphabet when she was 2 and also the alphabet song and also used to count the numbers from 10 to 0 (backwards!!)

she can count up to 30 - but show her a number (except 1 2 and 3) and she cant read it IYSWIM

i would like to teach her to write her name (or initials at least)

she can hold a pencil very well and sits and pretends to write - lots of lines of sqiggles (im so proud )

can anyone recommend some nice books? or is it best to start off on ones she knows?

my ds enjoys mr men

ds1 is just 4 - we started talking letters well over a year ago - however it is really not his thing and is still very vague about them - he can recognise R, T and B because they are the initials of his name and his brothers - so he sees the point in them - the rest he really doesn't care about.

Again with numbers - he can count to 12 (then goes to 18, 15, etc) - but doesn't do much with actually reading the digits. I am confident that when he starts school next week he will quickly see the point of it all and pick it up quickly.

ds2 is 3 in November - he can count to 20 and he recognises most of the numbers from 1 to 10. I haven't 'taught' him any of it. Counting he's picked up from ds1 who is 4 (and he can count to 5 in Spanish - that's from Dora the Explorer though!) and the numbers he recognises from the Thomas trains. So he knows Percy is number six and that's how he recognises '6'.

I'm not aware that he knows any letters. He knows his name starts with 'd' (as in the sound 'de') but he wouldn't recognise the letter iyswim.

Tbh, I don't go in for 'teaching' in that sense. I find they pick things up quite easily just through playing with toys and through talking about things they see when we are out and about. I don't ever sit down with books and 'do' letters and numbers.

Hve to agree Gobbledigook, I don't 'sit' mine down to teach them at that age I just let them learn at their own pace through general daily activities and older siblings etc...

Jade is now 10 and at 2 she could count and recognise letters etc... and talk like a 4 year old and although she is a very bright girl I don't think she is actually extra bright because of learning from a young age. It was just that she was a 1st and only child for 4 years so got so much more input on an adult level.

My twins are now 6 and they were about 3 and a half when they knew numbers letters etc and started Nursery at 4 and were perfectly capable by the time they started reception. They are now very competent in English and Maths at school.

Katie is just 2 and counts from 1-10 but does not recognise them written down and I have not introduced letters at all. I will not rush her into learning. She will pick it up from her siblings and starts playschool in January and Nursery at only 3!! so I don't see a need to do anything but let her play and learn without to much educational input from me

nailpolish my dd started shortly after two (she would shout "look mummy there's an O" everywhere we went lol!)

I was the same but my brother didn't say a word til he was 2 and didn't get into letters til he was well over 3 so every child is different.

I think the only answer is 'when they show an interest'

do not sweat it, it will come naturally and when it does you will have no choice but to do letters and numbers because that is all they want to do

it might be when they're 4 or 5 or 6 .. who cares? by the time they're 7 or 8 children tend to equalise on reading and writing skills

Never sat either of mine down, we just read with them from an early age. At 22 months dd could recognise all the letters of the alphabet (would point them out in shop signs etc unprompted) At about 3.5 she was teaching herslef to read.

Ds, raised in exactly the same was only just knows his letters at the age of 5.5. He has no interest in reading or pointing out letters he, on the other hand taugh his older sister (3 yaers older) how to open the firge door and smash eggs!

This isn't a boast about dd, they are the way they are. Mine are very different....good job too!

CD, we seem to have the same children!

dd is 3 in October as well and although her speech has been damned slow in coming, she counts well and is recognising her letters, esp the ones in her name, we actually never taught her them but my ds 11 has sat down and written her name with her loads so she knows E and M and so on...she is showing signs of wanting to know more so we're starting on that now.
With both of mine, they have pretty much showed em obvious signs of being ready and willing, so thats when I started
I found a set of proper alphabet a-z individual books in a 2nd hand shop last week and dd adores them
it has helped her a lot, so it might be worth looking at something like letterland etc if you want that route.
Never had that with ds though and he was an early reader - for him it was Cat in the Hat and other Dr Seuss and rhyming books!

If she's interested it won't do any harm to point things out in the course of her normal activities, but i def wouldn't sit her down formally. Ds1 and 2 and particularly my dd were similarly interested and I took my cue from each of them in turn. I can't remember exactly when my boys began properly to recognise and understand numbers (rather than rote counting) but certainly by their 3rd birthdays they could recognise quite a few; their own ages and the Thomas numbers, like gdg's ds. Letters too; both could recognise and understand most of the alphabet, mainly through playing and looking at toddler alphabet books, road signs, ANYTHING, well before their 3rd birthdays. My dd could actually read simple stories at 3, even though her playgroup was just that; no formal literacy work at all, just sandpit and lego iyswim.
I would just enjoy stories with your dd; even without formal teaching she will absorb so much, and will be "ready to read" so much more easily. It's the single most important thing you can do imo.

DD is 4 and can count objects to about 10, knows the alphabet and she's starting to get adding up to about 5 (1+1=2 1+2=3 etc)

ds is showing quite an interest now (nearly 3) but I don't teach him as such, just talk about it as and when. The first time we recognised a letter was S on a roadsign. He quite often spots letters and number out and about, numberplates. I'm led by him to a large degree on how much we bring this up, don't want him to be completely sated by the time formal teaching starts. Better to start with a healthy appetite for knowledge than a head full of facts and figures imo.

thanks for all your excellent posts!

dd1 has her favourite books, we have just read tiger book, and she runs her finger along the sentence, saying it out loud! (but only because she knows it off by heart) its so funny

also this morning she picked up a pencil and wrote sqiggles, saying out loud

"dear gran, love from melanie" like she was writing a letter.

children are great arent they

och well, ill just carry on as normal and take my cues from her.

that seems to be the best bet

squiggles