What happens after they learn letters?

[boo64]

Ds knows half his alphabet really quite early - i.e. he can recognise the letters written down or printed.
I have not taught them to him, he has picked this up along the way.

Thinking ahead slightly, when he knows them all, what comes next for most children? do they start getting interested in 'whole words'?

Sorry to sound totally clueless. I want to ensure I am encouraging him very gently but don't really want to start formally teaching him as he is very young and imho should be having fun.

just leave it
there are no prizes for doing this - jsut read lots of stories, make them up, play games that sort of thing., I don't get this formal learning of letters.phonics etc etc for kids who aren't at school yet

DS1 knew his alphabet before he was two but didn't go any further till he started reception. It's not really necessary for him to learn any more than letters, unless he really wants to.

btw, I didn't teach him the alphabet, he picked it up from a toy.

Does he know the letter sounds? This is what he needs to know next. Letter names are not important yet.

And then you can move onto sounding out simple CVC words such as cat, dog, hat, etc.

Then add blending sounds such as sh, th, ch, ou, oy, ai, ee, oo, etc.

You then look at words like toy, book, bee,

Some words are taught by sight - search out the reception key words. There are 45 of them. Include words like the and you.

You then look at how letters can sometime make alternative sounds, often because of some for of rule - such as the magic "e" on the end of a word changing the way the preceeding vowel is said.

Lower case letters more important than capitals in early days too.

I am sure someone more knowledgable will be around soon. This is just what I have picked up from DD.

Look up Jolly Phonics. They offer some good advice on what order to approach things.

BTW, I agree that there is no need for formal teaching prior to school.However if he is interested and is asking to move forward, then that is the apporach DD seems to have been through in the later stages of nursery and this year in school.

You rogress to phonemes and blends, combined sounds such as sh, th and ch then ea ai ee then ar, er etc from which thy can learn to blend in combination to form simple words. For an "order" try looking at the Jolly Learnning website under Jolly Phonics materials for which you can get from Smiths, amazon , elc etc in the form of posters, games and Finegr Phonic books (imo the workbooks are best left until later as the script is not toddler friendly)

Thanks guys - think he is indeed way too young for all this so perhaps I will just start saying the letter sounds rather than names which is what I was doing.

But I will bear this all in mind when he starts showing an interest more in actual words.

most kids don't need jolly phonics, I think it's a great marketing ploy to get parents thinking their kids need it ( at earlier and earlier ages) when in fact, if it's left to when they are ready for it, it's redundant

can I also suggest that when you say the letter sounds, you don't sound them like "buh" and "cuh" as when you come to blend "c" "a" and "t", the sounds they've learned blend as "cuh-ah-tuh" which makes very little sense really. Just cut yourself short before the "uh" part - it's pretty hard admittedly if that's how you've always done it though.
Sorry, bit of a bugbear of mine!

hana you're probably right but the info on their website is free and offers a sense of structure and direction as requested by op. fwiw ds learnt his letter names and sounds early(18 months -2ish) but is no further forward than his peers now, aged 9. Just took his interest at the time.

Blending is a skill that takes quite a bit of practice to master so if he is beginning to learn the sounds you can play games like 'I spy' but using sounds and start to model blending i.e. /c/a/t/ says cat - say the first sound slightly louder and run the rest together more quickly. There is no pressure, it is all fun but will stand him in good stead.

Not sure the age of your ds but i found that whilst my two managed sh, ch, th etc OK at a young age they struggled with the long vowel sounds until about 4.5 yrs.

There are lots of games on the jolly learning site and rrf and syntheticphonics.co.uk which you can play with him to build up an understanding of the usefulness of reading. I found my ds used to love the action type games where eg we would write a word (say run, or jump) and he had to do the action.

Modelling reading is also supposed to be very useful, so if you are reading something the idea is to make them wait a short time for your atention so they can see that you value reading as an activity.

Have fun!

When I mentioned JP I didn't mean the actions and stuff - just the sounds that all the letters and blends make, and a bit for order of approach.

I help in DD's class - have been really impressed by the way some of her classmates have found the JPasctions useful when remembering the sounds of the letters and phonemes. I agree that the more able children perhaps do not need them, but they are a useful reinforcer for others

I think if you're teaching a young child (up to about 5 or 6) the actions can be fun and help to reinforce the sounds. Many children don't need them, I'm sure, but lots of children enjoy them. And you can still use the Jolly Phonics order and materials, as Hulababy says, without using the actions.

Jolly Phonics is no more a marketing ploy than any other 'reading scheme' or approach to reading - obviously all publishers want to sell their stuff, including the infamous Oxford Reading Tree and the dreaded Ginn.....

The one that really gets on my tits is Letterland - all that Annie Apple stuff, complete waste of space and so fecking twee.