Starting pre schoolers reading

[nikkim]

My dd 3 is obsessed with reading, she reads in bed every night and spends the whole day asking what things say.

I have decided to start teching her how to read but don't really have a clue how to start. I attended an open evening at a local school and they were using the Oxford Reading scheme, have bought some little workbooks as she enjoys doing the counting ones. But I noticed in Smiths and ELC that there are an abundance of schemes, such as jolly phonics, letterland as well as Oxford. Do schools now use phonics or the whole word approach?

If you know which school she is likely to go to you could contact them to find out if they follow a particular scheme. I used Letterland first just with the letters, then general phonics for spelling out words, then the Oxford Reading Tree. This worked well for both my DDs but the school they curently attend uses a very different system.

schools in my area (leicester) now use phonics. My ds learntd his letters via letterland but now uses phonics. He has just started school and is currently bringing home books with 2 or 3 words repeated ie I LIKE BOOKS, WE LIKE BOOKS, etc...

Nikkim - most schools will now use a balanced approach: so there is an emphasis on phonics; learning the letter sounds first, then moving on to blending them into words. But also working on sight-recognition vocabulary of the top 50 words, (and onwards), particularly the irregular ones which can't be easily read with basic phonics: we, look, the, etc.

My boys learned their letters at home using Letterland - as cms and yoyo. We started off doing just two at a time, and concentrating on these for a week. (Use lower case letters not capitals). Play games, colour in the letters, look for them on street signs etc. If you want to start, a good group to begin with (one at a time) is s, a, t, i, p, n ... as these letters can be combined to make loads of very simple 2 and 3 letter phonetic words.

HTH

thanks for this, I kow letterland as I can remember it from when my sister learnt to read. Thought it might be a bit old hat now! Will have a chat with her teacher at pre school and will probably get a few letterland resources.

We got some Letterland pre-school books from The Book People (and therefore very cheap) I'm not that impressed with them though as sometimes DS1 can't see the letter for the picture IYKWIM!

There used to be a letterland magazine that my girls loved. Lots of colouring and letter formation! Bought the new alphabet frieze for DD2 and noted that it has become slightly more PC (much to the amusement of my girls). They also did videos if you like that sort of thing (as I type I hear Josie Lawrence and can't believe she used to do stuff on the impro show - too much wine and can't remeber the name. She was fab though.)
Good luck with this - it's wonderful watching their reading develop.

DD is 3.5y and reads quite well. She adores Letterland but her school makes a point of begging parents with keen readers or who want to help at home NOT to buy Oxford Reading Tree materials as they are used for lots of KS1 literacy work and just because a chils is reading at stage 3 or whatever doesn't mean the writing etc. will be of a similar standard. There's a concern that children will lose interest in stuff if it's being promoted at home and at school.

DD's reading developed from learning letter sounds and she gradually started to blend sounds. She's now working on more unusual phonic blends. TBH she's not that interested in reading scheme books and prefers to read a basic story book with us filling in the words that she doesn't recognise/can't figure out.

My daughter knew all her letter sounds before she started nursery. They use Letterland, and all it's done has confused her! Instead of saying that a letter is, for example, "a", she now tells me that it's Annie Apple and doesn't understand that the name of the character simply represents the way to pronounce the letter.

The infant school that she will go to teaches using Jolly Phonics, so I'm going to go and have a look at some of their stuff to see if I can use it to repair the damage that Letterland has caused!

a friend highly recommends this book Teach Your Child To Read - her child was reading fluently before they started school.

I wouldn't bother personally but if your child is really keen it might be a good one.

Looks like this is another one girls do earlier than boys!

My ds (3.5) couldn't give a monkeys about reading. He's fantastic at numbers though.

Tell a small lie - he's just started on letters etc at nursery and he can write 'TOM' and points out letters from his name on signs etc.

I don't do anything formal with him because he's not that interested so I'm not forcing him. There's plenty of time for that when he goes to school - now is for playing IMHO.

Nikkim,

SOrry, didnt mean to sound like you shouldn't bother - if your dd is interested then makes sense to encourage her!

Skate

I think MariaLuisa is right. dd knows her letter sounds , loves to listen to stories but already will "steal" ds' ORT books. They are obviously way beyond her (he's 6, she's 3)to actually read although she recognises the odd word and has the story off pat at first hearing. I'm really concerned that it won't be as fresh and interesting to her when she is expected to do it herself at school.

If your dd is interested, nikkim, then do follow her lead. Our dd is similar but won't currently do anything formally at playgroup although she was happy to match letters and words last term. You could use the Jolly Phonics stuff (Finger Phonics is supposed to be good to start off) and there are books, cd roms and songs tapes to reinforce it too but they may take some tracking down. Also there is a good game called My First Scrabble which is a picture/letter/word set in progressive stages - Argos Extra has it for £9.99.

I have just taught the little boy that I mind, to read. Once he knew his letter sounds, we started with simple words,- look , in, here, no . not , these are from Ginn reading scheme. I made flash cards of all the words in the stage one books and when he knew them, we made sentances and rearranged them to say different things. - In here, look here, no, in here etc. I then introduced the books, he was so thrilled when he realised that the words we had learned, made a story in a book!

I got him up to level three before he startedschool this September, it was amazing how quickly once he started how he could see the words and work them out, quite difficult words began to dfall into place very quickly.

I taught my own children to read this way, using 1 2 3 and away, New Way ( all a bit old fashionned but worked really well) and Ginn. I kept ORT for school because Ithink they are exciting and wanted to keep them especially for school.
of words learned and do not try to move on too quickly just because they can read a book, go back to them time and time again, they enjoy the confidence this giaves them.

Good luck
The secretiscond=solidation

Thanks for your advice I spoke to the supervisor at dd pre school who agreed that if I backed up what they were already doing it would be a good, infact they are making me up a pack to help me look at letters and the beginnings of reading and writing.

The school does oxford reading tree and I have got some little workbooks which dd thinks are fab! She is used to seeing me study for my degree sis feeling quite grown up writing in a book.

No offence taken skate I agree that you shouldn't push your children to do anything they do not want to do but I have an odd swotty bookworm of a child who is a chip off the old block I guess!

my daughter's (state) school uses the jolly phonics and I assume that is the diktat of the national curriculum...my eldest who is 12 was taught with letterland. These things have fashions!

Yes I was advised to start with phonics and when I mentioned letterland they looked at me in horror. THey said it is rarely used nowadays (like you said fashions!) although I know of many parents who swear by it.

Jolly phonics is the current favourite in school

ELC have a great range for pre schoolers...

Lots of schools use Jolly Phonics, lots of others don't!! We use it where I teach, my son does something called Ruth Miskin Literacy (RML), which is another phonics approach, this i think is gaining in popularity, his friends love it. They also use the Oxford Reading Tree.

He learned to read at home on an odd selection of Ladybird books, the modern ones and the Peter and Jane ones, red-nose readers and anything we had lying about!! I reckon as long as you're using a basically phonics approach you can't go far wrong. The school just seemed highly relieved to have a child who could read!! I remember my mum being told off for letting me learn to read, and the school making me read my way through the whole of Janet and John.

Good luck, 'odd swotty bookworm' describes my ds1 to a tee!!! He's odd but lovely.

Letterland does seem to get a bad press with some people for some reason, and I have no idea why. I think certainly for children who are showing an early interest in letters (aged 2 or 3) it's hard to beat. I know loads of children (including my own) who used Letterland to learn their letters at this age, and then went on to be excellent readers.

My two did use JP at school, and were never in any way confused by the 'two systems'.

I got a tub of magnetic letters (lower case) from ELC for ds1 before he started school - I had them on the fridge and every so often we would talk about them (phonically, like this is "a" for apple, not "AY" for apple). He could recognise most of them before he started school and knew things like "e is for egg" etc. and could recognise his name.

I would be wary of pre-empting school by using the scheme they will use - I think there's a danger that when she starts she will be bored stiff if she has seen it all before. ELC has a good range of letters, games etc. that encourage early reading without formalising it iykwim. But definitely encourage her - it sounds like she is very keen (would this be a good place to mention that I could read at three ?!)

I have taken on board what everyone has said about not using the same scheme as her primary schoool will use. Her school use the oxford reading tree so I have not bought any of their books so she will not bore of them - which would be quite easy as they are as dull as dishwater. I will just stick to our normal stories together. I have bought a series of ORT workbooks she loves that sort of thing, we spent about half an hour today going through some of the exercises and she was so proud of herself.

She already plays junior scrabble as we got it at a jumble sale for 20p last year. I am going to get look at some of the jolly phonics games and puzzles. Today we just kept looking for the letter "a" while we were out and she kept jumping up and down with excitement each time she saw it!