Encouraging letter recognition for toddlers

[Lizzer]

Hi all, much easier thread than my last one! This is just a quick query i promise!
Basically my dd - who's 3 in December - has, for the past couple of months, been interested in words and letters. The first being the letter L she kept seeing on the learner plates on cars. It quickly grew into pointing out letter in books, asking what street signs said. She now knows about 5 or 6 letters but asks about, and just seems v interested, in words all over. She attempts to write and can do a couple of words with the letters she knows - they're vague but you can make them out. She 'writes' in birthday cards etc but they are just squggles across the page.
I'm really happy about this but don't want to make everything in her life about 'learning'. We do it when she wants to.
My question is does anyone know of any games, methods, easy strategies to help encourage and inspire her?
She's quick on number recognition too but its words she really loves and pays close attention to. At the moment I am repeating everything with 'that's a m for mummy' etc Concentrating on the sound of the letter not the name of it (eg. I don't say 'em' for mummy) Is that the way letters are still taught, with the sound first-name later?
Any thoughts welcome...

My daughter is in year 1 and is taught the way you are teaching your dd. They have an excellent system in place called Jolly Phonics, I don't know if it is available as a home kit, but basically the saounds are on flash cards with an action to correspond to it. So "i" for example has a picture of someone feeling itchy. My dd had been struggling in her previous school (no jolly phonics), but since moving here she has improved with word and letter recognition enormously.

Forgot to add that ds who is in nursery part time is also taught Jolly Phonics there.

Lizzer, very interested in what you're saying. It sounds like you're doing the right sort of things - if she's interested, keep talking to her about what you see etc. To her it isn't 'learning', it's fun - which is how it should be.

At about 2.5 my dd really surprised me - we were sitting on the lawn when she said 'Mummy, that's Hector's name', and pointed to an H she's made from sticks. She then proceeded to do A for Abby, N for Niall and C for Catherine. She has also been able to pick out letters on the computer keyboard for ages. I was very impressed - ds (now 5) was very interested in numbers and number games from an early age, but only recently started to really get interested in words. Maybe it's a girl thing?

I think the Early Learning Centre do Jolly Phonics, otherwise you could try Letterland, also quite widely available on books videos etc.

Hi Lizzer, Im at same stage as you.

We've got some Letterland bath shapes, that ds loves playing with and can recognise the O as Oscar Orange and just a few more.

I remember with ds1, we had an alphabet place mat with a picture under each letter, so whilst we were chatting at lunchtime, we would talk and find various letters.

Ds1 did Jolly Phonics at school, thats definitely the way to go these days. Look for some Letterland books in the library, they are fun.

Alot of children do The Magic Key books, M&S do stickers, colouring, reading books etc of these, they are a lovely range, but perhaps save those for next year.

DS1 is doing Letterland at nursery and we have the story books etc. It's a phonics based system

If you want to encourage writing, write out words etc inpencinl for them to write over or make them out of dots to write over. They soon get the hang of it, think it's fun and it encourages the right pen movements etc. Try to ensure they're holding the pen properly too.

I got one of those big foam alphabet jigsaw playmats (do you know what I mean??) and used to play a game with DS1 where he had to put things on their initial letter; Red Ted on the R, himself on the C etc. He found this fun and it helped associate the sound with the shape. You could pick a letter and cut out lots of things from magazines that begin with that letter.

Just make it fun I guess.

Lizzer - with both my boys I actively 'taught' them their letters, doing two letters at a time for a few days, or up to a week. We coloured in sketches of the letters, put pictures of the letters on the wall (cut up from an alphabet frieze), played 'I spy', looked out for these letters on signs - always concentrating on lower case letters, this is quite important. We have lots of alphabet-type games, letter cards, etc., and we used these too - but just a few at a time, as they learned the letters. I tended to use Letterland material, but there's loads of materials on the market, and most are excellent. You're definitely doing the right thing concentrating on the sound of the letter, rather than the name of it. Letterland do a "Parent's guide", which is great, full of useful tips.

This sounds really heavy, and pushy, doesn't it? It isn't meant to be, I don't believe in 'hot-housing', and the boys had great fun doing it. I just think early literacy skills give them such an advantage at school, and in future life.

Just another quick word - the reason for doing just two at a time, is to focus on those. 26 unfamiliar letters is very confusing for young children, and hard to get to grips with. I always chose pairs which couldn't be confused - i.e. I didn't choose o and a together, or b and d. Both my boys knew all their letters completely at age 2.5

Hi Lou33,Azzie,titchy, Ems, SoupD,maryz, kmg, and suew , thanks for your replies - all v helpful.
I'm going to look into jolly phonics - have never heard of that before but sounds great. I'll also ask at the school she most probably will go to (still hoping for a lottery win though!) as to their policy.
It IS amazing watching dd progress to this stage, Suew. It makes me realise how important everything I do is. We are lucky in that we have a lot of time together to make sure she is getting the attention she needs - I don't agree with hot-housing either, but she gets so much enjoyment from everything we do. I know when its time to stop because she just will become bored, end of story.

Now I can see how parents are really proud when their children pass their GCSE's or whatever. Its like "And I taught them all the basics!"

Ems - how funny you should be at same stage as me yet again in our parallel universe!

Thnks again, I think I know what dd will be getting in her stocking this year now!

LOL about hot-housing. Something came up at the end of last week about 'times tables'. DD asked me what it meant so I used the 3x table to explain. She then wanted to know more (she can do 5x and 10x but has never thought of them in this context) and eventually I offered to do a square for her, laying it out 1-10 on both vertical and horizontal. I showed her how to work things out and she then spent the entire weekend pestering me for maths questions, either for her 'Magic Square' or to add and take away.

On Sunday morning I gave her a die and showed her how to roll it to make up her own sums, I just put some X, +, - and = signs on the page for her. It kept her happy for quite a while until she decided she wanted 'word questions' e.g. if I have 3 bags and each bag has two apples, how many apples do I have altogether? At this point, I took her to Asda and picked up a book of word and number puzzles so I could do something else!

I was dreading her going into school on Monday and writing in her diary that she'd spent the whole weekend doing sums, even if it was at her own request.

Lizzer and Ems, I am also at the same stage with dd1, we've got a Letterland video which has been great for teaching her letters, however, she does call 'a' Annie Apple etc rather than 'A'.

I am looking for a suitable toy for her birthday/Xmas that encourages phonics and letter recognition. I thought that LeapPad Imagination Station looked quite good, the one where they colour in the letters and it 'talks' to you, but I'll have to see one 'in the flesh' so to speak before I decide.

Batters she is 6 in mid-Dec

We have a cassette tape in the car with the alphabet, now DS shouts 'ABC' as soon as we get in the car .... it does get a bit repetitive though!!

just a thought, what about getting a packet of magnetic letters for the fridge door? I use these with my ds (2 yrs) and he can spell out his name and a few small words. I don't think he quite understands what he's doing but he finds it fun, and I think it's a good habit for when he is trying to learn to read in school.

Lizzer - another quick thought. Loads of materials tend to be aimed at developing writing alongside other literacy skills. For 'early learners' this may not be appropriate, as they don't have the co-ordination, though this may not be the case for your dd. If it is, then you can play games using cards with letters on, or magnetic letters, as eefs suggested. What I also do with ds2 still (he's 3.5), is buy reading/spelling 'workbooks' at the appropriate level for him, but make him little stickers with letters on. His reading and spelling is coming on great, but his writing is way off.

Lizzer, another quick thought: when my ds suddenly became interested in letters we spent about 2 hours getting from the shop to our house as he wanted to try to read EVERY car registration on the way. It was good practice with capitals and he had great fun. He was older than your dd, I'd say about 4-ish when we did this. The only thing was, I could only think of one word beginning with V when he asked me what else began with V so he went into playgroup the next day saying "V for Violent" The shame

Thanks again for advice. We have some magnetic letters on the fridge but I probably don't spend as much time as I'd like to going through it with her. I look out for workbooks too that are aimed at her level. I know the ones you mean with the stickers...

Suew - brilliant news for you. Its probably rhe best way to be. I mean, if she has a natural love for numbers then encourage it. Hmmm, I think I'm answering my own question here...

Alphabet tapes and videos will now definitely be featuring in her stocking this xmas!!

WWW - yes, we do car numberplates sometimes too. I'll keep it up if you've had good results...

Lizzer her love of numbers can get a bit much sometimes. Watching the recent firework display, she seemed to be in a world of her own, lapping it up. Until she announced that there were 204 fireworks so far....

I remember getting off a train in Melbourne about 18mo ago and her starting to count. She got to 864 before she got bored. It happened to coincide with a WW meeting - I just nipped in to get weighed - and as I was waiting someone made a remark to me about how annoying children can be. I felt bound to say 'Well, she's only 4.5yo, I'm pretty impressed at how far she can count'.

My 3½ year old is into his letters at the moment. He has a game called Alphabet Lotto but we pulled out all the letter cards and then went round the living room putting the letter cards on objects in the room. For example, I'd go to the sofa and say what does sofa start with? S for sofa, sounds like 'ssss' and then we'd put the card on it. By the end the room was covered with letters! Another game we've played is hide and seek letters - I'll write some letters on a piece of paper and then hide them all over the house and then he'd have to go find for example the letter A and then once he'd found it we'd try and think of things beginning with A. A great game if you are feeling a bit tired because you can sit down while your child runs around looking for the letters!

Actually, as an aside, a game I saw on telly looked good too if you wanted to sit down and have a rest, but your child wanted to play... give them a basket and pick a colour and tell them to fill that basket with things they can find that colour! Especially good for two or more children as you can pick several colours and the one with the most items is the winner.

Sorry - can't help thinking of games that allow me to sit down - 25 weeks pregnant and knackered!

A bit off the subject - but ds's teacher gave us a great game for car numberplates, suitable for 5 yr olds + I would say - using the numbers. The child has to rearrange the numbers to make either the biggest number, or the smallest number (you choose) - i.e. 218 could be 821 or 128. DS1 loves this. Also you can have a competition, the first one to spot a car registration which has a pair of numbers adding up to 10 - i.e. 456 would count, 454 wouldn't. You keep score, and see who spots 10 tens first! A big hit in our house.

Unfortunately neither of these games work for NEW-style numberplates. So apologies for those of you in smart areas!

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