At what age could your child...

[handslikebirds]

1. tell you what sounds each letter in the alphabet makes (eg A=ah)

2. tell you what letters a word begins with. Eg if you said 'what letter does garden begin with' and they say 'guh... G"

3. be able to tell you words beginning with a letter eg if you said 'tell me a word beginning with h' and they say 'hat'

Thank you!

Interesting question, OP. My PFB was reading chapter books when he started Reception (summer birthday), but I was doing letter sounds etc from very, very early on - with sticks and sand and so on. Word games, singing 'sound' songs etc.

However:

tell you what sounds each letter in the alphabet makes (eg A=ah)

I only taught him the sounds when he was very little, not the names. I introduced the 'names' of the letters via a fantastic cassette which we had in the car when he was about 2.

tell you what letters a word begins with. Eg if you said 'what letter does garden begin with' and they say 'guh... G"

That question is formulated for a slightly older child. It's not something you'd ask a younger child, as it's too much of a 'you must give the right answer' question, and small children don't work that way. A younger child would be able to say or sing "guh - guh - garden", because that's how you'd teach them. It's what would come up in stories and rhymes too.

be able to tell you words beginning with a letter eg if you said 'tell me a word beginning with h' and they say 'hat'

Again, very early - but, again, via endless talking, games, sounds - not by asking targeted questions. I Spy is good for that kind of thing, with all the sounds exaggerated. "I spy with my little eye something beginning with 'Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh'".

Obviously you have to have a lot of time to do this. It was just part of our day.

I remember doing all of this with DC1 (who went on to get an Oxbridge First in English). I can't remember being quite so ... diligent with subsequent DC, but they are now all adults and I assume they can all read perfectly well.

To balance out all of these early achievers- 6 for my eldest, 5 for my youngest

3 -ish ; "I spy" was a popular car/travel game and they all learnt how to play very fast.

2
2
And 3

1. Preschool/nursery as hes learning phonics along side the alphabet song

1. Its hit and miss, but he can do this with things that interest him (so he see's the word a lot) e.g dinosaur starts d, elephant starts e

1. Again hit and miss he currently does s s s snake, so rather than straight away answering snake, he'll say the letter sound first

2 and 3 I'm guessing he will be pretty on it as he goes through reception next year (he's one of the youngest) but I'm a SEND TA and I play a lot of my therapy games with him and he's with me when I'm planning activities.

DD1 - 3, DD4 is nearly 4 and often tell you what a word begins with but that’s it.

I couldn't! Didn't learn to read or write until I was 5. I just couldn't get the hang of it. Passed my 11 plus so it didn't seem to hold me back!

2 of my children were the same and slow to read. They were both excelling before they left primary.

Around 3 and a half.

But it's not really as simple as having those skills.

Ds could tell you anything re phonics from a young age as he rote learnt.

But he couldn't blend, couldn't use phonics to phonetically spell something and it's something at 18 he still cannot do.

So he can hear initial sounds and that's it. So great he could do it at 3 - not great he couldn't actually do much more!

I didn't even begin to nod at reading until I was in reception and I was 5 by then (September baby). My Mum taught my older brother to read when he was much younger, but I just wasn't interested.

18 months to 2 years old.

My son in September born and went to a childminder, not nursery. I didn't know how to teach phonics and didn't want to get it wrong, but did read a lot to DS.

He couldn't do any of those skills until he started school, and he's enjoyed learning and is enjoying reading.

Four.

But it's not 'guh' it's g. There should be no 'uh' sounds. Except for 'u'.

To be fair, it’s physically impossible to pronounce the /g/ sound without at least a very brief “uh” sound at the end, because it’s a voiced consonant.

OP, my kids could sound out CVC words shortly before 4 - I taught them myself.

We did not do letter names until later, because that is considered best practice now. I waited until mine were blending well enough that they were not likely to be confused.

If your children were children in the 80s/90s, I'm impressed you can remember this detail! My DC is in year 2 and I couldn't tell you when she knew her colours by!

DS is 19, he followed this sort of timeliness, it isn't extraordinary at all. He had his colours before his second birthday.

I'm not doubting that at all. I'm just impressed that people can remember the ages their children were when they learnt specific things, 30+ years on. My child is 8 and I couldn't tell you what age she was when she learnt her colours!

I remember DS because he was obsessed by the colour orange at around 2 years old. I remember when the reception teacher came for the home visit before Dd started school she did a jigsaw then counted the 24 pieces going left to right ( teacher seemed surprised/ impressed) she was a couple of months off her 5th birthday. I also remember "reading" the house numbers together on the walk to/ from nursery when DS was 2. It's just exposure.

One of my strongest winter lockdown memories is going on a walk every day and reading the door numbers. My son was almost two then, he's always loved numbers.

4 for the first, just turned 5 for second and third. As they were more familiar with the letter sounds than letter names.

1. Learned that by rote at nursery so probably 2.5 years, but would have refused to answer anything to do with letters till around age 5 so not sure if she just learned it like a rhyme or if she could actually associate it with the individual letter shape.

2. Would have had a guess at age 5 or 6 but reluctantly and probably been wrong half the time.

3. We used to play Minister's Cat from age 3 and sometimes they would be right. More consistently right from age 5.

DD is very severely dyslexic and didn't learn to read until she was 7.

Now 14 and has 8 as GCSE target across the board, is considered exceptionally gifted at creative writing and has finally read a couple of books for pleasure this year.

But still cannot spell at all and finds reading very tiring - laptop and spell check for everything and school completely ignore all spelling errors and focus on content.

2.5

From aged 2yrs, she was able to recognize and name some letter sounds. It started with the ones relevant to her, like MUM, DAD, and her own name. She totally surprised me when sitting in her pram, she "read" (recognized) the letters of a shop sign M O N S O O N.

However, it was not real reading or understanding, as she would be adamant that Muh was for Mummy, but not McDonalds or anything else. Similarly Ah was only for eg. Abby, but not for Apple. She'd get quite cross if I ever suggested the letter sound could "be for" anything other than the word/name she knew. Obviously this was a developmental stage, and she did learn to read and is at University now.

We would have a lot of fun with games like "I-spy" and magnetic letters on the fridge. And lots and lots of conversations.

DD knew her alphabet before she was 2. I have no idea how...we didn't teach her. I presume she picked it up from toddler TV/random electronic toys etc.

I don't really remember about the others tbh. We were certainly playing I-spy type games by the time she was 3, but I didn't keep a detailed record.

She learnt to read at around 3.5 in any case.

4! Our horrible private nursery (on hindsight) never bothered with kids' learning, was simply focused on childcare. I realized too late upon our summer-born child joining reception, seeing other children know how to write their names and some even being able to decode some words.
That said, in the few attempts I tried at the age of 3, my child did not show interest at all and I had no intentions to add pressure. That child who struggled a bit in early years is now a bookworm and academically able.

My daughter is nearly 4 and gradually starting to get the idea of I spy.