How to support a pre-schooler with learning to read/write?

[SnugglyJumpersMakeItBetter]

He's starting to show an interest in letters. He recognises his initial, 'M' for Mummy and 'D' for Daddy. I point these out on car number plates and things and tell him the letter name and how it sounds phonetically, but I'm aware that they're capitals and you're supposed to start with lowercase? Basically I'm not at all sure what I'm doing. I know he'll learn it all in school but he won't be going til September next year and he has an interest now, so I'd like to support that. The school do 'Read Write Inc' but that's the extent on my knowledge with their approach!

So, my main questions are:

Are there specific letters you're supposed to start with? I know with Jolly Phonics they focus on a, s, t, i and n first

What do you say to differentiate between upper and lower case? Do you still say 'Big M' and 'Little m' or whatever, or is that outdated now?

I've seen Youtube videos on the correct way to form the lower case letters, but what about upper case? It's his name I'd really like him to learn to write, and I'm very keen he learns the exact right way to do it from the start, with the same phraseology he'll hear at school.

Any tips on learning to hold a pencil properly? At the moment he grabs it in a fist with an 'I DO IT!' but I want to get him into the habit of holding it well. What do you think of those grip things that physically keep the fingers in the right place? Should we be using particularly short pencils, or chunky ones, or triangular ones, as I've seen online?

I was going to print off and laminate a card with his name on that he can trace - which font is best?

Should you teach letters with a tail, or just stick to straight lines?

Any advice much appreciated!

Playdough, messy play, pegs, threading, sand, messy play. Anything play based that develops those muscles in the hands. Lots of coloring, painting, drawing, big chalking opportunities. Big wipe clean books.

Hours and hours of play. Playing with small figures, playing with vehicles, playing with construction toys, playing with creative toys, opportunities to play outside and run and jump.

At this age I would point out letters we see out and about, sing songs (abc ect) during play when he shows interest but would never outright teach them or go down the flashcard route. I would leave that to school, you never know they may change phonics scheme next year. Lots of songs, rhymes and stories.

There's a parents information section on the Oxford owl website (I think) for RWI.

(Actually forming letters is way down the lost of priorities at this point though!)

Read write Inc do a starter pack that might be helpful, it gives an overview for parents. That said, they go through them all on reception so I'd be wary of doing them all now and him becoming bored when he gets to school (personal opinion!).

Tracing letters in sand, shaving foam etc is good for learning letters. The five minute mum on Instagram has some great ideas for fun games to help with letter recognition.

Thank you! Yes, I get the theory that learning through play is best. The thing is, he's a bit of a weirdo, bless his heart, and doesn't really care for 'play' much at all! He's not interested in threading beads or arranging pegs on a peg board or squirting water with pipettes or drawing and painting. He's very quickly bored of chalks and sand/rice tray play and doesn't give a fig for small world toys. I've never met anything quite like it! He's always been much more into gross motor movements - running and jumping and chasing a ball.

I know that it's very early days for learning to read and write and I absolutely don't want to push him. I've seen little ones' self esteem totally destroyed by being labelled 'not good enough' at all that in reception! To my mind we start formal education too early in England! The thing is, he's attempting to 'write his name' on birthday cards and things so I'd like to show him the best way of doing it and avoid bad habits before they start.

The RWI starter pack sounds good! I'll take a look!

My little one enjoyed the magnetic fridge letters, sticking them on fridge and radiator. Might be worth looking up how to pronounce the letters phonetically as that's what they'll do in school. I don't think it matters too much starting with uppercase/ lowercase/ certain letters. We started with uppercase and he hasn't been too confused with the idea that each letter also has a lowercase. Just keep it fun I think!

Does he go to preschool?

I've heard it's better to start with reading and leave writing till later / when they start school.. but apparently Montessori does the other way around.

How old exactly? When is he going to school? Will he/does he go to school nursery? Do you know which system they use for learning to read? Twinkl, RWI, Jolly phonics? Only use RWI if they use it in school.

I would focus on pre reading skills at home. Fine motor skills, google funky finger activity. Gross motor skills are really important to make sure he can still correctly and comfortably at a desk. Listen skills, go on a listening walk - what can you hear, birds, planes? Read lots. Play games with rhyming words.

My daughter started school being able to read very simple books like ‘dad had a sun hat’. If he is really interested then go for it but make sure he can do they other things too.

Just buy phonics readers eg the usbourne ones are read each day, carry on pointing at words day to day and perhaps introduce some flash cards. One of mine was reading at 3 just through these methods no silly phonics. The other (we had moved by then) did synthetic phonics and it was a disaster, she didn't learn until i stepped in at home and used my method

You mentioned he prefers running, jumping, etc. I printed and laminated a set of (lower case) letters, one per A4 sheet, and DD and I do "letter races". I put maybe six or seven of them out round the garden and she and I take it in turns to say the letter and race to be first to reach it. It sounds like that might be something he'd enjoy?

We also do hide and seek with them - I hide them and she finds them and tells me what she's found.

That's exactly the sort of thing he loves! I do it with A4 size shapes now and I'm planning to do it with letters too down the line.

If you know the school uses RWinc then you can get flash cards for that with info on which order the sounds are taught.
I made a postbox from a cereal box with a slot at the front and a door at the back.
Then just starting with the first cards (s a t p i n ?) we went through them and if DD knew them she posted them in the postbox.
When she was confident-ish I added some more, and so on.

Personally I wouldn't do letter names at all, just stick to the sounds. Many children can cope with both but you don't know whether yours will or won't.

Similarly I'd hold off writing letters, especially if you don't know whether your school uses entrance and/or exit flicks. Plus learning them 'wrong' is harder to undo. But things like dot to dots, mazes etc to practice pencil control could be good.

Personally I wouldn't do whole word recognition cards, but encourage phonics. First because it is how school will teach, and second because you need phonics to decode unfamiliar words.

One of mine was mad into learning to read at 3. I was afraid of steering her wrong and everything I read pointed to building pre reading and pre writing skills at that age. Also ball skills for hand eye coordination and building up core strength. We did lots of reading together, Stickers, making up limericks - she loved that. She liked tracing shapes. All of mine liked “writing” at a young age . It was just gobbledygook on a page at first. They all wrote their names with no specific instruction from me.

An improved pencil grip will happen with time. And short crayons apparently help with this.

Im an EYFS teacher and as well as all the ‘play’ activities we have done such as playdough etc here are a few more ‘formal’ activities we have done (although my son hasn’t identified a difference and it’s all led by him and sees it as play, if he doesn’t want to do it then it goes away)

• alphabet puzzle (lower case)
• singing the alphabet whilst pointing to each letter on his puzzle
• Matching the puzzle pieces to alphabet flashcards
• hiding the alphabet puzzle pieces in foil for him to unwrap and name/hide and seek puzzle pieces around the room
• pointed out letters in books e.g meg and mog books are great for having big letters in
• bought him a puzzle with his name on from Etsy (capital first letter and rest lowercase just like his name should be written)
• mixed up his name puzzle and got him to order the letters without using the puzzle to help him with the order
• written his name letters on post it notes for him to order and stick on his puzzle pieces
• bought him a pre writing work book - full of lines and shapes to trace

Think that’s as far as we’ve got so far. Not worrying about capitals/actual reading or letter writing for a little bit until he’s really confident with holding a pencil, has good pencil control, knows all his letter sounds confidently.

I’m going to start segmenting short words out loud to see if he can hear the word next e.g DS can you catch me your b a g?

Does he understand the beginning sounds of words etc? Can he identify the end sounds?

Can he play I spy?

When my DCs were this age I used a company called Story Chest (I think!).

It's wasn't overly expensive. They send you a few books every couple of weeks that you return and receive some more.
The books are based on the premise that the child knows their letter sounds.

My DCs loved them and went into Reception being able to read simple texts.

They're now 17 and 15. God, I miss those days 😂

I should add that the books were not part of a reading scheme that, at that time, was used in the school they were going to.