captials v lower case - letters for beginners

[rosebunch]

Hoping more experienced mums can help me on this one. My ds was given an embroidered wallhanging of decorated capital letters for his first christmas and we got into the habit of pointing out letters and saying "C for car", "L for Lorry" or "V for van" etc (you can tell what ds is primarily interested in!). The result is that ds now recognises about half of the alphabet in capital letters. (hang in here - this is not a smug Mum post!). We are obviously quite pleased with this but haven't really been encouraging or discouraging either way. However, several things I've read recently, including the Mumsnet guide to learning to read, suggest that it is much better, not to say, important that your child concentrates on lower case rather than capital letters, particularly at the beginning. I just want to know from Mums with older children whether this is right and if so, why. Is it better to stick to lower case letters until they are firmly embedded in your child's mind?

but surely words do actually start with the 'uh' sound??? still not sure why I'm really that fussed - DS will pick up what he does at home and then school can teach him whichever way they want to - and I'll duly 'follow' that route )saying that I can't believe he'll be starting school in September - where did my baby go???

Davros

Can you give any more examples? I seem what you mean from your example with "s" but every other letter I've thought of following your post, I've ended up saying "muh", "kuh" etc.

kateandthegirls - my 2 year old is the same. She plays with loads of different types of toys and non-toy items, but her Leappad and her VTech VSmile are great favourites too and she does learn from them in a fun way.

Should be
"mmmmm" not "muh"
"fffff" not "fuh"
"lllll" not "luh"
"nnnnn" not "nuh"
"vvvvv" not "vuh"
"zzzzz" not "zuh"

But you can say B or H for instance without sounding "uh" at the end

Schools and nurseries teach lower case letters first. This is because children can learn to recognise word shapes this way. Start with the sounds of letters first or both name and sound. This is what we do in the nusery where I work and I aws taught at college to do this.

Recognising all 26 letters is quite difficult for some children, after all the difference between say 'd' and 'b' are quite subtle, or 'c' and 'o'. Many young children who struggle to read, are struggling because they don't have a sound knowledge of the letter shapes and the phonic sounds that go with them.

If you teach 26 (upper case) completely different shapes (OK a few are the same and a few are similar) then it just makes the task of reading doubly difficult.

Marialuisa - I chuckled when I read your post: We've never had leappad either! When are you moving btw? Is it Easter?

Have you considered joining us at the Sheffield Spa? Or do you think you're going to be sick of the sight of the M1 by that point?! It would be great to meet you if you did fancy it.

but lets face it roision - how many parents DO actually teach their children letters before school - most gets left up to the teachers anyhow.

my DS1 taught himself the 'big' letters - so what am I supposed to do - discourage him and try and confuse him with the small ones? Or let him learn the 'proper' way when he gets to school???

Yes, Gwenick, that's how I feel. If ds hadn't been interested and started to remember the letters, we would have left it up to the school to do eventually. It was only that he has learnt a number of letters but at the same time I started seeing a number of articles about lower case letters being better. I suddenly began to wonder whether the capital letters were going to muddle him up later and I didn't know whether to encourage him to unlearn them (which seems crazy) or to try and introduce lower case letters. Now he's started I think we may as well stick to capitals and look at lower case in a year or two if he is still interested.

My mother (reception teacher) told me that the thing I must not do is teach DS to write just capitals. She tells me that it is hard to re-teach these children to write, as they think they know how to write, and so are frustrated by the process. So if you are teaching your child to write his name (e.g. on artwork) he should write Dan (or whatever his name is), not DAN.

She also told me to use letter sounds, not names, and prefered the use of lower case rather than capitals in toys etc. But she was less bothered about that than not teaching them to write in capitals. She's normally pretty laid back and 'each to their own', so I suspect it does make a difference on learning to write.

Clearly, no-one should 'unlearn' capitals, as they are essential!

i teach in primary school and here are a few pointers for littlies

call them 'lower case' and 'upper case' letters right from the beginning

tell your children the name and the sound of the letters from the beginning...'It's name is Ess and it makes the sound ssssss"

follow davros's phonetic alphabet (see above) as muh-a-nuh doesn't spell man whereas mmmm a nnnn does. iyswim

buy Jolly Phonics from ELC as this is what most UK schools use now.

hth

Thanks - that is really helpful and, don't worry SoftFroggie, we are a long way off writing yet!!

PS but I'll bear your point in mind when we do get to writing.

Hi Roisin,
We're moving in 3 weeks (agh!) as I needed to start my job before April 1st to get an increment this October . I hadn't seen the thread about Sheffield but I think I'll have to give it a miss this time as it will be the end of DD's first week at her new school, suspect we'll need somerestful family time. Would love to meet you at some point though!

Hope the move goes well for you!