phonics for a 3yo?

[MathsMadMummy]

hello folks

DD just turned 3, and while I wasn't really planning on starting phonics for ages, she's suddenly got really interested in letters and their sounds.

so I thought I'd pick your brains. any fun ideas?

I used to draw chalk letters out side and yell a letter. Then they run to that letter and make the sound.

If you don't mind her using the laptop, we use a website called starfall with our 3 year old which has different stages. Stage 1 has little videos introducing each letter and the sound it makes. We're also using progressive phonics but he doesn't have much interest in that at the moment.
Mostly we're just reading, reading, reading and doing things like sounding out titles of books. He also really likes the preschool workbooks which we do a page a day. He asks to do them

Try to keep written letters to lower case

Talk about sounds so 'i spy something beginning with ssss (not 'ess') or 'mmm' (not 'emm' or 'ma').

Enjoy playing with language and highlighting the sounds of words - mmmmmummy! and lalalala. Songs too.

Various ideas.

Potato prints. Cut out letters and let your DD splat them all over the paper. DS was interested at a very young age, and we used to invent things for each letter (e.g. 'w-w-w-w-walking across the page', or 'j-j-j-jumping across the page' and so on).

Drawing letters in soil with sticks.

Squidgy foam bath letters. I used to hop them up and down on the edge of the bath, calling out their sound so he could pick who got drowned.

Make letters with Lego/Mega Blocks.

Disclaimer: I wouldn't have done this with a child who wasn't desperate to know. I wouldn't, and didn't, use any electronic aids either, but that's entirely personal choice.

DD wasn't desperate to know, so I never did any of the above with her. The only ones she liked were me making a letter in golden syrup on her porridge, and me making letters in writing icing on buns. She's more interested in food than letter sounds.

Agree with sticking to lower case!

ooh great ideas thanks

specific question about upper/lower case. she actually learnt capitals (their letter names) at around 18m, accidentally from a computer thing DH's kids gave her.

now we're doing sounds we're doing lower case, but when do you introduce capitals? would it be too confusing to leave it too late? I'm hoping she'll start recognise her name, which obviously needs a capital letter...

I did read something about a mummy letter (caps) and a baby letter (lower)...

I used Letterland with mine when they were little. It's a really friendly system (much nicer than Jolly Phonics) and the videos were bearable!! Don't know if you can get them on DVD now, though!

I noticed some of the story books in a Publishers' Clearance bookshop recently too!

I'd do lots of music, listening and clapping/drumming to beats, and listening to the rhythm in spoken words too

I'd say the opposite actually - stick to capitals! Easier to write if she wants to write young.

However, you will find with subsequent siblings that there is no way of censoring what they get first, or second or whatever in terms of introduction to reading. Children don't learn in a linear way, they learn in a higgeldy-piggeldy way, but somehow it all comes together when they're ready. Mine have all learnt letter names first, with sounds added in when it's been relevant to helping them to learn. None of them learnt phonics first. DD1 learnt to read on her own aged 5 and, now 7, is an avid reader; DD2 (5.5)) is slower than her sister, but is at the stage they would expect her to be in at school. DD3 (3.5) is beginning to learn her letter names and is already starting to match upper case to lower case. They don't get confused, or if they do, it doesn't matter - they'll get it eventually.

Get hold of 'Read With Me: An Apprenticeship Approach To Reading' by Liz Waterland for a really, really good understanding of how children actually acquire the skills to read - in what order etc. And 'Games for Reading' by Peggy Kaye is great for ideas.

One of those foam mat alphabet sets is a great resources for games; and fridge magnets. Just immerse her in a world of letters and words and keep telling her what they are and/or what they sound like and she'll learn it.

Matching games; and spot the difference are also good for learning to read; sorting things. Anything that gives them practice at looking carefully at things to identify them. Later on, a nice game to make is loads of two letter words stuck down on a file folder, with the same words printed onto card, and to match them up. My DD3 (3.5) likes a game I made like this for her big sisters, which is meant to be like bingo, but she just matches the words - four and five letter words. She's not reading them, but she's having to pay close attention to them - each card has 6 rhyming words on, so they all look similar.

Oh and we say 'big letters' and 'small letters' and gradually use the correct terms more and more often. DD1 wrote in randomly upper and lower case for quite a long time, then decided she wanted to learn cursive handwriting, and now writes beautifully, IMO

And I made a game I got off evil sparklebox before I found out it was evil but you could make it easily yourself - tiny 2-piece 'jigsaws' with upper case on the top and lower case on the bottom, for them to match up.

And have a wall chart with the alphabet on - doesn't need to be fancy or have pics or anything, they just need something they can refer to easily to remind themselves what the letters look like - something that's there the whole time.

Oh yes, we talk about 'big' letters and 'small' letters (and obv it comes naturally as in names/computer etc). But lots of parents do the 'writing in capitals' thing and well... it just jars for me IMVHO. Having said that, I know a little girl who reads and writes AMAZINGLY for her age, and she writes capitals, so .

We have only done wall-charts and alphabets and that for a few months tbh (she is 4 and just sounding out writing and reading now, though has been able to write her name/Mummy/Daddy etc for ages - not me, playgroup taught her). So would whole-heartedly agree with the just enjoy it and don't worry too much advice. We see letters and sounds all around us, just point out links and things I reckon.

Although actually, I had an alphabet chart on my bedroom wall when small and I used to use it to make up lots of games . And my Smarties wallpaper was fun for making as many words as you can out of 'smarties' . So words and letters everywhere!

Although I don't follow Steiner, they say that if your child is desperate to write young, then teaching them capitals makes it easier to write legibly. When they have enough pen control to write lower case letters, then they can add them in until they're all lower case. My DD1 did this seamlessly.

thanks all lots of fun ideas.

I'm not sure about writing yet as she's not ready IMO. we're starting to do patterns like zigzags and she's good at following dotted lines/mazes closely, but the line isn't smooth if that makes sense.

Another advocate of 'Letterland' here. Started all of mine reading using these books before moving onto Jolly Phonics when they were a bit older.

Steiner. Eek.. be careful mentioning that here.

To be fair, dd has pretty decent motor skills so hasn't had too much trouble with writing lower-case (she wrote her brother's name upside down - ie from my perspective- for me this morning ). I just hate seeing little kids writing capitals - looks like shouting...

YOu don't have to swallow the whole crappy steiner ethos to take some of the ideas and use them - some of them are good!

My oldest wanted to write very young; my 5yo has only been wanting to write for a few months and has gone straight to lower case for most of her letters as she's older and has more control.

We love the BBC Alphablocks.
I bought a nice letter chart and put it on the wall at my son's level.
We mainly use letter sounds rather than anything else, but because we use Boowa and Kwala (French, in the English translation) and Dora the Explorer, we are aware of capitals and even cursive.
www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/alphablocks/
www.boowakwala.com/
www.nickjr. co.uk/
The other big thing of course is to read to your child lots.

I would concur with IHeartJohnLewis is saying I wouldn't have done all this without it being driven by the child.
DS1 is now 4 and we are using Oxford Reading Tree now.