Gaargh - the alphabet..

[festivalwidow]

I could use some Mumsnetter wisdom here!
So... DD is 2, sings Jolly Phonics songs about ants on her arm and clicking castanets at nursery and was apparently very quick to pick it up.
At home, we've had magnetic letters for DH and I for ages, which DD developed an interest in a while back and which, prior to Jolly Phonics, I showed her as a 'this is an A, and your cousin Adam's name begins with A.' She seemed interested at the time, I had no idea what, if any, was going in but if it kept her happy I would go with it.
Soon enough she could recite the alphabet as I learned it - ay, bee, cee, dee, ee, eff, gee - and can pick up a letter and say 'A is for Adam' or whatever. (The results are haphazard but she seems to get the idea with letters and names she knows well)

There was an amusing argument (lots of 'a's in that one) between DD and her older cousin on whether the alphabet should be 'read' as 'ay, bee, cee' or 'ah, buh, cuh', which I thought was hilarious but which worried my SIL. Now my SIL informs me I have irrevocably damaged my DD's chances by teaching her the 'wrong' way of learning the alphabet, and worse, that she can spell her name 'wrongly' but not phonetically.

Have I? Do I need to stop the cute 'A is for Adam and D is for Daddy' and say 'no darling, AH is for Adam and DUH is for Daddy - we don't say 'ay bee cee' any more'? ? They're not worried at nursery, for what it's worth.

I wouldn't be worried in the slightest. She'll learn both ways eventually. AFAIK most schools do phonics when reading and figuring out how to spell something but for spelling tests/checking they use the letter names. That might just be the schools round here.

Each letter has a letter name and a sound. She'll sort that out no problem but you can back it up and help her make the connections. (that's a letter Ay, it makes the sound a)

SIL sounds a bit purist, and silly to be honest.

My dd know's the abc song, and recognizes them when we do her alphabet puzzle board. Think it's different here in Oz, but she recognises both numbers and letters.
When I was training as a nursery nurse 18 years ago the kids who started in the 4+ unit didn't know their numbers, letters, colurs and were still learning them.

Thanks everyone. Predictably, DD solved the problem herself by singing 'the 'En's on the bus go nnn nnn nnn' last night, so we'll stick with what we're doing at the moment. I foresee some linguistics mischief coming up..
'The Os on the bus go o! or Oh!'
'The Oughs on the bus go ow, uff, oo, oh, off...'
'The schwas on the bus go [ - ] [ - ] [ - ]'

ROAR at linguistics partic Oughs

v good

My almost 2yo is similarly fascinated with letters at the moment and I do the "A is for apple and Alex and aeroplane" and sometimes (when we're not in public) I do a little song about A sounding like ah but I figure, he's 2 and I don't know the "right" phonics anyway and it's still called "A" (ay) and he would sound a wally doing the alphabet as "ah buh cuh" anyway....

Your SIL is a wee bit crazy. Of course her DD isn't "irrevocably damaged" - how ridiculous!

DS could sing the alphabet song (ay bee cee dee etc.) way before any of the letters made any sense to him - he's 4.7 now and has just started to get the hang of letters having any actual meaning (not for want of trying, but he was so utterly not interested that I didn't want to push him in case it turned him right off - preschool has really helped it come together for him).

Proper pmsl at oughs on the bus

Why not teach her A is 'ay' and a is 'a'? Or just don't teach her anything and don't worry?

My DS is the opposite- he only knows phonetic sounds. Your DD will have to learn the phonetic sounds and my DS will have to learn the letter names. It doesn't really matter which you start with, it will balance out. It is very trendy in the UK to start with phonics, but in the US they still start with letter names. Kids in both countries learn to read!

The only slight difference is that if you do phonics first a DC can start to read sooner. My DS is now doing a tiny bit of blending (eg h o t- hot m u m- mum) which he wouldn't be able to do yet if he'd done letter names first. Is that a big deal though at 2?? Not really!

So don't worry. Your DD will be completely fine and she sounds like she will sort it out for herself!!