2 year old - learning alphabet?

[rosepetalsoup]

Does anyone have any advice for good games / books / videos for a 2 and a bit year old who is keen to start learning letters?

Thanks

Just the alphabet song really - most children's tv characters have a version on YouTube and though it will drive you nuts they'll know it v quickly!

My ds taught himself from YouTube videos at a similar age. Hairy letters is a good app, but mostly just point them out in conversation "oh look! There's a 't' on that sign!" We play eye spy now too and think of words starting with certain letters. Id be careful of making it feel like work though, there's no need at this age. Oh!!! And most importantly!! Read everything, read to him all the time!

Try alphablocks on Cbeebies online. Also foam letters in the bath. Play I-spy with the initial sound - finding something starting with 'm'. This site plays the sounds of the letters to you. You probably know that it is important that you don't start by teaching the letter names, but rather the sounds.

Something like this www.elc.co.uk/Lift-and-Look-Alphabet-Puzzle/119144,default,pd.html my dd had an alphabet puzzle shaped like a crocodile with all the letters but they can be a bastard to seperate because of the wriggly shapes

My DD was given a great present when she was around 2 which were thick cardboard cards sort of like flash cards that had a letter and a picture which really helped her remember the sound of the letter by saying what the picture was.
We also had a laminated poster in her room which had the same sort of thing, a picture along with the letter, I think I got it in the ELC.

And most toy shops now do the Orchard Toys series which might be what the above was, they do lots of great educational games starting from 1-2 yrs.

My dd is nearly two. She loves the Barbara Milne song from the sounds like learning cd (we found it on you tube). If you type apple apple aaa with her name you should be able to find it

My dd now makes up her own phonics songs, she sing words and recognises the initial letter sounds herself, such as 'mummy, mummy, m m m'. Singing is great for the memory

I found both my dds learnt the alphabet naturally, just pointing out letters in books and signs and so on. We tried to use the phonics sounds at first as this is what they'll do in school ( can get these on utube). Both started by recognising and sounding their names, then picking out those letters elsewhere, then picking up other letters.

I like the jolly phonics songs on youtube, there are some good tunes there.

Maybe some flashcards?

I downloaded 'letterland' apps, as they were a big part of my childhood learning.
I wasn't expecting DD to use them/be interested, but she was and has picked up the alphabet in a matter of days.
We also use Alphablocks (she is learning some spelling watching old episodes on youtube, again, I wasn't expecting this)
Have also had a go at Jolly Phonics, and DD can again sing all the songs with ease.
We've also had foam letters in the bath since she was small.

She can do her entire alphabet in name, sounds and letterland character name, she can also sing the right jolly phonics song for each letter if she feels like it.

Reading all that back I make it sound like DD is genius or I'm superior.
It just has been that easy, and I think it's because DD did it all in her own way, in her own time.
She LOVES the stories on letterland (There is a story, 2 or 3 songs for each letter, it teaches you to 'write' the letter and some games)

Before the LL apps I'd tried flashcards and some 'baby' alphabet books and just got bored looks!

As other PP have said, start with sounds. I'd taught my twin boys the alphabet 'properly' only to be told I'd taught them all wrong and they needed the sounds instead, they had speech delay, and got on just fine with the alphabet as it was, then got all confused going by sounds and it got very frustrating for them.

My sister has watched 'Busy Beavers' on youtube with her DS and he has been able to sing the alphabet song perfectly for ages now.
It's adorable.
The bloody beavers are so fricking irritating though! Be warned!

Alphablocks, Peppa Pig numbers & letters books. Some play blocks with numbers & letters on. DD could read 1-10 by 2nd birthday & several letters, could read full alphabet by 2.3 & up to 20 by about 2.10. We never pushed her though (she watched too much alphablocks & Numtums & was obsessed with Mr Pusskins Numbers).

You probably know that it is important that you don't start by teaching the letter names, but rather the sounds.

Why do you say this, yetanotherchangename?

Because words are generally made with letter sounds rather than letter names.

Yes, but each letter makes so many different sounds.

There are generally accepted to be 44 phonemes (sounds, or units of sounds within words) in our spoken language but only 26 letters in our alphabet. 20 of these 44 are vowel sounds and we have only 5 vowel letters.

Most of the consonants normally sound like their sound rather than their name though. And ... Sometimes the vowels sound like their sounds ... If that makes sense.

Thanks, I understand what you mean. I just think that telling a child that 'this letter IS the sound ...' is teaching them something that is fundamentally wrong and that they will later have to 'unlearn'. It just introduces unnecessary ambiguity. I believe a better approach is to say 'this is the letter ... and one of the sounds it makes is ...'

yetanotherchangename just sounded so sure of what she was saying that I just wondered if I was missing something.

I've been doing jolly phonics and this tells you not to say the name of the letter, just the sound, and this is what we have done. It's working so far.

We just used the phonics sounds initially, it's what will be taught at dd1s schools so it makes sense to me to use the same system. I'm finding dd1 is picking up the names easily enough.

with all my DC I said this is the letter called and its sound is . Has worked really well for us (But I think jolly phonics is a bit over rated)

Hello - this is all very useful. We've got some alphabet jigsaws and I am torn between saying A is 'Ay' or 'ah' (iyswim). I think I will teach her both.

They learn that a dog goes woof and a cat goes meow. They can learn that 'ay' goes 'a'. That said, Wallykazam is good on Nick Jr.

Just remember to teach sounds rather so A is ah rather than ai otherwise it'll cause problems learning to read.

my DS was 2 when he learnt the alphabet. I made flash cards with the letters on and would spread them around the house. it was his job to hunt for the right letter!
definitely start with phonics though as thats how they learn to read and spell etc.

once they have got a grasp of phonics then you can use "big" letter names as my DS called them.