how to start reading/letters?

[sleeplessinderbyshire]

DD is 2yr 4m. She's started to get really excited about letters and recognising her name written down (eg on her peg at nurserty or on Christmas cards). She often asks me to "write a B for [her name]" or "M for mummy"

Realised she's picking up letters by their real names. My mum has encouraged this a lot too as she did we me and my sister bith of whom read fluently before school age. I realise from on here that the vogue at the moment is for phonics which I must say I do not understand at all. I get the idea of sounding out words to spell them but have always hated the "ah, ber, ce, der, eeee, fur" thing which fortunately missed at school but which drove my sister bonkers (lunchtime detentions for saying "em" not "mmm" when spelling in infant class anyone!)

I'm not pushing reading at all with DD but aware she gets really excited about recognising letters and would like to play along with this new game in a way that will help long term, I just do not think I can bring myself to use "wrong words" and I have no idea how this phonics stuff works. Do I need to get a book for me to learn from or so I just make it up as I go along as I have been so far and trust it'll all work out for when she starts school

anyone?

I always told my lo's that you have the letter name Ay, Bee, Cee, Dee, etc and that those letters make certain sounds a, b, c, d (all short sounds without an 'uh' on the end). Knowing the sounds helps to spell out unknown words whereas just knowing the letter names would not help e.g. CAT would be c-a-t using sounds but would sound out like Cee- Ay - Tee if using the letter name (doesnt sound like the word you are trying to decode at all)

Why do you hate ah, ber, cer etc? That's how letters often sounds in words. I don't think there's anything faddy in helping children to understand how letters sound. You don't have to know much about phonics to pick up on your daughter's natural curiosity.

Surely it's helpful to know M sounds like "mer" sometimes, and not always like "Em" (in fact never?).

Personally I have told DD (now 3.5) that M is "mer" and also "Em" and she doesn't seem that confused. She can now name every letter of the alphabet. I am making it up as I go along and I am happy with that! School can do "proper" phonics but she will be very familiar with the concept of letters making sounds, and being joined together to make words etc.

I just don't like the idea of an older primary school age child saying cat is spelled cer, ahh, tt when they should know the real names for letters, I agree it mustbe helpful to learn both but not that the letters are called by their phoneme more that they sounds oneway and are named another a bit like Mummy is also called sleepless

Then just tell her both - she'll soon pick it up if she's showing interest. I am a complete novice at this, but it seems to me that if learning individual letters is the first stage in learning to read, it's more helpful to pronounce "m" as "mer" than "em".

But at 2.4 years I really think it doesn't matter - the main thing is to foster an interest in learning, reading, imagination etc and to be honest I don't worry that much about the "correct" way of doing anything - I just want my DD to love to learn new things.

but see ay tea doesn't spell anything and please don't teach her cer ahh t

Decompose a few words yourself. What sounds are in 'sat'? Ess Ay Tee?

If you don't want to teach your DD phonemes/graphemes as opposed to letter names then don't teach her at all. Let the school do it. If you do want to teach her then find out a bit about phonics and do it well. I can understand people thinking sight reading is useful. My mother was a teacher in the generation before me and thinks learning sight words is really valuable and I can see her point.

However, thinking that learning letter names is a building block to reading is just nonsence.

*nonsense, obviously!

The Jolly Phonics way of teaching is working a treat with my DD aged 3. Would highly recommend it.

My dd learnt the letter names before the sounds. Maybe if I had known it was done the other way, I would have consciously made her learn the sounds 1st. But having said that, she quickly learnt the sounds. So now, she knows both and doesn't get confused. In the shower we play the 'a goes' game. I ask her 'a goes....?' and she replies 'ah' and then 'b goes...?' she replies 'bur' etc.

I've taught DS and DD1 both. I usually say "the letter called 'ay' says 'ah'." Learning the names was good as we have an American letter songs CD and also watch lots of Sesame Street videos. In the US they don't seem as obsessed by phonics as here.

But they do need to know the phonemes. When my DS is in the mood, he'll talk in phonemes. "mu-uu-mu. I w-ah-n-tu ah ku-i-ss". It drives me insane, but his reading and writing have improved so much since he has started it.

When they start in reception it will all be phonics but by year 2 they'll be encouraged to use the proper names for the letters. If you're uncomfortable with phonics then say for example it's the letter A which makes an ah sound.

My dd is 2yrs and 8mo. She started signing a-z at 16mo and reading the letters at 18mo. She became fluent at 20mo. At 24-ish, she could do upper and lower case. I can't remember exactly what came after but she then learned to read 1-10, count to 30, knows all the primary colors, knows a lot of shapes and now we're doing phonics.

It all started from watching Baby Signing Time ABC signs. We're Americans living in the UK and I've had these DVD series since our oldest was a baby. One of the DVD taught colors, another numbers, etc. In the videos, besides audio and finger spelling, the letters are also shown and that's how mine learned how to read letters. The DVD hit all the right spot, she saw, heard, and moved. We don't have satellite or cable and we used to watched these DVDs everyday, we still do and dd still signs although she talks non-stop.

When dd was 2 I bought an iPad. I downloaded apps with letter, number, colors, shapes, etc quizzes and in a very short time dd learned what I listed above fairly quickly. I update her 'games' on a regular basis so that she won't get bored, and increase the difficulty level, and I can ask her which shape is a parallelogram :)

Letterland do some brilliant flashcards, but be prepared to be bored out of your skull by endless requests to look at the cards. Or is it just me who has a toddler obsessed with anything at all on cards?

FWIW, DD1 is in reception and I got told off slightly by the teacher for not teaching her the letter names alongside the phonics. Obviously she knew some of them, but I had concentrated on the phonics sound and she could read a tiny bit (ie sounding out) but the teacher preferred them to know the name and the sound.

OOH, I forgot - alphablocks. Look on the cbeebies website. I remember DD1 loving that at about 2 and a half, and she kind of absorbed the phonics, iyswim. Then reading eggs when she can use a mouse.

The alphabet song is fun too, but doesn't really help much tbh, until they get on to alphabetical order.

Use different ways of learning, and use the order that is suggested on phonics schemes - it starts S, A, T, P, N, I if I remember correctly. Chalks on the patio, tracing the letter with her finger in sand, playdough, shouting, whispering, pointing the letter out, pretending to be snakes, eating apples, having a dolls tea party etc.

Jolly phonics do a CD which I was underwhelmed by, but school use it.

I bought a book called the ordinary parents guide to teaching reading but found it a bit boring.

DD1 is now a fluent reader, so either we did something right, or she is naturally clever and has overcome having a mum who had no idea what to do :) She kind of went from knowing the odd letter to sounding words out in a sudden jump, then stayed at sounding out until she did another sudden jump to being fluent. I have no idea why, but don't panic if they lose interest for a bit - it is just the way that kids minds work.

My DS1 2 years 9 months is fascinated with letters and wants to "read" like his big brother although this mostly to him means looking at different letter shapes rather than words. Like you we started by encouraging recognition of his own written name e.g. on his peg at nursery, but it was he that suddenly started point out "Th" at the beginning of his name in other words and wanted to find out about other letters... what's that one Mummy?
DS1 loved Jolly Phonics and I think it is probably quite a good way to get to grips with phonics. We had sone of the workbooks for him so DS2 and I look at the letters in them and learn the sounds and the actions for them. The action helps remind them of the appropriate sound and helps their learning. It also helps with the correct phonic sound which is not always as obvious as you think it is e.g. not "muh" but "mmm." Obviously given his age we don't use them as workbooks just a source to look at the pictures, letters and practise the actions. He's picking them up really fast this way and LOVES it. Just been doing it with him since Christmas time and he already knows S, A, T, P, I, N, C, K, E, M, D, G, O, L, U, B. Since we started loooking at these he's also suddenly got good at hearing the first sound in words and playing I-spy in the car etc.
I understand a lot of schools are using Jolly Phonics.

I have found from first hand experience that jolly phonics is one of the most effective ways to teach children to identify phonics and then in time learn to read, The best Jolly phonics you can buy is one with a book and one with a cd, this is Jolly songs and you can pick one up for around £7:00 Hope this helps.jollylearning.co.uk/shop/audio-cd/