Ideas for 3.5 yr old re: literacy

[FrozenNorthPole]

DD1 is 3.5, loves books and is alphabet obsessed. She knows her upper case and lower case letters. We do lots of reading of books together but I was wondering whether there's anything else I could do to support her in beginning to read herself? I've no idea whether the phonics-based system (sounding out words) I used when I was at school is still in use and really don't want to teach her the wrong strategy or put her off reading altogether.

Does anyone have any advice or ideas for fun games / resources I should look at? Should I be making sure that I point at each word as I read it? Is it more important to ask comphrehension questions at this point than word recognition? Or do you think it's better to just keep reading books with her as we've always done and save the reading stuff for later ... ?

Clearly clueless, sorry!

The 'read at home' books featuring Floppy the dog are really good.

Phonics all the way! Some schools are still trying to use a mixed method of phonics and 'look and say' but they should ONLY be doing phonics. Get some jolly phonics stuff (lots of schools use this), or floppy's phonics. How is her phonic awareness? Can she play I Spy (ie work out the first sound in words?). If you say C....A.....T can she hear that says Cat? (DS1 could at 3 and learnt to read easily before he started school, DS2 couldn't, he became 'phonic aware' when he was nearly 5), DS3 is 3.7 and just starting to become aware of the sounds in words (literally over the last weekend!), he knows lots of phonics from the letters, but not quite there at hearing sounds and blending them together.

The 'Letters and Sounds' document is very helpful for fun ways to promote literacy skills and present a much broader approach than the superficial Jolly phonics stuff. It focuses on much more practical and fun (therefore more appropriate) approach rather than flash cards & videos. You can download the whole document for free to www.education.gov.uk/publications/standard/publicationdetail/page1/DFES-00281-2007

Something slightly different is storymaking

I am a childminder and we regularly learn stories, actions, make maps, innovate etc

Ds is obsessed by watching Alphablocks which is phonics based and a bearable programme for adults!

I love that someone else is interested in helping their child I too had this same problem so contacted the nursery that my daughter will be starting soon to see how they taught literacy. They use RML and I find it hard to understand but there are some pretty good things online to help understand the sounds.