2 year old and letters

[User8888888]

My 2 (nearly 3) year old has suddenly become really interested in letters and how words are formed. She’s probably got about half the alphabet solidly now and understands m is for mummy etc rather than just learning the letters.

I’m trying to be led by her and not pushing further but she seems like she wants to read (she’s been upset because she can’t read books herself after I put her to bed). At the moment, she’s wanting to guess all the letters on the front cover of a book and then is happy for me to read the story. This feels natural as it’s what she wants to do but I’m worried I’m not doing it properly. I understand schools will be using phonics which is totally unfamiliar to me- I remember learning flash cards with my mum.

What’s the best way of encouraging her interest without pushing too hard and should I be teaching her sounds rather than letters? I don’t want to make life harder for her later if I teach her the wrong way.

They teach mostly by sounds (look at Jolly Phonics) but there is no harm is teaching her letter names too.

The best thing is to go at her pace, teach when she’s interested and also talk a lot about the pictures to tell the story as this is what they are encouraged to do when starting reception.

I think the most useful thing school told us was use the phonic sounds - so it's not 'suh', it's sssssss. Then once they've got that it's much easier for them to sound out words.

Yes yes yes to phonic sounds, make sure you have them down before trying to teach them - nothing worse than teaching children the sound "c c c" to then hear their parents proudly saying "cuh cuh cuh!" in the playground!

Phonic sounds leads to being able to hear sounds in words, which leads to linking those sounds to written letters. :)

Thank you - definitely have some homework for me then to look at phonic sounds.