What next for toddler who knows letters?

[EssentialHummus]

Slightly dreading shrieks of "She's not special, my child was born reading Shakespeare!", but anyway -

DD (21 months) know all her letters (without much input from us) and I'm not sure where to go next with that. As in, she goes up to road signs and says the sounds for all of them. Same when we read books. Same for toys/puzzles/clothes with letters. She clearly enjoys this, and I'm not sure what we can do to help her build on it. Try to show her the link between UC letters (that she knows) and lower case? Show her what happens when you put two letters together? TV shows with letters?

We don't push her (in this or anything else) but she clearly enjoys letters and I don't know what else to offer her to build on her enthusiasm at this age.

Does she go to pre school? If so maybe ask them. Otherwise I wouldn't overthink it really. Baby TV is good for letters and numbers. My boys had Endless Alphabet on their iPads. If you don't like screens then just lots of reading to her.

Watch
Read to her.
Encourage her play and spoken language.

What do you mean by 'knows all her letters'?

Can she say them correctly phonetically? (Sounds) or is she naming them? (like ABC)
Have you taught her or nursery?

Depending on the answers the next step would be blending sounds together such as i.....n = in. She needs to hear sounds first though. Look at phase 1 phonics which includes music and environmental sounds.

Watch Alphablocks, that should say.

Thanks everyone. No, she's not at pre-school/nursery, she's home with me.

Can she say them correctly phonetically?
I think so. I wasn't taught using phonics (so I'm not sure if she's saying them correctly) but she says "Buh", "Cuh", "Duh" etc. I didn't teach her really - we read a lot (at her request) and she kept correctly pointing out the first letter in a sentence after I'd read it. We then bought her a foam letter set for her bath and found that she'd grab individual letters and say what they were.

I'll look up Alphablocks and Endless Alphabet (when I was growing up it was Sesame Street, but that's probably quite outdated now!).

I have 2 children who I home educate so what I would recommend is that she knows the pure sounds of the letters.

They are bouncy and stretchy. So L is llll instead of LUH.

Look up key stage 1 phonics on YouTube and there's a little girls called Sylvie who reads them all out with the proper sounds.

This really helps with blending later!

Thanks mama!

Just read to her lots (she might like alphabet books - we have Kipper’s A-Z and the national trust ABC book, talk with her lots, she might like to watch alphablocks too, if she asks what things say then tell her. Unless she’s asking for more then I wouldn’t push it at that age, there’s a huge difference between being able to repeat letters or numbers and truly understanding what they mean. My middle child can count to 25 by saying the numbers in order but couldn’t count a group of more than 5 or 6 objects or make a group of 5 objects.

What @mamahanji says it the most important thing! There's no point her saying them incorrectly, it'll be really hard to get her out of it. Just check the videos. Especially L, F, H, M, N and R. Xx

Jolly phonics songs for the sounds are on YouTube if you want to check you're saying them right. She might be bored in school tho if she learns all the songs now.

We have an excellent play school and they focused more on lateral learning than ABC 123 which they will do in school. They did do a lot of sensory work, e.g. tracing numbers, writing in sand.

Can do so much like baking (includes numbers for measuring), wildlife, flowers, bees, different countries and cultures, dinosaurs etc etc

Days of the week
Months of the year
Animals
Shapes 2d and 3D
Plants
Seasons and the weather
Feelings and expressions (this is probably the biggest one)
Counting and counting in 2s, 5s and 10s
Phonics including 'sh. Ch. oo. Ck. ng. Nk.

She's probably young for most of that. But those are what I think are important for children to know. None of which require sitting down at a table and doing worksheets.

If you are looking for something to do with her. I really really enjoy using sign language with mine. I think it's a life skill everyone should have. And they pick it up so quickly as they're already learning things anyway so it all just becomes natural with them.

Mine occasional sign instead of talk if they're exceptionally tired and will sign milk and hug and cuddle. As it's so ingrained in their communication.

Feel free to pm me if you want anymore ideas or anything.

Try her on Brexit

Just make sure she is saying them correctly
It’s not buh
It’s bbbb
There’s no uh sound on the end
Also, teach her lower case, not upper case

That’s amazing. How does she correct you on a letter without having been taught what the letter is in the first place?

If you’re in the UK you need to teach her phonics otherwise she will be treated as if she can’t read them. You can get phonics books on Amazon that can sound out each letter. The next step beyond that would be to get her reading and doing maths too. It’s possible if she’s interested. DN was reciting his tables up to 5 (and showing me the reasoning behind his answers) as well as reading simple books by the time he was 2-2.5.

Now she needs to begin to realise how sounds make up words and be able to differentiate between different sounds.
Look at phase 1 of the letters and sounds document. Help her to play with alliteration and rhyme and lots of blending and segmenting.
I do this with ds a lot. E.g go and get mummy your c-oa-t , s-o-ck etc
You can eventually begin to link this to the letter shapes (graphemes) when reading simple words to model this to her.

Lots of the children in my reception class knew the letter sounds but could not orally blend or segment. They took a lot of work to get them reading.
The few that could orally b&s bit knew no letters picked up reading much faster.

Thanks teddy and winky. I've just found that letters and sounds document, having a read. teddy, do you have any recommendations for particular phonics books at a very very basic level? Or a particular series?

Thank you for all the ideas mamahanji, apologies, I thought I'd replied sooner. DD's development is a bit all over the place, esp. with language, because DH speaks to her in his native language and I speak to her in English - so on the one hand she knows letters and this past week has started saying things like hot and cold/high and low, on the other hand she's fairly average on speech and will come out with words in the other language a lot of the time (which I understand is normal, she'll distinguish the two in time).

Thank you all again.

I think maybe start with Jolly Phonics Read and See Basic (can usually find a set on amazon) and then go from there.

It made me smile just visualising your little one saying sounds in bath. How cute! I would just carry on reading for fun as you are doing now. My DD was really into letters and sounds like yours. We read Biff Chip and Kipper series for bedtime stories (without an intention to ‘educate’ but for fun) and she just sort of picked up letter sounds & blending sounds and started reading simple words when she turned 3. She now reads really well for her age and rarely needs adult’s help when she reads a book. She’s starting reception this year.

We speak two languages at home as well. I speak my mother tongue and DH speaks English. I sometimes wonder whether this dual language environment has had effect on her love for reading?