Phonics after learning letter names

[polbab]

I was feeling very proud of myself and my 16 month old kid because he had managed to learn the letter names of about 10 letters, but I started to read up about alphabet learning and the consensus seems to be that phonics is the right route. A pronounced ah, b pronounced buh etc. Instead of the letter names Aiy, Bee, See etc which is what I've been doing.

I was thinking of maybe using the knowledge he has to introduce phonics - for instance, "A makes ah sound", much like you would say a cow makes a moo sound, but not sure if that would work.

Should I start again the phonics way, carry on with letter names, or do something else?

Try this first on the tablet.

My DD started singing them at just under 3.

But, 16 months, hmm. Have they enough words/understanding yet?

Definitely phonics as you letter names are of no help when learning to read. Very clever baby!

We home educate and I taught my children both at the same time, mostly because letters often have more than one sound. They picked it up very easily.

@GrouchyKiwi - did you use any particular method? And what age did you do it?

I didn't use a particular method, and the ages depended on how interested each child was.

We used to sing the alphabet song to keep DD1 amused while on the change table as a lovely friend made an alphabet cross stitch for her. So she learned the letter names quite early and I just added sounds when she seemed ready (at 3 or 4, I suppose).

DD2 wanted to learn when she was about 3 because we were teaching DD1 to read at the time. MIL sent us letter flashcards so we'd go through those doing the name and the sounds. It meant that she picked up phonics very quickly when we started teaching her to read (we use the Songbirds series by Julia Donaldson for this).

DD3 (who is 3 now) is more interested in writing letters than learning how to say them right now.

Definitely sounds as you say. Letter names are pointless to learn and quite confusing initially.

Nothing wrong with a kid understanding that letters have names and sounds.

Teach them that letters make sounds. In the same way that dog says woof etc, A says ah. Short vowels first then consonants. The way you mentioned is a solid way. And keep reading and talking to your kid as much as possible.

We taught letter names first then moved on to phonics via alphabet books like Elmo's favourite letter which highlight words that start with the letter name to reinforce phonic sounds.

That was fine. It didn't confuse my daughter. She knew all her letters (capital and lower case) by about 17 months and was decent with phonic sounds by around 2 years old.

After that we did naming words that start with a sound and finding rhyming words for pre-literacy skills and only after she could do all of that easily went into phonics / decoding once she was around 2.5 years old. She can now decode words reasonably well at 3. She loves the cartoonito Jolly phonics DVD.

DS watches Alphablocks and we just talk about which sound each letter makes. They have names and different sounds...like animals and the sounds they make.
However, I wouldn't have bothered when he was that little. We are abroad and he won't start school until he's 6.5, so no point rushing.
He's been counting for a while, though, and enjoys watching Numberjacks and Numberblocks. I primarily teach Maths and ESL and he frequently visits my classroom, so knows Maths equipment such as Base 10 and Numicon as "toys".

By all means start teaching sounds alongside. I taught my DD the letter names at about 1 year as someone gave her a book for her birthday about them. I think she was about 15/16 months when I started telling her the sounds they make, and she didn’t find that confusing at all - as you say, it’s just like learning that the animal is a cow and it says “moo”.

I suppose if you were really desperate to get onto reading as quickly as possible learning the sounds first might be useful, but if a child isn’t developed enough to be able to understand the difference between a letter name and the sound it makes, I doubt they’d be anywhere near cognitively ready to start blending anyway. By the time you get to that stage, it’s likely your DS will be completely comfortable with the name and the sound.

If you’re a letter land fan, it’s definitely useful to be very comfortable with letter names by the time you get to digraphs - the books explain it as you normally pronounce the name of the first vowel e.g. “ai”, “oa” “ie” are all the name of the first vowel.