Learning letters

[Bumperlicioso]

DD is 2 next month and she has these foam letters that you stick in the bath (thought they might keep her amused). Anyway she wants to name them so I have been telling her what they are but I realised that they don't actually learn letter names as such when they go to school do they? Should I tell her the phonics rather than the letters?

I know it seems stupidly early, and I promise I am not trying to hothouse her or anything, the letters were 50p from an NCT sale and I thought she would enjoy them. But her speaking is really coming along and she wants to name things all the time. I just want to make sure I am doing it the right way so I don't confuse her for when she starts school.

You all think I'm horribly pushy don't you?

Yes, they use the phonics in school, not the namers.

They should learn the phonics sounds not the letter names. But don't try and push her, just let her play with them.

Fwiw, my ds2 is just turned 3, and he is having speech therapy for rubbish speech. But he knew his letters by age 2.3, so it doesn't always follow that speech goes along with reading etc. Just make it a fun thing for her, and stop as soon as she doesn't want to do it. With ds2, I didn't 'teach' him them, I was just trying to get him to practise making different sounds, so we did it with letters, and he just learnt them straight off. I was shocked when a child with no speech pointed out the sign outside NEXT, and read off the letters!

There has already been a thread on this exact topic today! Spooky

Thanks feenie, I'll check that thread out - v spooky!

Don't worry though, I'll not push her, she seems to be finding them quite fun at the moment. She won't be spelling much though as she has shoved all the 'i's into an empty shampoo bottle!