What is the best age to teach a toddler how to read using Phonics?

[Beth1234]

Hey all again :)

Just wondering what the best age is to start teaching a child how to read? Is 3 a bit too young? While I believe it is still very young, I've also heard about kids being like sponges up until a certain age and so no harm in introducing it to them, especially those who seem to be interested. At that age I believe the best way is to make a game out of it, only for about 10-20 mins a day, 3-4 times a week. Anyone taught their kid how to read at such a tender age? If so is it a good idea? Of course bearing in mind, let a kid be a kid and do as they please the rest of the time.

What are your thoughts?

Thanks heaps in advance

Beth xxx

www.thesoundlearningcentre.co.uk/diagnosis/central-auditory-processing-disorder-capd/

www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/t.d.griffiths/griffiths_curropinneurol_2002.pdf

The nature of Central Auditory Processing Disorder in children 2010

I would really be inclined to leave the formal teaching using phonics to someone who is trained. At home, I would read to your DC, even books where the vocab might seem a bit advanced for a 3 yo, such as Beatrix Potter books. When reading, you could run your finger under the lines in the book. You could also point out names of shops, names of cars, street signs, traffic signs, cereal boxes, etc., (name of anything that uses a consistent and recognisable symbol), ask the DC to identify things you see when you're out together, and also do a lot of singing and reciting of rhymes.

Medical Research Council Auditory Processing Disorder

Nature of Auditory Processing Disorder in Children

Which phonological memory measure distinguishes children with from children without auditory processing disorders?

Two classes of auditory processing disorder (APD) in children

Biological Markers of Auditory Gap Detection in Young, Middle-Aged, and Older Adults

Psychometric profile of children with auditory processing disorder and children with dyslexia

Childhood auditory processing disorder as a developmental disorder: The case for a multi-professional approach to diagnosis and management

Rapid acoustic processing in the auditory brainstem is not related to cortical asymmetry for the syllable rate of speech

[[https://www.thieme-connect.de/DOI/DOI?10.1055/s-0029-1246122 Short-Term Sentence Memory in Children with Auditory Processing Disorders
A Group Comparison]]

Effect of auditory training on the middle latency response in children with (central) auditory processing disorder

And many more
CiteULike Audiology and Auditory Processing Disorder - library 265 research papers by year of publication

i haven't read all of this thread but i didn't do any formal teaching with my DD aged 5 until reception. I read to her daily for fun but left all teaching for school and her teacher said she preferred that - it hasn't done her any harm as she's now in the top group in class. Personally i think you need to enjoy their time at home and whilst i now do work with her on her reading, daily, she understands why because of school - before hand i don't think she'd have enjoyed it and would have gotten bored. Plus if you teach them the wrong way it leads to more problems.

Dolfrog - strange that in teaching some 100 struggling children how to read, just one had APD difficulties and, before I left the area, I recommended the Tomatis Centre to him. Maybe others had APD but they all, with the exception of 3 children, learned to read with synthetic phonics. Two of the three only had a few lessons, so any judgment about their difficulties is premature.

As the children came from the bottom 20%, it would appear that around 1%-2% of ALL children have such severe APD, that sound-based, synthetic phonics will need to be augmented with specialist training.

At one point you used to say that 20% of children could not benefit from rigorous phonics instruction. Now you say that it is 10% of children. Many schools teach ALL their children how to read, using synthetic phonics instruction.

My son is three and I started him gently on Phonics with a couple of BBC Ceebies letters and sounds DVDs around the time he turned 3. He enjoyed the DVDs and quickly showed interest in sounding out letters when he saw them. He learned all the letters and sounds remarkably quickly. I slowly progressed onto making simple three letter words for him to read using a pack of letterland cards (individual letter on each card). I think if you start teaching the letters and sounds using a fun DVD, some games etc you will quickly find out if your child is ready and interested at age 3. If they are not don't force it. If they are just take it gently and incorporate reading of simple words into everyday activities that stimulate their interest (looking at road signs, running your finger along simple words in a book as you sound them out etc). My son's nursery have now started teaching him phonics using different methods and materials but he's way ahead of them. However, I don't think there's any harm at all in starting the teaching before the school or nursery starts even if their methods are different to yours. Learning the same thing in different ways will just consolidate their learning in my view. It hasn't done my son any harm to be taught phonics differently at the nursery, it's just reinforced what he has learnt already. Oh, and our nanny taught my son his alphabet (the traditional names of the letters rather than the sounds) using the capital letters rather than lower case when he had just turned two. You would have thought that would be confusing when learning the phonics sounds later using lower case letters wouldn't you? Well it was....for about five minutes! He quickly understood the differences once I explained it. Any confusion your child gets from different learning methods can be easily discussed and explained so that the problem is quickly overcome. All learning methods can be integrated and work together.

allchildrenreading

you seem to know me, I always use the same internet name have done for 12 years now, you on the other hand seem to need to use different IDs to hide behind.

You have failed to demonstrate that you have any understanding of Auditory Processing Disorder (APD), or the needs of children who have a clinical diagnosis of APD. There is no cure for APD, and that applies to the Tomatis program, and the programs that have followed.
I am not sure where the 20% comes from, but it could include other forms of cognitive disability that are best suited to using phonics as a form of instruction.

Those who have APD will like me learn to read despite phonics based instruction. You obviously have some interest in the increased sales of phonics teaching programs, and little or no interests in the cognitive learning needs of children, especially those who have a disability such as APD.

So i would suggest you use your marketing hype for your phonics program interests for the market place, and leave the medical issues to the medical professionals and international researchers who have the best interests of childrens cognitive needs as their aim

Dolfrog: I believe you were challenged by an 'Auditory Teacher' later known as 'Reading Solutions', in the States. She is a phonics' adviser, teacher, student of reading, with an adopted daughter with ADP and I believe disputed your findings. She has no programme.

It was you, many years ago, who gave the figure of 20% of children unable to benefit from phonics teaching. I am merely disputing your inflated figures and would suggest that only between 1%-2% cannot learn to read with a rigorous synthetic phonics programme. The children referred to me, or who came via recommendation, could not read because they were muddled and confused by 'mixed methods', Whole Word learning etc. It was the alphabetic code learning that transformed their understanding in parallel with the development of their reading skills.

It must be difficult for you to hold down a full-time job, raise a family, and campaign. Many of us have been in a similar position and many campaigners began with the massive problems their own children experienced with Whole Word/Language teaching.

There is no cure for APD

I think Indigobell and her wonderful dd would beg to differ, Dolfrog.

:)

But DD did not have a dx of APD.

Whether or not she would have got a dx of APD if she'd been assessed at GOSH we'll never know......

But at the same time anyone who has a dx of APD and has not tried AIT won't know if AIT would cure/improve them or not......

(So yes, I believe that anyone who has a dx of APD or believes their child may have APD would be best off doing AIT....)

Returning to the OP, I started introducing synthetic phonics to my DC around the age of 2, as and when an opportunity presented itself during our normal reading, literally in 15 second chunks. By the time they started school, aged 4 years and a week or two, they had a good grasp of the basics, could read a bit here and there, and were reading very fluently by the end of reception.
I don't think that being well prepared was a problem for them - on the contrary, I knew that they were very likely to start school as slow runners, clumsy throwers, with lower than average concentration and pen control skills, and dodgy bladder control, and there was little I could do to help improve those weaknesses without a time machine, but I could ensure that there was something they could shine in, and I'm sure that made the school days less daunting for them.

A lovely story and well done for preparing your children so well and with such a light touch.

Ive been teaching my daughter phonics since her first word like saying ahh ahh apple or do you want a ba ba banana so Id say anytime is good dont wait till they go nursery start them young like reading.

Toddlers are learning new things all the time, so why not phonics !
So just teach phonics in the same way as colours , counting ,sorting etc .
Whilst reading to your toddler point to the FIRST letter, and say the sound, of their own name and short words that they can already pronounce well.Only try 2 or 3 letter sounds and then build up slowly ...no need rush,just have fun :)
Start with 3 letter words such as cat ,dog ,pig etc. and once the toddler gets the hang of first letter sounds gradually introduce the end and then middle sounds .
Most children around 2 years old will soon get excited about the letters that they can recognise in their favourite stories .
I know from experience that this works and provides a good start to reading .

I am 'teaching' my dd to read because she is really interested. I am not really doing phonics (which I don't particularly agree with anyway). We are just reading simple books and spotting words. She knows 'oo' and can now spell out 'm-oo-n' and 'b-oo-k' etc; I am showing her how to do the same with words like bed and 'ee' words.

It's fun and she loves it - but we are doing it when we read stories as and when it happens naturally. 'Reading' is just another activity that we are doing. DD is 4.25 and has an older sister who is really into books. She would not have been interested at 3, though I know some kids are.

Reallytired: "I have to admit it worries me when someone says that their nearly two year old is obcessed by letters. I knew a little boy who was like this and later on he was diagnosed with autism."

Meow! Is it possible that other people's kids are just more intellectually advanced than yours? Unless you're an expert - and knowing one kid affected by autism doesn't make you an expert - then don't go around diagnosing people please.

I am not really doing phonics (which I don't particularly agree with anyway). We are just reading simple books and spotting words. She knows 'oo' and can now spell out 'm-oo-n' and 'b-oo-k' etc; I am showing her how to do the same with words like bed and 'ee' words.

So, if you are 'not doing phonics' (and is there any compelling reason why you don't 'agree' with phonics?) just what are you describing here?

"Meow! Is it possible that other people's kids are just more intellectually advanced than yours? Unless you're an expert - and knowing one kid affected by autism doesn't make you an expert - then don't go around diagnosing people please."

I didn't think ReallyTired was diagnosing anybody. Just giving anecdotal evidence that is everywhere on MN.

I wouldn't ever suggest that a child who is being taught to read is intellectually more advanced. That's not necessarily the case at all.

I reckon the absolute and most important thing is just to read to your very very young children as often as possible and not bother them with active teaching.

I reckon ASDX2 has it right.

Let them enjoy hearing you read to them, picking up cadence, pronunciation etc. It won't be long before they won't want you to read to them at all. .

I don't know when ds1 learnt to read - he could well before he went to school though. The Head asked me in a somewhat astonished (and indeed accusatory) tone in his first week "Did you teach E to read?!" I simply replied no! Never taught him at all. Read with him and stuff, and had told him what the letters were, but had never shown him how words were formed or anything like that. He just picked it up.

It might be down to his phenomenal memory - he recognised the shape of the word and remembered it.

The earliest example of him reading something was when he was around 3.5. I was driving him back from my uncle's, down the M3. Suddenly there was a shout from the back seat as we drove past a juntion "You're going the wrong way Mummy! Salisbury was that way!"

We had never driven that route before (and I wasn't wrong btw, was just going a different way round ). I was

Going for the same approach with ds2, with him learning phonics when he gets to school.

There is a great pre-school literacy and numeracy class in my area called "Little Bright Sparks".

Have a look at this web site www.babysign.org.uk and click on the little bright sparks tab. They teach phonics, numbers shapes and colours using fun games, toys and songs. Nothing wrong with giving your little one a head start before they start school, it just makes them more confident learners.

we live in SA and DS1 will be 5 in July. Had we still been living in the UK he would have been at school since last september. The school system here is a little later than in the UK with formal learning not starting until the January you are 5 turning 6, and the emphasis is still more on learning through play. We have had DS1 tutored each week as there was a strong chance we would have to send him to the International School in January, where he would be assessed against a peer group that had been formally learning since August 2010, and we didn't want him to be incredibly behind.

He has taken to reading and writing fantastically and our tutor is using a mix of phonics and sight words. DS2 (3.3) wants to do everything his big brother is doing and sits in on the lessons - he's now starting to read and really enjoying it.

The problem we now have is that DS1 will be going into the normal system here in January, which uses the three cue system for reading, combined with word recognition - no phonics teaching at all. Either DS1 will be streaks ahead, or he will have to unlearn everything he has done.

I guess the message is if you are going to do it, make sure the method fits in with where your DC will go to school, and make sure it's child led!

Good luck

Teach a toddler to read 20 min at a time, 3 times per week?? Are you joking? IMO that's an utter wast of time and may put them off. That time is better spent talking to them about everything you see or do, take them to the park, the museum, the shops ... reading stories and whatever they want. This will give him a great vocabulary, language skills and understanding of the world - a much better head start to eventually start reading than trying to teach letter sounds.

allchildrenreading

I have only used the UK Medical Research Councils figure of 10% of children who have Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) and those who have APD have a deficit in processing the gaps between sounds, the gaps between sounds that make up words, and the gaps between words in rapid speech.
Which makes phonics a nonstarter.
There are other medical conditions such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and other cognitive differences which prevent many other children from using Phonics based programs.

'Auditory Teacher' later known as 'Reading Solutions', in the States was not a qualified audiologist, not a speech and language pathologist, not an optometrist, and as such would not be able to determine which cognitive abilities preferences her daughter used to learn to read.
The poor quality of teaching is due to the lack of understanding of how we read.
We use both the lexical (whole word) and sublexical (phonics) processes when performing the tasks of reading, which has been identified by neurological research, and the large problem is having adequately trained teachers able to teach both processes, and able to teach both processes to all children.
You have invented your own figures to justify the use of a phonics only policy which is pure marketing to sell phonics based programs and which has no scientific support.

Most children will learn to read regardless of the teaching program used. Those who have the one of more of the cognitive subtypes of dyslexia auditory, visual, and attentional will require different support program due to the various cognitive deficits they may experience. Those who have visual processing deficits will probably benefit from a phonics or sound based teaching method, and those who have a auditory cognitive deficit will benefit from a whole word or visually based teaching method, and some may prefer a kineasthetic approach.
You are trying to sell a one size fits all approach to sell your phonics programs and there is no one size fits all, due to human nature and the variety of congitive differences and cognitive deficit/ disorders

Feenie

There is no cure for APD if you have any suggestions I am sure that the UK Medical Research Council and US Ammerican Speech-Langauge Hearing Assocation (ASHA) would love to hear from you as it could save them millions in research.

IndigoBell's dd i gather used the AIT program, which has been around for decades like many other programs which have been marketed at one time or another as a cure for APD. There is a long list AIT, Tomatis, the Listening Program. FastForWord, Johanson, Earobics and many more. None of which have stood the test of time, although some can can some benefit.
Until we can perform genetic engineering to adjust our genes there will be no cure for APD.

Having spent a lot of time recently looking at (and indeed delivering) literacy in more structured environments, and at the same time having a DS (3.11) who has been dead keen to read for ages (started reading shop logos at 1.5), I do sympathise.

I have however, never tried to get him to read, rather we've tried to make sure we do things at home which will reinforce teaching later on, in response to questions. These have been roughly responding to questions by: always giving sounds for letters not names (e.g. on jigsaws)-SaLT helped here too; always sounding out words if he asks 'what does that say' (making clear which letters make what sound); back sounding if he wants to know how to write something and sometimes asking him to identify words if we think he is reading but are not sure. It's not systematic phonics, because it's not building up, but it was an attempt to deal with his curiosity without inserting other cues mechanisms, and to really solidify the 'letters make sounds make words' approach and show how blending works. And it's not what we do with books-I would guess 95% of what we do is talk about plot, pictures, feelings not how to read.

I guess it's worked, because he can now blend when he wants to, and has just started 'reading' to us by taking sections in turn at bedtime story time. But his mistakes also make clear he has basically ended up with a whole word approach a lot of the time, helped by his phenomenal memory, and sometimes memorises text and then attaches this to written words (sort of foreign language set text approach). And, as would be expected from such a wee one, he's not good at focusing or very patient-a paragraph of Horrid Henry unseen utterly wears him out and he'll often give up (and fair play to him, I reckon, that'll come later and I want to find out the ending just as quickly as he does).

dolfrog,

Your figures are not borne out by the results of schools which use systematic phonics instruction for the initial teaching of reading.

Just two examples:

Elmhurst Primary school teaches every child to read using SSP Here

Dr Jonathon Solity suggests that fewer than 2% of children still struggle with SSP
Here

Why is this?