Learning literacy - can I do serious damage?!

[RillaBlythe]

DD age 3.6 is very interested in letters - lots of 'what does nursery begin with', 'look there's a n', 'write mummy for me' etc. I respond to her questions but don't particularly introduce any more than that. I try to use phonics but sometimes use letter names as well. I suppose I'm worried that I might be bumbling along doing damage to her emerging literacy through my cluelessness on the subject (fluent reader myself with degree in Eng Lit, mind! Not that I'm functionally illiterate or anything)

waltz
swaddle
swash ...

wallow, waddle, waltz, wally, swaddle, swab, swat, swot

Off the top of my head, like.

The point is that children are perfectly happy to try an 'a' or an 'o' sound following a 'w'. The knowledge that two sounds can be made with an 'a' following a 'w' is not confusing to them, they just accept it.

They learn very early that different letters can represent the same sound and that same sound can be written in different ways. Yes English has a complex spelling system so it helps if children are taught the system early.

I think that the jolly phonics DVD or alphablocks or carefully chosen Youtube videos are good for pre schoolers. The Jolly phonics handbook is very good guide for teaching your child how to read.

Ideally a child would learn the letter sounds first, however I don't think its the end of the world a child learning the letter names. You just have to tell a child that letters have names and a sound.

Children aren't damaged that easily.

Children aren't damaged that easily.

Regrettably, some children are. You don't know which ones until the 'damage' has been done.

You really have to keep letter names well away from reading and spelling until you are sure that a child is secure with using letter/sound correspondences for both tasks and understands that letter names have a different function.

Personally, I wouldn't teach letter names until children were secure with their sounds. I did teach both my dd's to read before starting school, with great success. We used jollyphonics (we listened to the jolly jingles songs to learn the sounds. Very easy - it does it all for you.)

We also used the starfall and phonicsplay websites.

Then I bought some high frequency word magnets for the fridge, which the dd's learnt very quickly.

We then read lots of phonics based stories, such as Songbirds phonics and Floppy's phonics.

I knew nothing about phonics before I started - it was trial and error. I feel fairly confident now and have a year 1 dd reading the BFG and Enid Blyton, whilst pre school dd is on stage 5 reading books.

Letter names come later. We learnt them once dd was secure with her sounds and was learning about the 'magic e' (see the starfall website).

Sorry - rogue apostrophe in dds -first line