Scottish Primary/Nursery Teachers Please Help

[Teuchtermam]

My elder child has just turned 3. She learned all the letters and numbers from a toy at 16 months old. Since the age of 13 months she has been pointing at words in books, on street signs, cereal packets etc and asking what they say.

Dd takes spates of doing it and now recognises around 200 words. She can recognise the same word in different situations as long as the font is not too extreme.

She is due to start the nursery attached to her future primary school in August but won't be in primary one until Aug 2015.

So, a few questions.

Firstly, how is reading taught in Scotland these days?

Will this word recognising thing Dd is doing hinder her if sounding out is how she should learn?

Is it worth mentioning to the school nursery? I don't want to make a bad impression so wasn't going to say.

She can also count up to 20 objects. Is that fairly normal or unusual for just turned 3?

And finally, should I be doing anything with her at home? I don't have much time as I work from home and have a baby too so Dd has to entertain herself most of the time.

Thanks in advance for any replies

Also, sorry - forgot to ask - do most children arrive in primary one able to read a wee bit or will Dd be the odd one out?

Thanks for your reply, Euphemia.

It's only after having Ds that I've realised Dd might be a wee bit different. Ds is perfectly ordinary :)

I did try explaining how you sound out the letters (because she knows the sounds the letters make fine) but she just sounds them out and then says something different, maybe containing one of the letters. But tell her the word once or twice and she knows it.

Is she too young for sounding out?

So are children usually about five before they can count out say 20 clothes pegs. I don't know if she knows anything about place value but she can count out 20 pegs, buttons etc.

I'm meeting her nursery teacher on Monday so will talk it over with her along with a few other issues Dd has. Just hope she doesn't think I'm barking mad if Dd doesn't perform at nursery as little one doesn't always answer direct questions or sometimes will give a silly answer!

To be honest she struggles with dressing and shoes but we are working on that. She can follow instructions though!