My two year old can read, now what?

[MooPointCowsOpinion]

She can read lots of 3 letter words made up of any of the short sounds, cat, dog, hen, fox, jug, zip... etc. She's known all the letter sounds for a year ish now so we took her into the primary school for a coffee morning a few months ago and asked what could she look at next, they said the only thing to do now was blending and forming words.

She loves letters, writing them reading them, so she drives the interest in this.

But I am a teacher, secondary maths, and I know how annoying it is to have your teaching derailed by an over enthusiastic parent or tutor.

I'm asking, hopefully in a non humble brag kind of way, would we do better to steer her inquisitive mind in a different way and not focus too much on this in case we do more harm than good for when she starts school? What can she do for the next two years to keep her mind active and engaged? She's prone to distraction and chaos without direction, so 'just leave her to be a toddler' would likely be a mistake unless we are all happy with the inevitable destruction of the world that would ensue from her being let loose.

She's known all the letter sounds for a year ish now
Since she was 1?

Let her play, read, sing, draw, paint, splash in puddles and be a child.

You don’t need to keep her active and engaged but almost the opposite. Well sort of. She now needs to start entertaining herself so encouraging some independent creative play would be a good start-does she like imaginary play? Our 2 year old loves the Scheich animals and it’s lovely to watch him play with those. Apologies if this sounds patronising and if she already does it!

Build things. Lego, connex, meccano.

Do jigsaws.

Playdo. Anything creative, basically. Don't make the mistake of sitting her down with reading books, she'll be bored shitless in reception.

She's prone to distraction and chaos without direction,

Erm, she’s 2. They are all prone to distraction and chaos aged 2. Is this a joke thread?

Give her books to read by herself. I was like this and I was never really interested in toys, I just wanted to read anything and everything all the time!

Was just about to highlight what Battered has quoted above. Prone to destruction without direction? She is two! What sort of direction to you mean? I think that two year olds should be allowed to direct their own play/activities to be honest, as long as it's safe/not damaging etc etc.

George That's what I'm worried about, I don't want her to be bored and then be naughty or distructive.

She's not being hot-housed here, she looks at letters with an adult very occasionally, she's just seeking them out, constantly writing them when we do drawing and she's been pointing out letters and reading them to us as we are out and about.

She gets loads of outdoors playtime, games, fun, music and dance groups, she has a huge play doh collection and plays with it most days.

She's just on the go 24:7, she fits a lot into her day!

So considering she already gets lots of time to do the things you're suggesting, we should just stop with reading, let her continue with everything else?

She has a fascination with learning new things. She had colours and numbers down so long ago I can't even remember. If she's wanting to learn something, could we perhaps steer her towards learning animal types or countries, something that's not going to affect school? She really lights up playing memory games.

Keep reading to her and with her, and let her read herself IF she wants to.

But it is also important to let her be a little child. he will need to be able to socialise with children her own age, and play alongside and with them in a mixed setting with children of varying capabilities in a range of areas, not just academic.

So spend time playing games, taking turns, winning and losing.
Creative games and activities - Lego and construction, junk modelling, craft, drawing and painting, baking and cooking inc following recipes, etc.
Imaginative games - role play games and toys, play figures, small world
Mathematical and logic skills - inc things like jigsaws, puzzle games, pretend shop, etc.
Outdoor activities - running wild, climbing, walking, paddling, making dens, collecting nature things, observations outside (maybe a treasure hunt or a tick list)

Playing and socialising with other children is really important too, but its also important to encourage her to be able to play and entertain herself for periods of time, without direction and intervention.

Scarlett she plays with little figures and acts out stories and family life and adventures with them, usually sylvanian families but she will do it with anything, and on her own for some time.

It feels like she is always seeking out something new, like she needs the mental stimulation of new things. For her birthday we take her somewhere new like a sea life centre, the zoo, and she's fascinated!

She'll teach herself if she's motivated enough.

DS1 did it via Thomas the Tank Engine,Postman Pat, Mr Men and Radio Times - I kid you not. Our only intervention was supplying the goods and reading stories - I was too busy dealing with him plus DS2, life, DH (!), no near relatives to help out etc to push it at all.
Between 3 and 4 he was pretty fluent reading-wise but less so on the talking, so that needed more encouragement. Dxd with Aspergers at 11- whole other story.

Just let her get on with it.

Hulababy that's a fantastic list thank you.

For her birthday we take her somewhere new like a sea life centre, the zoo, and she's fascinated!

All 2 of them?

Again, is this a joke post?

Tbh I wouldn’t have believed this post when I just had dc1 and dc2 but I dc3 could read cvc words and some memory words on their second birthday.

I’d get phonics based books from reading Chest so your child learns the next steps. Also use starfall, poisson rouge and reading eggs once your child can use a mouse.

I wouldn’t worry that your child will be too unusual in reception as there are dc in every year who arrive as fluent readers. Just take it gently and keep it fun.

LadyGagarden and campion thank you, it's reassuring to hear stories of similar children. Your son sounds awesome campion! I don't have much frame of reference here. My eldest was similar in her desire to learn but she hadn't started blending this early and certainly wouldn't have dared break any rules so I never worried about her starting school and misbehaving through boredom. I felt more confident letting her lead the way. My youngest is a wonderful force to be reckoned with, she will need much more careful handling to use her powers for good I think!

My dd was reading at two and I just made sure she had plenty of books, jigsaws, cars to play with, treated her like the two year old she was as well as supporting her when she was being inquisitive.

She's now 14. Very bright but so are many of the kids in her class who weren't reading at two.

Just enjoy her and don't be so stressed about it all.

All comes out in the wash...

I would let her carry on.

My DN(ephew) who is 6 was the same. Also needed a lot of adult attention. I used to get him the story boarding sets from hobbycraft and also made loads of stuff and laminated it for him to story board, puppets etc. It encouraged independence and allowed him to use his letters and words which interested him the most.

He's recently had his birthday and my ds (13) face when he fluently read his birthday cards was hilarious! (Ds has LD). I just pointed out to ds that once you can read and write you can read and write. Some children do it very young and some take longer to learn like him.

It's not affected his schooling in anyway what so ever.

My two year old is learning to read letters, what I would do if I were you is to follow her lead - if she wants to read let her, and read with/to her as much as she wants! She sounds like a bright little girl, but I think it's so easy to start hot housing once you see your child has a particular talent, and I think that could really ruin the love of reading she seems to be cultivating. She seems to enjoy lots of other typical toddler activities too, so I would really just carry on as you are with her leading.

You could get her the alphablocks reading program magazine things. They are like kids magazines but specifically for learning to read. Might be alot of fun for you to do together. There's lots of games, stickers, drawing, and colouring aswell

Mine was similar. Obsessed with words and reading. Knew all phonics by 18 months. Also numbers to 20, shapes including parallelogram, trapezium etc by two. Could read fluently by 3. It's just what she loves. We went with it. Lots of reading. So. Many. Books. Library weekly. No pushing was needed because it was all she wanted to do. She's now at school. Miles ahead in everything. Social and lovely. Lots of friends. School extends her but not obviously. I didn't want her singled out. She does phonics with everyone else. It doesn't matter she's known the sounds for 4 years already. She's learning so much social and independence from school. It's not important what she can do academically. Maybe everyone else will catch up, maybe they won't. We go with her at home and extend her. When she was little I just taught her everything I could and she's always been a happy little thing.

Simultaneousequation (love the name - from a maths teacher!) thank you, I will check those out!
Elephants that's reassuring thank you. Was your daughter quiet as a small child? On a scale of silent to Tasmanian devil, say?
youarenot thank you, that's helpful. I will put those on her xmas list!
Thank you Captain, I think you're right, we will be really careful not to push it and let her continue to lead her activities.

Sounds a bit like my eldest daughter. Best thing I ever did was step away and stop “entertaining” her. I let her get bored. It was a painful process initially but she is now very independent and has a brilliant imagination.

She used to make shops and write shopping lists and stuff. We’d talk about what she could do and then I let her get on with it. She didn’t spell things correctly but she used her phonics and you could understand what she was trying to write. She would count things and write the numbers down. You get the gist.

If you leave her then she will start to use her skills by herself in a way she wants to. The best way to learn is through play.

fluffy that made me laugh, the parallelogram, because dd2 is the same! She would tell anyone at 18 months about hexagons and pentagons, and completely freak them out!
Butterflies my friend actually makes that magazine! She'll be so pleased to hear it was recommended. We get it occasionally!

now what give yourself a medal

Oh. And you aren't allowed to have clever children on Mumsnet by the way. It means you lock them in a room, pin their eyes open and pump phonics into them. And for the love of god, LET HER JUMP IN PUDDLES! Apparently you can either be bright or jump in puddles but NOT BOTH.

Maybe start reading simple books and then increase the difficulty. M&S do a great first readers series if you need sone guidance although I'm not sure why you would. It's just reading, there are lots of different ways to do it but it doesn't really matter which method she uses so long as she can do it. Given how far ahead she is, if you can maintain her advantage it won't cause problems.