When to learn letter sounds?

[frugalmama]

I have a 3yo DD who is gifted. She knows all her letters and has for months, and I'm trying to figure out what to do next. She is starting to get enough dexterity that I think we'll be able to start a very low-key kindergarten in fall 2010. Counting she does great, colors, etc - most of the pre-school stuff she has covered already.

When is normal to learn the letter sounds? She doesn't seem to get the connection between the name of the letter which she knows, and the sound it makes, but we haven't done much work on it either.

Would you start working on it? I need something mentally challenging to keep her engaged - when she gets bored she is a handful. We'd be working on it maybe 15 minutes a day.

FWIW we are using Catholic Heritage Curriculum with their Little Stories for Little Folks, so it's very low-key.

[pigpokey]

Since most letters don't make "a sound," but are involved in more than one sound, I recommend learning them only in conjunction with a reading program. I used Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, but if I had it to do over again, might have used Ordinary Parent's Guide. I started 100 EZ with my gifted 3.5 year old without any problems.

[bettyjones]

In Montessori, we actually start with letter sounds before letter names. The names don't help you read but sound do. Start w/ sounds. Just check things like alphabet books that the word matches the sound so e would be for egg not elephant.

[cappuccinosmom]

We have always done letter sounds in conjunction with letter recognition.

A-"a"-apple
B-"buh"-bubble
etc.

We didn't have a curriculum for this. It was a combination of doing letter puzzles together, finding letters on signs and commenting on their sounds, playing with sites like starfall.com, and watching letter/phonics videos. My 2 and 4 yo did this learning together while their older brother was doing his lessons, and they both soaked up a lot just by watching and playing.

It hasn't been a problem to transition from understanding the baseline sounds that letters make to the letter combinations that make different sounds.

[boigrrrlwonder]

Originally Posted by bettyjones

In Montessori, we actually start with letter sounds before letter names. The names don't help you read but sound do. Start w/ sounds. Just check things like alphabet books that the word matches the sound so e would be for egg not elephant.

I wish I had known this before I introduced letters to my 2.5 yo. She's not gifted, but very interested in reading. She finds the entire letters have a name and multiple sound thing confusing. She's little. I don't have a strong desire for her to learn to read young. (My daughter and I love reading together. As a reader myself, I can't imagine a better way to spend my days than spending hours reading to my daughter.) We've let it go for now. With the new baby, though, I will teach phonics before letter names.

[bandgeek]

I think it can't hurt to start anytime. But she won't necessarily pick it up right now. My son knew his letters by 20 months or so and only JUST started understanding the concept of letter sounds at age 4 1/2.

[Reebekah]

(((not trying to "brag" or make you feel behind or anything....just answering your question)))
both of my sons learned their letter sounds before age 3.....all i did is occasionally let them watch the Leapfrog Letter Factory video, did starfall.com letter section (1 letter a week), and did small portions of the letteroftheweek.com website (there are different levels to this website....i went straight to the section that works on letters sounds since my boys both knew their letters already from playing with foam bathtub letters and reading alphabet related books).
you will be SHOCKED how quickly she picks it up!!!
my 2 yr old goes around the house singing "The A says Ahhh, the A says Ahhh, every letter makes a sound the A says Ahhh!"...and he does this for each letter.
I do NOT push my kids....they enjoy these things....and I dont do it with them for any more than 20 minutes a day.

[prothyraia]

My son turned three this month and we just started talking about letter sounds. He has a set of alphabet/animal cards that he likes to play with, so once a day I'll ask him to bring me some and we'll go through the sounds for two or three of them. "This is a B! Here is a big B and a little b. B says 'b, b, b,' "

He seems interested in it, so we're continuing, but in a really laid back way. I wouldn't feel comfortable doing drill or anything like that yet.

[elizawill]

my kids learned letter sounds at ages 2 or 3. i didn't teach it to them really, but they learned it from the letter factory dvd & pbs shows like sesame street and electric company. even though my daughter knew all of the letters & their sounds, she didn't begin to start reading until closer to 6ish. she just could't put it together before then. my ds is the same way. he'll be 6 in march, and he is just now at the very beginning stages of reading (fat, can, hat, mom, etc).

[jenfl]

My 2.5 year old just finished learning her letter sounds today!! (We had a little celebration and cupcake when we finally did "X".) She started asking about letters a few months ago, and we just did one letter every day or two. She kept asking to do more, but we stuck to taking our time and working through them slowly, reviewing all the previous ones first. We used our easel to draw the letter, talk about the sound, then draw pictures of things that started with that sound. Then we'd finish it up with a few rounds at starfall.com.

I'd say start whenever your child shows an interest in what letters are! It's easiest to teach sounds before "names" -- it can be really confusing the other way. We got lucky and were ready to teach DD when she showed an interest and was in a sensitive period, so she picked it up quickly.

After she starts getting letter sounds, move onto the "begins with" game. DD loves that! She's constantly saying, "What does baseball start with?... buh!" Now that she's mastered that, we're moving into "ends with". That's trickier!

[Phoebe]

I start teaching them the sounds of the letters instead of the names out right. We don't call the letter by the name but the sound. After all, who cares what the letter is called. It's the sound the letter makes that relates it to reading. So I say start now!

[limette]

I have no idea what is normal, I just go with the flow, but dd1 knew all the letters by 18 months and she knew the sounds by 2.

We started doing Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons about 6 months ago (she'll be 4 next month) and she can read and is starting to type out words on the computer (by sounding them out). I was stunned to see that she had typed "max and roobee" into google the other day.

No idea if she's gifted or not.

In contrast DD2 just really started to talk in the past month (she's 19 months).

[meetoo]

Both my kids learned letters and sounds kinda together with no real help from me around 2-3ish. Just reading, watching pbs, stuff like that.

[GnomeyNewt]

We got some smart kids on these forums! :c) My DS who is 2 1/2 yrs is just learning to talk, but he does like to say the B sound... he thinks all letters say BAA... its sorta cute! :c)

I personally don't know the letter sounds perfectly... I swear phonics gives me a headache. So my DD did learn her letter names first, we did learn a few sounds while inbetween but she did master the letter names first. Than she mastered the sounds and she is right now learning to read 3 letter words. Just as the PP, I didn't really teach her these letter names or even sounds, she just sort of picked them up on her own. She did not know the alphabet song perfectly until just this past month, when she watched a leapfrog video and they sang it on there. But she says I helped her learn, because I do sing it while we brush our teeth... but I think it was the videos.

Don't worry if you took a different path than others as the end goal will be the same -- I think that each child will adapt in their own right with the information they are provided. If she seems confused or unsure, possibly it would be a time to step back and focus elsewhere. I personally found that my DD knowing the letters did come in handy for writing and reading -- but that might be because I don't know my letter sounds as good as she does!

[PGTlatte]

I would just let her watch the Leapfrog Letter Factory DVD for fun. If she's interested, the video is fun and a simple way to learn them. Our younger son, now four, has been pointing to letters and making their sounds since he was two, by watching this DVD only once in a while. He doesn't want to learn to read yet, but is happy making (and sometimes acting out) letter sounds. We also have the "Fridge Phonics" Leapfrog toy. He plays with it, and when we go places in the van, he sings the song for some of the letters (A says aaa, A says aaaa, every letter makes a sound, A says aaaaa, etc.)

[RiverSky]

I really don't think you should do anything except read, read, read to her. There is no rush and there are some studies that suggest that rushing reading limits children in other ways. As you read to her, if she asks questions, answer them. If she asks them a lot, get the Letter Factory DVD and let her watch it. Seeing that she is gifted, I doubt she will need much help, if any at all, to learn to read. IF she does need help, I'm sure she'll ask. It's far more important that she gets plenty of time to play and explore right now and hear stories, go on field trips, make friends, etc.

[JamieCatheryn]

My 3.5 y.o. (not gifted though fairly bright) is picking up some letter sounds from the beginning of words and what letter starts it, like p-p-puppy, t-t-tree, s-s-sun. Some letters, like vowels and C and G, are more ambiguous so he's waiting to really get those.

[caefi]

We teach the sounds before the names.

What do her drawings look like?

[Daffodil]

I don't really see the point of the "teach the sounds before the names" idea. I mean, I see why it's supposed to be helpful, but the reality is that you can't get very far into reading without having to deal with the idea that some letters make more than one sound. A kid who can't easily grasp the concept that a letter has a name and one or more sounds probably isn't ready to understand the other concepts involved in reading, and therefore doesn't need to know anything about letter sounds until she's older. (I don't see any harm in introducing letter sounds first. I just don't think it will help a kid learn to read any more easily or quickly.)

As far as when to teach the sounds, 3 seems like a perfectly reasonable age to start mentioning them. It shouldn't require much actual "work." (If it seems like you have to work to get the idea across, I'd say your kid is probably too young.)

[frugalmama]

Originally Posted by caefi

We teach the sounds before the names.

What do her drawings look like?

DD's drawings are mostly just scribbles now, except for her infatuation with drawing a star. She gets it about halfway right, and then starts making a circle out of it. She has started saying this scribble is a cat, this one is a dog, moon, etc.

It's vastly improved though - this was a kid who struggled to make a single line at 2 years old - her fine motor skills have always been a bit lacking since birth. Everything else is normal or advanced, so we just are waiting for it to catch up.