If your child learned ABCs and 123s as a young toddler...

[just_lily]

... how did you expose them to him/her? I feel like I am having a bit of a disconnect.

I have a bright 17mo, but she doesn't have any idea about letters or numbers because she isn't exposed to the concepts. She doesn't watch TV (we have it on from time to time while she is awake but she is always busy doing other things and doesn't watch) so she isn't picking them up from Sesame Street. We have lots of books but she doesn't have the attention span to actually listen to a story yet and just likes to look at the pictures and turn the pages really fast. I don't have anything like flashcards, and she doesn't have any electronic toys with letters or numbers. I don't even sing the ABC song to her because she prefers songs with actions, like If You're Happy and You Know It and Itsy Bitsy Spider.

I should say that I am not concerned about this in the slightest and am not looking to push her or anything, and feel like all of this will come in its own time. I am not looking for advice on how to teach her the alphabet.

I am just always very curious when I hear someone make a comment about their kid learning the alphabet at 9 months how that actually happened. What did you do to expose your child?

No judgment, just intense curiosity.

[kcstar]

I try to sign the letters while I sing the ABC's.

I wouldn't say DS knows his ABC's or 123's yet, but he knows a letter or two, sometimes.

We have letter and number bathtoys, the kind that stick to the tub when they're wet. We've also bought magnets for the fridge that he can play with.

Consider shorter books. DS likes several of his board books, with just a few words to the page. He still gets bored with some of the longer ones. And he did go through a phase where he didn't really seem interested in us reading to him.

[eclipse]

My oldest was always fascinated with letters. He learned as a very young toddler, just from pointing at letters and asking over and over and over what they were. I honestly don't know how my younger two learned. That makes me a bad mom, doesn't is? My daughter liked Sesame Street and we had some books like Dr. Seuss Alphabet, etc. My youngest, just started pointing at letters and saying their sounds. It baffled me until I realized he liked Starfall (he was a very early computer user, and very good at it.). He couldn't talk, but he could use the computer and knew all the letter sounds.

In any case, I don't think it's really important at that age. She'll get them eventually. My older two loved books from a very early age, but my youngest (now 4) has only really been into them for the last year or so.

[Ianthe]

My 2 yr old has known his ABCs from a young age (I'm thinking the last 6 months?).. I'm not sure how he picked it up either, he just points to letters, we told them what they are, and he remembers it. Now we are on to small words and counting past 13

[Fujiko]

We have puzzles. One with letters, one with numbers, one with shapes. She's really into labeling and naming things, so she picked up on it really fast. Plus we do watch TV, so we're into sesame street, super why, word world, etc.

[Stephenie]

DS at about 16-18 months started asking me to draw things for him. One day I ran out of things I could draw and made a K. He was really excited by it and within a few weeks we'd gone through all the letters. It wasn't something I planned, but he had a ton of interest so I went with it. He knows sounds and a few words now. He's been counting since about the same age though after a certain point he just goes to 63 for some reason "20 21 22 63 64 65..."

[SFam]

My daughter learned the entire capital alphabet before two years of age. I don't recall exactly how old she was, but she started learning them really early, like before she was talking. I first realized she knew some letters when she'd bring me these alphabet books to tell me she wanted a candy (this must've been around valentine's day when i had candy hearts. the "Q" book had a quilt with hearts on it. She'd dig through all the books to find the Q, then open it to the quilt page and point to the heart. Course then i just had to give her a candy for being so smart! braggin, i know!). Anyway, once I realized she recognized the letter, I started telling her the letters when we encountered them. I just tried to incorporate it into our day.

We have alphabet books. I think they're by baby einstein. Each letter has a three page board book, letter on the cover, then objects that start with each letters on the pages.

magnets for the fridge/dishwasher. melissa and doug. i just would choose one and tell her what it's called. she eventually remembered them all.

foam letters for the tub (can be used outside of bathtime too).

we made a game out of it. we'd search for a particular letter.

also, there is a Sesame Street DVD called "All Star Alphabet." there's a little skit, song, or animation for each letter and the letters A and Z host the show. it's cute and she liked it and learned many letters from watching it.

now that she knows the capital letters, we're working on lower case by telling her this is small a, b, c etc. when reading or when we see signs and things. i don't try to drill her, but just mention it when it comes up. i also write words and mostly names for her. she asks for names of her relatives and her own name or TV characters (Elmo etc).

same with colors. i just would comment, "oh you have the red crayon. I have blue. the sky is blue, blueberries are blue. strawberries are red.... yadda yadda"

she learned numbers via counting books. she recognizes 1-9, but mixes up 6 and 8 sometimes. so alphabet and counting books are another good place. for counting, we point to the symbol, then count the objects. she knows the symbols, but currently counts 1, 2, 4, 8, so we're still working on counting!

[sunshadow]

Children really don't learn very well from TV compared to from real people. My daughter didn't watch TV until she was 2, and then very limited. She has no teaching toys. She got an alphabet puzzle as a gift last summer, but already knew her abc's by then. We have always read to her a lot. I am sure that helps.

She has always been very curious. I've sang her the abc's song since she was a baby and I also frequently signed the abc's to her. I don't remember when she started recognizing letters. I wrote the alphabet down on a piece of paper when she was pretty young and she could recognize them. I have her reading the alphabet like this on video at 20 months old. At 26 months old she could say and sign the alphabet correctly.

She wasn't as interested in numbers at that point, but has become more interested in them recently. She tries to count to 40 and sometimes higher now, but there are lots of mistakes in once over 20. So, I've been starting to write out numbers with her too. It seems to be the easiest way for her to pick them up.

[RoadBuddy]

I don't think mine knew them at 17 months, but he did learn them early. He's 30 months now and knew these by 2.

I think it's just his interest. He has a minor speech delay and isn't great with physical or small motor things (can't jump, hates crafts, walked late), so it's a matter of what he chooses to focus on. Kids can learn a TON about their interest, be it train parts, dinosaurs, or shapes. My nephew knows every construction machine under the sun and gets annoyed that DS calls them all "trucks". If they're not interested, it's harder and not useful to try to force it!

We do have teaching toys (not much electronic, but things like number puzzles, foam letters, etc), along with plenty of other toys, and at certain times he seems really drawn to different ones, so we run with that interest. I think it's important that they have access to lots of different kind of things, then we as parents see where they gravitate and go with it.

Letters - books (we have plenty of books with ABC themes, like chicka chicka boom boom, which he loved). We also received letter magnets as a gift and he'd ask what the letters were. His name is spelled out on his wall and we'd point those letters out. Etc. I pointed out letters as we saw them because he was interested. Just like pointing out animals or whatever else people point out to kids. Now the foam bathtub letters are a favorite, but I need to make a new one because he keeps telling me, very sadly, that "O is missing".

Numbers - not sure. We do have a couple number books, but I don't think he was all that interested so they didn't get read as much. He got a number puzzle for his second b-day, so maybe there? We'd also count the stairs as we went up. He's recently shown more interest, so we count toys and things, but he seemed to know a lot before that.

Shapes - my mom (a teacher) made him a felt board for his b-day. We have animal, people, and shape felt pieces. He likes the shapes best and would ask what they are. Before this, we had a shape puzzle and a shape sorter with the basic shapes, so he knew circle, triangle, etc. The board taught him more.

Colors was just pointing out the color of random objects. We have knit beanbags in solid colors and would toss them into a basket, saying things like Yellow IN!!!! Apparently he knew the colors before he talked much (22 months - speech delay) because he just blurted them out one day.

[daytripper75]

I slapped a Fridge Phonics on the fridge and walked away. Both my children loved that thing and it taught them their letters fairly quickly. The numbers they just picked up.

[overseasmomma]

We had a great wooden board puzzle with big ABC blocks and Dd played with them incessantly. She also loved this website for phonics learning- www.starfall.com and we did that alot. She didn't watch tv back then so seeing things move on the computer screen and hearing sounds and such was lots of fun for her. She knew her abcs by 18 months but it was just me following her lead.

[tallulahma]

my now 4.5 yo dd1 knew the alphabet by 2.... she asked and asked and asked.... insatiable when it came to books, wooden puzzles, etc.

my 19 mo old dd2 could care less about the alphabet, but she talks in full sentences.

i think kids just pick up what they want to.

[JudiAU]

DS didn't speak any real words until around 18 months. He learned his colors etc the first month and knew all of the alphabet and numbers by sight by around 20 months. No TV here. He was just interested. Most of our toys are natural/waldorf/montessori/open ended.

We had Uncle Goose alphabet blocks and a M&D alphabet puzzle. We played blocks and puzzle and then later he would match them up. He actually learned the ABC song much, much later. Reinforcements were other alphabet puzzles, chicka-chicka-boom boom, foam alphabet for the bath, etc.

At his Reggio preschool, only two other children can identify the complete alphabet by sight.

[RiverSky]

My children did watch some Sesame Street, plus I had a CD of Sesame Street songs and we would sing the alphabet song all the time, at diaper changes (along with all sorts of other songs, it was just one of the songs in my limited repertoire), at bedtime (I used to try to sing them to sleep), in the car, etc.

Mostly though, it came from books. I started reading books to my children from the moment they were born really. I gave them small board books to play with and chew on, and plastic waterproof books for bath time. They both LOVED to sit and listen to stories, though DD would tire of sitting still more quickly and would instead, roll around while I read the stories to her. I would read before each nap-time, at random times and Daddy would read for half an hour at bedtime.

[BarnMomma]

DS knew letters at I think around 9 months. he couldn't speak a sound but if you said, where's G?, he'd point to it. We had 4 ABC puzzles, one with shapes and numbers. We also have an abacus. When he was about 15 months i bought a Brainy Baby ABC DVD which I LOVED. There's no characters, just letters with sounds and classical music and kids. (DS hates and I agree with him..the baby einstein things)They're very soothing and it helped DS learn letter sounds in two weeks.

We also read the letters in the titles of any book we read. Now he always does the letters in anything. Street signs, store signs. We always spelled out the letter on his favorite foods, like granola or yogurt.

We just always made a game of it all.

[Bokonon]

I know this isn't a popular way, but DS learned from DVDs.

Of course I read to him and have always sung the alphabet song, pointed out letters in books and on signs, and counted and showed him numbers in books. But a friend's sister created these great DVDs called Meet the Letters, Meet the Numbers, ...Shapes, and ...Colors. I thought I'd give them a try.

I didn't think DS would like them because they are SO boring, but at 4.5 he STILL asks to watch them occasionally. We'd watch Meet the Letters or Meet the Numbers once a day. I don't think they are more than 20 minutes in length. They aren't very flashy - they just show the letter as a "character" (A is astronaut, for example), and repeat the letter over and over. There are books that you can get with them, so I would read the letters book with him, pointing to the letter and saying it slowly and repeating it like the DVD.

Within a couple weeks, he knew all his letters by sight, uppercase and lowercase. He was 18 months old.

That's how he learned his numbers 1-10, his colors, and his shapes. It didn't take the place of me talking to him about those concepts and pointing them out in books. At 2 years old, he could tell me that a stop sign was a red octagon (though he pronounced it "octigagagon" which was adorable!), and would point out shapes and letters on buildings wherever we went.

It was a lot of fun watching him learn these things at such a young age. He's 4.5 and not reading yet, but his preschool teacher tells me he has better sight recognition of his letters than anyone else in his class. I didn't get the DVDs to get him an "edge" on his peers or anything. But because he was already so verbal at 18 months and we read together a lot, it was enjoyable for both of us for him to recognize letters and numbers, shapes and colors. It even made car rides and walks more fun, because he could tell me what letters he saw on trucks and signs.

[Tjej]

I don't know if my daughter learned the letters from me/letters in books and on stuff around the house or if it was from the Leapfrog Letter Factory DVD. I think it was from books, but IDK. She did learn the sounds of the letters from that video. She was somewhere between one and two, I was extremely pregnant and exhausted, and those videos gave me 20-30 minutes of additional, sorely desired, horizontal time. My son just turned two and isn't as letter obsessed as DD was, so I don't really know how much of that he knows. Occassionally he'll be all excited and tell me what a letter is on something (especially O's), but we haven't drilled the alphabet or anything.

For the numbers - I don't know where my kids picked them up. I guess I count stuff out loud. They surprise me with their counting.

Tjej

[blizzard_babe]

DS doesn't know a LOT, but, he knows some, so I'll answer...

The counting... I taught kindergarten ESL for a while. I sort of count things automatically. Old habits die hard.

ABCs... DS doesn't know any letters except S, and that's just because he has a shirt that says "S is for Spaceship," and we've pointed it out to him. Wait, I think he knows O now, because he kept pointing at an O and calling it a circle. I said it was the letter O, so now when he sees a circle in written context, he says "O" sometimes. Sometimes he still says circle. He does try to sing the ABC ("ABGBGBD...") song, but that's because DH sings it do him at naptime... mostly, I think, because DH does not have my freakishly large mental catalog of children's songs to choose from.

I'm not big on early academics, but I *am* big on the "teachable moment."

[Plarka]

We got the Brainy Baby dvds when dd was 15 months. By 18 months she was counting to twenty from watching the Numbers one. We also have the Alphabet one but she knew that all anyway by the time we got it, but it is really good as well. Within a couple weeks she knew all the colors and shapes from the Shapes and Colors one,


For learning the alphabet, at about age 14 months I got alphabet fridge magnets-uppercase and lowecase, foam bath letters, foam alphabet puzzles-the kind that all hook together and make a big floor puzzle, and we just played with them a lot and I always said the name of the letter, the sound, and a word that began with it. Like M, mmmmmm, Mommy! D, d, Daddy! She learned them really fast that way. I did it with both upper and lower case and it did not confuse her like some people say it will.

Fridge Phonics is good too, that also helped cement what she learned .

[Funny Face]

Come to think of it I don't remember how dd learned them.


I guess just from seeing them in books and I think my MIL had a tape that played an ABC's song with a placemat that also showed the letters.

Dd learned the numbers from books too. She was just naturally interested.