So he knows his letters, now what?

[Penniless]

My 2.5 year old is quite bright. He already knows all the capital ABCs, some of the lowercase abcs, almost the whole alphabet in the country we live in, and almost all the letters in sign language.

He also knows that each letters are for certain words. Like he knows B is for balloon and ball and baby and T is for turtle and train, C for cookies, candy, and cake. He knows words for every letter in the english alphabet. Oh, and he knows the ABC song almost all the way by heart.

What next? How do I continue with teaching him to learn to read? What is the next step after he knows to identify the letters? (I'm homeschooling him, so that's why i'm trying to teach it to him.)

[LaPatita]

Good job on the letters! (I was proud just to see my son flip pages and run his fingers across the words!) I'd say rhymes and word play are next. Like skunk without the Sss (kunk),fish..wish. Its called phonemic awareness, that's what is taught to the kids at prek level. Listening to and breaking up words into parts helps kids learn to write.

[Penniless]

Thank you! I will try working on that phonemic awareness with rhyming words.

[Girleymom3]

Hi there! I am a preschool teacher and think its great that you are teaching your child the letters! I can't tell you how many parents don't work with their child and then send them to school and then get irritated with us as teachers that their child isn't learning anything! Grrr!!! My advice is keep doing what you are doing, and read read read! Do you have a teacher supply store near you (like a Lakeshore)? They have tons of workbooks for kids. When my own girls were little we would go and pick out new "homework books" and they loved them! You can order from them online as well. I often hear parents say how hard it is to find time to teach the little ones anything, not really though! Driving in the car provides lots of time....you can teach tons of colors, directions, letters everywhere (M is for McDonalds), shapes...everything! Again I think its great that you have your child this far already!!! Keep it up mom!

[Jbug]

As I taught mine at that age we included the letters sounds, at least the most common ones. They all learned the letters with a little of this format: "M says 'mmm' as in mouse or McDonald's". On letters like C and G we stuck to the hard letter sounds at that age. For vowels we learned the short sounds, but that they were special letters that said different things sometimes.

[Lisa]

Something we did was collect frozen juice lids (the metal lid that comes loose with no sharp edges) and wrote numbers and letters on them, then worked on them putting them in order. We always worked on the numbers first.

[Mama Quemadora]

Have you heard of "Your Baby Can Read" video's? My mom is a teacher and told me about it. When I was pregnant I immediately bought the collection. It teacher your baby to read.

The packages comes with 5 sets of movies your baby watches, flashcards, and a word books for each stage. This set is good for newborn babies up to 5 years of age.

My son started watching it around 3 months. Since he couldn't talk, move, make sounds anything I stopped playing to around 5 months. Around 9 months I started playing the movie for him again and about 3 weeks before his 1st birtday he could identify 2 words. He still cannot talk but he trys to sound out several word. When he sees the words "clap" and "arms up" he does the actions. He will clap and put his arms up. It is a wonderful feeling that my son can read two words by his first birthday. I highly recommend the set.

[Penniless]

Have you heard of "Your Baby Can Read" video's? My mom is a teacher and told me about it. When I was pregnant I immediately bought the collection. It teacher your baby to read.

The packages comes with 5 sets of movies your baby watches, flashcards, and a word books for each stage. This set is good for newborn babies up to 5 years of age.

My son started watching it around 3 months. Since he couldn't talk, move, make sounds anything I stopped playing to around 5 months. Around 9 months I started playing the movie for him again and about 3 weeks before his 1st birtday he could identify 2 words. He still cannot talk but he trys to sound out several word. When he sees the words "clap" and "arms up" he does the actions. He will clap and put his arms up. It is a wonderful feeling that my son can read two words by his first birthday. I highly recommend the set.

Thank you for the suggestion. I don't think I will be using it. I'm not into babies watching movies, even if they're educational. I'm glad its working for you though.

[stuckunderhere]

www.abchomepreschool.com

Love their program!

[stuckunderhere]

Stay away from Your Baby Can Read. They dont teach kids to read but only to recognize what 2-3 letters put together sound like and so on, so basically they will be able to read, but will have NO idea what they are reading about as they dont learn the meaning of the words, just the sound/pronounciation of letters. It is basically a brain memory thing. They are not "teaching" to read.

So you'd end up with a 5-6yr old who can read but will not know what they are reading at all.

[QueenieReighn]

It is a simple and easy to use book called 'Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons'. It is straight forward and teaches what your child needs to know to sound out words by themselves. The book is the complete package telling you what to say to your child and going through everything for a nice short lesson that teaches reading piece by piece and reviews old things every day. From the sounds of it, your child would love it. I highly recommend it, as does my 5 year old. It has made for a very happy child that can't get enough of books. Good luck!

[KittyMitts]

Hi I homeschool my kids too. They are now 15 and 10!
One thing I used to do was to write letters and numbers on large pieces of paper. One letter or number per paper. We'd then spread some of them over the floor and play a game. I'd say 'go find the letter B' and they would find the letter and jump on it. Then we'd say 'and B says..' and my children would say the sound. Next we would go around the house looking for things beginning with B and making a short list, sounding out the letters. It was great fun and very adaptable!

Another thing we do with our young nephews is using a picture book, like the ebook 'Hairy, Scary Spider?' Make a story sack and fill it with items pertaining to the story - including the letter S and pictures we'd draw of spiders. Because the ebook is rhyming, they really pick up on the rhythm and soon can finish the sentence.
It's all about having fun and learning at the same time!