Last week I was reading Lena a bedtime story and she started to name the letters on the page for me. Just for fun, I took this little video to send to our families. I give the credit for Lena knowing these letters to the hundreds of times we have done her wooden alphabet puzzle in the last few months.
Do any of you know: if Lena knows her capital letters at this age (23 months, almost 2 years old), could she possibly learn to read by age three?
Of course now — with a little brother in the house and a mother with much less time on her hands — Lena’s progress may slow down…
Very possibly-just keep reading to her (which I know you do!)
Hannah could name her letters very early and was reading quite well by 4.
We spent hours on the blacktop driveway w/a bucket of sidewalk chalk….I would draw pictures (cat, dog, pig, cow-she would tell me which to draw! Not well mind you!) and then I would write the name under it and spell and sound it out-nothing formal-just for fun. She also had books that over time she had memorized and I encouraged her to “read” to her baby brother which they both loved.
I really like this idea of writing and drawing together! I got Lena some sidewalk chalk months ago at IKEA and still need to use it.
However… without standard flat sidewalks around our house (all we have are cobblestones!) it might be better to invest in a chalkboard. ;-)
You could also try having her do the same alphabet puzzle but learn to make the sound each letter makes instead if the name
Of the letter as she puts it in place. She could use that knowledge to sound out short vowel words once she’s got that down :) nursery rhymes, songs, making up rhyming word pairs, and poems also help a lot with reading readiness :)
My own impression is that very early reading (i.e. 3-years old) is not necessarily a sign of unusual intelligence. It is more a sign of developmental readiness to read. Reading fluently and comprehending what you read is at least in part a developmental milestone. So though my own dear children (your husband among them:) knew all their letters and sounds quite early, none of them read fluently until the standard ages of 6-7 years. This was surprising to me, since I KNEW they were of unusual intelligence (!), but the developmental theory allowed me to understand it better. Children who do read very early could indeed be unusually intellectually gifted, but it could also just be a sign of normal good intelligence and an early developmental threshold for reading. I personally think the best method with preschoolers is to read aloud tons and tons. If they are early readers, they’ll essentially put it together on their own. If they’re not, they’ll read when they are developmentally ready. So that takes the pressure off Mom :). Obviously, Lena is unusually intelligent (!) whether she reads early or not. That comes with love from Marmee!
Thanks for saying that, Mom! It helps me have more perspective on the whole thing. And of course I agree with you that all your children and Lena are above average intelligence. :-)
Part of what gives a person fluency reading, is not having to spell out the words but, instead, recognizing them as a whole. Teaching to read is not only teaching to decode letter by letter, but to recognize and understand bigger portions of meaning (words, sentences, texts…). As a teacher, the method I like the most (the one I was taught in by my mom -and I read at age 3, and love reading since then!- and the one I will be using with Oath) is word-recognizition: ask Lena what words would she like to learn to read (common ones are “mom”, “dad”, the kid’s name… but I also requested “vulture”, “violin” and “butterfly”, so you never really know), then write them down, big and nice in some cards (mine were about 1m x 20cm, but there’s no need to go *that* big), and read them with her a couple of times a day, or when she wants it… just as you did with her wooden alphabet puzzle. She’ll soon start recognizing whole words, and when you feel she’s ready you can add new ones… until she actually reads.
Now, I’m not saying that reading sooner or later makes her more or less intelligent, but I’d bet my hand that, if she has learnt all the letters that fast, it’s because she is interested in reading, and this way she can learn to read by age three for sure!
Precious. Absolutely precious. I had to laugh at this: “J.” “No, what’s that letter?” “Oh, I guess I made it look like a J.” Haha, but she knew all her letters perfectly! Congrats, momma. Y’all are doing an amazing job :)
Here’s a tried and true gem I used to teach all my kids to read: https://www.amazon.com/Teach-Your-Child-Read-Lessons/dp/0671631985/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363533575&sr=8-1&keywords=teach+your+child+to+read+in+100+easy+lessons
It is phonetically-based, but also fosters whole word recognition; teaches letters, their sounds, and blended sounds. It does a great job of teaching how to blend letter sounds to make words. The lessons are short and simple (great for a mom who has 2.5 minutes until needing to respond to something else…) and allow you to gauge how much your child is able developmentally to grasp.
My eldest quit this book 1/2 way through and went right into 2nd grade readers. Another needed to repeat sections until the blending of sounds to make words made sense to her.
Have fun!
sooooo cute!
That was precious! I recently came upon your blog and wanted to say what a cute family you have. Excited to follow along in your journey!
How sweet she is, you must feel like she is growing so quickly!