Give Your Toddler an Advantage! – Part 2

Hello again.

After you and your 3-year-old have established a fun time of reading together, there are specific exercises that you can introduce to your Pre-Reader.

Before I begin today’s post…

I’d like to clarify a thought with you.

I fully understand that many teachers would find the following method of learning the alphabet more in-depth than necessary. Totally understand.

And too, many parents feel that singing the alphabet song is adequate knowledge of the ABC’s. And it is adorable.

But the caveat to the above is this:  You are setting the stage for reading readiness and a lifetime of loving books.  Creating a solid foundation for automaticity of letter recognition (without hesitation or needing time to process) -will give your toddler an advantage when introducing letter-sound association. It will be a more natural process.

Letter Recognition

Use 3-D plastic letter models and books with large, colorful pictures of single letters on each page to teach the following:

1. Uppercase letter identification should be taught and mastered before lowercase letters are ever introduced.
2. Lowercase letter identification anchored. I find these letters can be more challenging for kids. Allow them to match “Mom letters to Baby letters”….toddler vernacular for matching Upper– to – Lowercase.
3. Practice writing oversized letters on paper without lines, in the sand, with sidewalk chalk, on white boards. Writing letters will reinforce the newly acquired skill of letter identification. And encourage your youngster to trace letters in books with their index finger.
4. Allow your child to see the positional relationship of letters. A begins the alphabet while Z is at the end. The letter “cousins” M & N are in the middle. Then, ask your child to look at the letters before the M…and the letters positioned after the N. This lays the groundwork for more advanced alphabetizing skills in school.
5. Blind identification. Only if your child is progressing along nicely and his/her interest is increasing – try placing your 3-D plastic letter models in a sock or a bag. With only the sense of touch, ask your child to identify each letter in the sock. This is extremely difficult. Not to be mastered, but to offer a ‘game-like’ learning session.

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Keep in mind that frequent and brief is much more effective than less often and lengthy when teaching your 3-year-old the alphabet.

Mastering letter recognition will take time. Be patient.

Keep sessions playful and fun.

Allow your child to dictate the pace in which you teach.

Some toddlers love these exercises and quickly learn. Others take years and are not fully proficient even when heading off to preschool. But you know what? These tiny students are so much more prepared than if you hadn’t taken the time to work with your child!

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Don’t forget to Practice Rhyming!

Be sure to rhyme with your toddler and school-aged child. Many researchers believe the ability to rhyme is an indicator for later reading success. (at, cat, sat, bat, rat). And it’s fun! We played a rhyming game in the pool. We would float around on an air mattress in the shape of a giant baseball glove and rhyme away!  The person to produce the last rhyming word would win!

 

Corresponding Letters to Sounds

Now you are ready to introduce phonics to your child!

(Clinicians believe that initial confusion and future reading issues occur when letter identification skills are not anchored before teaching letter-to-sound associations.)

When your little guy/gal begins to link the graphemes (letters & letter clusters) to the corresponding phonemes (sounds)…and, later on, blend those sounds to form words…they are Readers.

Remember yesterday I told you there are 26 letters and roughly 44 phonemes? Well, there are approximately 98 different grapheme-phoneme associations needed to be learned to read and spell in our complex language. Don’t worry. They’ll learn these more sophisticated patterns years later. You are just trying to provide the basic backdrop to prepare them to receive the more difficult concepts in school.

In a few weeks, I’ll write another post on Reading to include more on phonics and blending and rhyming, etc…

No, I’m not an expert. Never been a classroom teacher. Just a mom. Just a tutor. And a person who has the desire to share information I learned from textbooks and coursework.

There are numerous schools of thought on how and when to teach a child to read. I’m only giving you my personal tried-and-true preference and additional tips and techniques learned in my multisensory coursework in the Medical Center when my boys were in elementary school.   (We used an extraordinary and intricate textbook written by Judith R. Birsh – Multisensory Teaching of Basic Language Skills.)

 

Last Note

Many wonderful hours were spent curled up in my plaid chair reading to my toddlers and preschoolers; however, I must tell you that reading to older children is just as rewarding.

My husband and I read to both boys long after they were established, independent readers. When the boys were older, my husband read long novels to them on weekends in between carting them around to out-of-town baseball tournaments.

But once again, I must emphasize that establishing dedicated Reading Time – with older kids – will be a natural event if started during the precious toddler years.

If you are interested in securing a copy of one of my favorite ABC books for teaching (as seen above), here is a quick link to Amazon, one of the many stores where this book is available.*

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Switching topics tomorrow.

I can hear the applause. Enough about education. Right?

*Please know that I do not receive any compensation for book and product promotion.  I only write about books which have been a quality resource for my children and/or students.

Besides my Clearing the Clutter series, I have some new ideas for interesting (hopefully) posts this week.