Thank you Brillkids! My 2 year old is spelling the word me. He looked at a picture of himself, something we are working on, and he said me, then he goes m-e- me! We jumped for joy! Thank you for helping my little one succeed!!!
Wow, that’s great!
Fantastic!!
Someone asked me about when I started showing my son the alphabet, so here it goes. I started showing my son manuel flashcards at age 6 months. Yeah I know a little early but I kept on trying to get his attention with different colors of ink, different sizes of cards, and so on. I made board books with the alphabet, showed him posters, got board books from Brainy Baby for they are so colorful. (I didn’t have LR until my son was 12 months or more) I then got foam alphabets for him to carry around while he was learning to walk. But to be honest my first son was talking in almost complete sentences by the time he was 1 year old. Beleive it or not he was. I wanna go by. I want down. Down now please. Thank you. Daddy go v-room. We practiced with him when he started saying mama, and dada about saying complete sentences, he would say nana for food then we told him before he got nana he had to say I want nana please. Yeah I know seems to early and too harsh, but we were nice about it, not all the time just when he would cry and not say anything about what he wanted. We made it clear to him at an early age to try to speak what he wanted, of course now we did sign at 6 months as well, so he signed a lot as well and still does but mostly it is the 2 year old whine. Now of course some say it is because I used all natural (oraganic) pre-natals but who knows. From 12 months on he has used LR off and on, not on a routine or anything until recently. Where he got to the point of singing his ABC’s.
Now my other son we got to a late start with him around 8 months we started training him the same way, he doesn’t talk very much, but we are working on everything. I used over the counter prenatals with him, but who knows regarding that.
They both use LR now.
Hi Mother of Faith,
Thanks for answering my question.
Here’s an additional one: When you showed the letters initially, did you say this is an “ah” (letter sound) for the letter A or did you say this is an “A” (stating the letter name)? We’ve kind of been ignoring alphabet books right now…doing only word recognition exercises. Maybe I should be mixing it up a bit more… I’m afraid of my son getting mixed up like another mom here had said their child had (saying “F” when they see the word “frog” when they had previously been identifying the word)
In my experience showing flashcards with pictures first to me is the reason. I only handwrote the letters on, no pics yet. I would only say the “a” not “ah”. The reason being is I wanted him to recognize the letter first, We are now working on the sounds of them, once he recognized the letter, and he recognized pictures, now we are at the sounds of things. That’s why I think he started to spell because he would say m- e then he said me. Getting him to recognize the letters was my way of getting him to spell the word then say the word, this helps when he comes across a word that he doesn’t know. He now reads letters on everything, packages, bottles, road signs, the grocery store is tiresome for him because he reads everything. For fiber one he will say f-b-r-o-n-e then he will say the sound “f” “won”
Now I am not saying :wub: showing flashcards with pcis first is wrong in no way but I have found with my 2 I get better results with just the word first. My first son did the same thing he would see the letter a and say apple, so then I knew that I had to switch to word only.
We are working on pictures that associate with the letters, matching the pic with the letter. I use old juice lids, and cut the pic to fit into the lid and the same with the letters. We don’t always use flashcards on paper. We use dry erase boards, juice lid games, file folder games.
I also print out a letter as big as a sheet of paper, and make the pictures that goes with the letter, I cut htem out and he uses glue dots to glue the pics onto the letter. This has helped as well. Also one tip make sure to use the same pictures for your flash, and worksheets so that they can recognize those few then move on to more the second round.
Word recognition we have been working on now. He now is on the Dolch sight words flash, and worksheets, and flashcard from LR. We started out slow and now I think he is on level 2. He can’t recognise all of the words yet but he got one, me this week.
I’m impressed. Spelling at this age is extraordinary. Congratulations
When we were learning letters I used a poster with all the letters taped to a magnetic chalk board and I had my son match the magnet letters to the picture as he picked them out of a ziplock bag. Before he matched I’d say this is the letter a, a says “Ah”. It worked quick soon I was saying “this is the letter…” and he would answer, then I’d ask him what it said and he would again answer. Congrats on your child spelling! My 4 year old can only spell his name when asked. Thats great for a 2 year old!
where did you get the magnetic posterboard with magnetic letters? that’s a great idea!
You can purchase magnetic sheets to actually place in your inkjet printer. I have used them as well. ALthough make sure it is an old printer!!! I just got my little guys a dry erase board that is magnetic. They love it. My 2 year old is copying the words that I write by placing the magnetic letters below. He loves it. You can also get magnetic sticky tape that you can place on the back of the letters.
I Completely agree that using the magnetic board will be a hit. I started using YBCR a little late at about 14/15 months with my boy and once I saw that he was actually learning, I got excited and started him on learning his alphabet. He took an immediate interest in letters and of course I went out and got some magnetic letters in order for him to see and be able to feel the shape of the letters while he was learning. He actually started out learning the sounds of the letters which worked out fine for him because I was mainly interested in whether or not he was catching on. He was a slow speaker and some of his first reassuring sounds were those of the letter sounds. Now he repeats and remembers 4 syllable words and talks in short 2-3 words sentences Once he knew letter sounds we practiced the ABC song and he has since cleared it all up and can do both letter names and sounds with ease. Well he has quickly progressed and we have been doing a combo of reviewing YBCR, Dolch sight words and some read along dvds. He just turned 2 on Sept 1st and has been combining about 8, 2 letter words on his magnetic board for the past month and has actually spelled 2 three letter words on his own and then came to get me to look. In fact, if I ask him to spell a word that I know he can read… like “cow” he picks out the letters from the random letters on the magnetic board and puts them in say the following order “cwo” and then I will show him the flash card and he will fix it. His boards are his favorite “play” items, whether he’s just saying and sounding out letters or trying to combine- he goes to them independently throughout the day and just works/plays on them. Also when I put the read along dvd on pause he actually will read the easier short sentences while pointing at each of the words-of course he does it slowly but nonetheless it sort of amazes me that he actually enjoys it. We were at Marshalls 3 weeks ago and he just out of the blue started saying “hi” and pointed up and behind me… when I looked I realized that he was looking at the word “fashion” and picked out the hi. At TJMAXX he started sounding and reading out the name of the store (the label was on the wall above the cashier) the cashier asked me if he just read that and I was as amazed as she was.
I seriously believe that all of these programs, the YBCR or the LR lead our kids to not only be receptive but also actually interested in the letters of the alphabet since they see letters everyday in these programs. I really think that teaching kids the alphabet whether it be sounds or names should be introduced part way through the program if not sooner. Also, definitely get those magnetic boards up. The combination has really been successful for my son and so I highly recommend it.
Isnt that great…
My 2 year old has also started spelling the following words… he goes up to his Leap pad and looks for the letters to put in the word builder that he has put on the fridge… and he currently spells out…
eat
run
cat
hat
ear
eye
and he will e at the fridge and look for the r the u and the n all on his own… put it in and say that spells run RUN MOMMY RUN!!!
and he will do this is my e-y-e and put all 3 letters in…
That is great. It’s good to feel that they take their own interest once you give them the beginning tools. So many people are critical of children being taught early but as we have all seen it is basically play to them- so much better than sitting them in front of a commercial ridden “entertainment” cartoon. Congratulations to everyone and their efforts.
I wonder what method everyone has found to work best for math introduction. My son was not too receptive to Doman. He became interested in numerals before I learned about Doman Math so needless to say he rather see the numeral vs the dots. He does count and understands the concept of quantity so I wonder if anyone has some suggestions.
Try mixing a presentation of numerals and quantity. Also many children find dots boring. Try something that interests your child instead, like little footballs or puppies or whatever.
You can try Little Math for free for 2 weeks if you click on the free trial version. You might see if some of the different icons interest your child.
My daughter and I also like to do “Delicious Math”. We get out little chocolate chips or cheerios and do addition, subtraction, multiplication, division demonstrations with them. After each live equation we eat some. She loves it. Especially division. Math is fun if we want it to be. :biggrin:
Thank you for the great advice! I will definitely try your suggestions.
Math for us is so much fun. We count everything from cookies, crayons, old juice lids, cars, boy that’s a big one. Cars!! I have a video on my new game can of fun, it might give you some ideas. Also if you go to www.earlylearningathome.com she has some really great games as well. I have just made a bunch of math file folder games that I hope to post soon. We like hands on stuff around here so we use dominoes, wooden sticks, cars, small animals, all kinds of small stuff, and some big stuff like stuffed animals. The big thing now for us is foam large beads, that we can sort, match, and count. think about using file folder games, lap books, games, and math books. We also use cereal for counting like Kix or cheerios or fruit loops.
Also jumpstart program has a math software for all grades that we like to use sometimes.
Also cooking is a great way to teach math, no matter what age. There are tons of books about kids in the kitchen.
If there is a paticular item like cars that he likes use that in your math. I use stickers to create my file folder board games and a spinner. This goes over well, because it is cars. I also made a game where we place the cars in a garage by counting and sorting the cars, which garage do they fit in. Use his interested items in his not so interested items.
I can’t wait to get back from my outing today and look at your links and get going on the pointers. Thank you for all the suggestions. I’m so glad I found this site- everyone is so helpful. Keep up the great work with you little ones!
Hi,
I see a lot of people are doing some great work. I think it really depends if your baby is ready for it or not. They let you know.
I have had foam letters in the bath since my daughter was about 8 months. We say:
“what sound does the letter make”
&
“What is the name of the letter”
eg sound = ef
name = F
She has been able to do this since she has been about 20 months. We show her both letter names, but particularly work on the sounds. We are now introducing how to sound the words out.
If you are not doing these things, dont worry, you will know when your baby needs it. My little girl is very academic and needs to be stimulated every second she is awake.
Just enjoy the child you have. You will know what is the right thing and when.
Tiger-Lily :nowink:
The poster board actually came with the lower case letters you buy seperately for those Leap Frog Phonic things that go on the fridge, i used the capital letters from the actual toy, and I just taped the poster board on an magnetic chalk board my parents had in the basement at there place from when I was a kid. But I’m sure there are many ways to do this activity, I only used that stuff because it was around.