when to teach baby alphabet, vowel, consonant?

Early Learning Teaching Your Child to Read
1

good day!

i’m currently on LR and showing flash card using doman method. May i know when is the suitable time to start to introduce alphabet, vowel, consonant to my baby? she’s 5 months old now. Or anyone can share how to do this concurrently with LR/Doman?

Any good product/software to recommend to teach these?

Thanks for sharing!

2

YOu can introduce the alphabet and vowel and consonant at anytime.
The best product I can think of for this is the Leap Frog videos. If she likes to watch tv. We have these and they are wonderful. They came out about the time my 2nd daughter was 4yrs old ( she’s 11 now). I’ve used them with my third and fourth and it has really helped make my girls aware of the alphabet and words. They are better readers.
Of course these are geared more towards kids that are about 2,3,4 5 and maybe 6yr olds. So not sure how a 5 month old would really respond to them. But they are super cute and are in cartoon format.

http://www.google.com/search?q=leapfrog+videos&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7ADFA_en#q=leapfrog+videos&hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&rlz=1I7ADFA_en&prmd=ivns&source=univ&tbm=shop&tbo=u&sa=X&ei=7IOtTeijK-6z0QHO3PihCw&ved=0CGAQrQQ&biw=1243&bih=518&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=8bc125f08e22a6ef

3

hi dna

Doman mentions in his book “how to teach baby to read” that the alphabet should not be taught to the child until they are learning how to write. That is because words like “feet” and “kick” have meanings, whereas “d” and “v” don’t mean anything to the baby, so they get confused about why they need to know them. So the Doman methodology is to start with words first, then couplets, then phrases, then sentences and finally books.

When they are ready to write, that is when you introduce the alphabet, and that is when it will make sense to the child what the alphabet is used for.

You should read the book for a more detailed explanation of this topic.

Hope this helps

4

Hello

I have been receiving emails from ChildrenLearningReading.com
Today they sent this tip:

Before your child can learn to read, he or she must first learn some basic letter names and letter sounds. For example, the letter
“A” makes the /A/ (ah) sound. (slashes denote sound of the letter). To be able to read, a child must be able to recognize the letters,
know the sound of the letters, and be able to recognize the letters quickly and say the sound without hesitation.

Our Teaching Tip:

Always teach the letter name and letter sound together. Never separately. Studies have found that there is little value in teaching
preschoolers letter forms or letter sounds separately. Other studies have found that children receiving letter name and sound
instruction were most likely to learn the sounds of letters whose names included cues to their sounds.

5

TracyR4, thanks for recommending the leapfrog system. Will look into it.

Bk87 & Mela, thanks for replying. seems like there are 2 schools of thought. In my own view:

  • Doman method teach the children to read before teaching phonics. I read some parents comment that their child can’t read some words that they never seen before because they do not know how to pronounce. So personally i think it is important to teach phonics too. Like if you know the basic of how to use the fishing equipment you can fish properly. Doman’s method is somehow learning how to use the fishing equipment through the fishing process. Yesterday while I was doing online search I found ‘child and me’ blog suggested how to combine Doman method and phonics together. The method is to flash the same consonant together e.g. Sat, pat, bat… (but Doman’s method don’t encourage to flash very similar word to children). I was scratching my head so hard what should I do, what is the best method to use to combine both. Thanks for mela’s information and suggestion. I think it make sense to teach letter and sound together when I’m flashing the Doman’s cards. Karma to you!
6

I believe that since there are many ways to teach your child to read there is not much that you can do wrong particularly with a very young child. This is what I did and it worked for me and my daughter:

I taught her words from 12 months and will probably start earlier with my second child.
At 18 months when she started to be able to say all the sounds I taught her the alphabet phonetically and she knew it very quickly.
I never did teach her the names of the letters but she learnt it on starfall and later at a nursery school she went to where they sang ABC and she is quite happy with both now.
I started phonetic reading with her when she was about 2.5 years old by just reading a word phonetically (c-a-t and then saying Cat for her) After a few weeks of me doing this with her for basic phonics words she could say the word when I just read the letters. I then did the same with the vowel combinations and diphthongs.

I imagine you could teach letters much earlier than this but it has little meaning for a baby. Words mean something although babies can easilybe taught words they do not understand which means letters would seem like words they don’t understand.

7

For my DD- I taught her several hundred sight words starting around 13 months mostly using a combination of YBCR, LR, and the Preschool Prep series for sight words (and shapes, colors, numbers. and letters). We introduced ABC’s at 14 months or so through watching Meet the Letters. We introduced Youtube phonics songs for letter sounds at about 16 months and after that, and then word blending a month or two after.

After that experience, with my younger son I introduced letters probably between 7-9 months I think. I think I introduced whole words at some point between 6-8 months with little reader, but I know it was whole words first to give him a basis of what letters are used for. I don’t think there is a wrong answer at all! I like to teach both in my family side by side, but I have seen it work just fine using either method or a combination of the two.

8

I started teaching the alphabet to my kids when they first started showing interest in them. My oldest wasn’t really interested until she was three. She is now 8 and we homeschool, so her little sisters(2.5 years old and 1.5 years old) see her writing and reading and they beg me to let them “do homework”! lol I just started teaching the alphabet to my younger ones while the older one is doing her writing homework. I started with the first letters in their name. They seemed to be really interested in that. Then I just pointed to an alphabet poster and asked the 2.5 year old what letters she wanted to learn. She loves picking the letters herself. They seem to be doing well so far. I just try to keep it interesting and stop before they get bored. I don’t think there is a right way/wrong way or a specific order that must be followed in order for them to get it right. I think as long as you both are enjoying the learning process then whatever you are doing is working for you and your kid and it is “right”.

This is Lola the 1.5 year old learning the letter T.

9

thanks for sharing!