how to help her recognise numbers & letters

[Jodi]

DD1 (who is 3.5 years) is really interested in learning what numbers & letters are and writing them. She can recognise the really easy ones (like 0,1 & 8) so what kind of things can I do to help her with this? So far we read to her heaps, and I do the dot-to-dot thing where she joins the dot to make a word. What else? I was thinking flash cards or something.
TIA

[LimeSlice]

You can get alphabet books - you know a big A and a picture of an apple

I found with Charlotte it was simply repetition. She knows and can recognise the alphabet and numbers to 16 now, it was just telling her the letters and her repeating then me asking her what they were.

She didn't do them in order - she had her favs lol I think we started with her name- my mum got her a name puzzle board thing - you know the wooden ones with their name just written across?
She also has Dora flash cards, but only just began using them in the last few weeks.

I taught my sister to read and write when she was 4, and with her because she was able to use a pencil with control, it was getting her to write words and her name, etc - took about 2 months and she could read and write ready for school.

For numbers we had a couple of books that counted things - 10 Little Ladybugs is the house fav lol counts down from ten - has the numerals, the words and the actual ladybugs are raised so they can count them.

Repetition and lots of praise worked for us
Good luck!

[BellaBambina]

There is a great educational program called Letterland (google it). They are aimed at pre-school children and introduce all the letters of the alphabet. Each letter is a character. ie. Annie the apple, munching mike. They have videos, books, flash cards. Some really great resources that are fun and educational.

My brothers learnt all the letters and phonics using this program before starting school and I knw that their pre-school did it with them as well.

HTH!

[Netix]

Yeah, I would say repetition and praise too. Steph can recognise the letter "S" as 'her' letter (lol, its so funny), but that's through a lot of reading and talking about alphabet books (like we talk about names of people we know and words of each letter as we go through the book. Sorry, just realised I haven't said much helpful, just listen to Lime Slice.

Oh, just remembered, I think you can get books where they draw over dotted lines to write letters. Hope that helps, good luck.

[BekZ]

I have just read some interesting information regarding pre-reading and letter recognition and it has changed my approach to teaching DD 4. Previously I've been using flash cards and letter books with little to no interest from DD.

The article I read suggested that pre readers need to be exposed to a wide variety of text, as in books, papers, lists, signs and labels. It is our job to point them out. Children at this stage should be more interested in the sounds of a word or phonics rather than being able to recite a letter. Helpful things to do is to sound words out or even get hold of some poems or rhyming type books. Another important thing to do is to let your child read to you and use their finger from left to right as if they were really reading.

In the last six months DD has become more interested in words and letters. She is starting to write letters and she can tell me what they are and even the sounds.

HTH

[nellnell]

Just remember that when you teach her the letters of the alphabet, that you show her lower case and upper case letters. So many children come to school only writing their names in upper case. I find that particularly with the increased use of computers (and therefore keyboards), that children are able to identify uppercase, yet not lower case.

All names, places etc (proper nouns) should be written with a capital letter followed by lowercase letters eg, Emma, Adelaide etc.

Chat about the sounds that letters make as well as this is REALLY IMPORTANT. Reciting letters without any knowledge of the sounds is not helpful to reading. There are more than 40 sounds in Standard Australian English, yet only 26 letters. I find that while reading books / environmental print with my DD that I always model the sound that the letter at the start of the word says. Focus on beginning sounds (start of the word) then end sounds as she gets older. Middle sounds are really hard for kids to distinguish, and won't come until later.

Numbers - look at clocks, road signs, money, mobile phones etc, make with playdough, write them in the ground with sticks. Paste leaves on paper in the shapes of numbers, then find '3 gunmuts' to go with the written numbers.

It's all about associating numerals (written numbers) with concrete object (eg the 3 gumnuts)

Hope this helps and wasn't too confusing.

PS - flash cards work for some, but I prefer to use things familiar to the child's surroundings. I'm currently using pegs on a washing line at DD and DS's height so they can count and make certain numbers with pegs.

[mrsmac]

There is a website called K-3 teacher resources which has some great free stiff you can print off, I have membership cause I am a teacher and i use it all the time.

[Jodi]

Thanks so much to everyone who has offered advice, it has all been fantastic!!
Just to update, Nina can now draw shapes and write numbers from 0-9. And she can also recognise what numbers are what. She's pretty keen to learn to write her name, so I'll use some of the suggestions here with learning letters now.
And again, THANK YOU!

[ausgirl]

There is a great educational program called Letterland (google it). They are aimed at pre-school children and introduce all the letters of the alphabet. Each letter is a character. ie. Annie the apple, munching mike. They have videos, books, flash cards. Some really great resources that are fun and educational.

My brothers learnt all the letters and phonics using this program before starting school and I knw that their pre-school did it with them as well.

HTH!

Letterland is our centre of learning in our programs at my childcare centre. It was introduced a couple of years ago now and our kids (and families) absolutely love it! It is heaps of fun and the prep teacher here has told us that her preppies this year who came from us, have a very high literacy level.

[Roryrory]

The article I read suggested that pre readers need to be exposed to a wide variety of text, as in books, papers, lists, signs and labels. It is our job to point them out. Children at this stage should be more interested in the sounds of a word or phonics rather than being able to recite a letter. Helpful things to do is to sound words out or even get hold of some poems or rhyming type books. Another important thing to do is to let your child read to you and use their finger from left to right as if they were really reading.

Along the same lines, might I suggest you check out the book "Einstein Never Used Flash Cards: How Our Children Really Learn-- And Why They Need to Play More and Memorize Less" (i think this is about the millionth time I have recommended it to someone LOL!) The premise of the book is, in part, that learning the alphabet or numbers are only small elements of literacy and numeracy, and often a focus on leaning letters and numbers can be at the expnse of developing other skills, such as telling a story (ie: learning that there is a begin, middle and end of any narrative), reading maps (literacy and spatial ability combined!), and so on.

I am not saying "don't encourage" her but rather suggesting that you do it in a context that fuels her obvious love of learning

[mrsmac]

Here here Roryrory!!!

As a kindergarten teacher I see children who have great sight word skills and may know every letter and number but have no comprehension and cannot tell me a rhyming word. Its very often at the expense of some very important stuff that children race ahead with reading and number.