how to help her recognise numbers & letters

[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.