Doing ABCs with toddler. Any tips?

(11 Posts)
stringornothing Mon 30-Sep-13 08:24:12

There are some quite good alphabet books out there (along with a lot of rubbish ones). She's a bit young for Kipper's ABC, which is fantastic, but DD adored Alphapets.

MiaowTheCat Mon 30-Sep-13 07:35:16

9 am weekdays on cbeebies (I have it set to record - I record the bits of telly that don't annoy me or involve Mr maker)

MiaowTheCat Mon 30-Sep-13 07:33:41

I love alphablocks. They're only about 5 minutes long so great if you want something quick to pop on the TV and even just the animation is nice and attention grabbing without smarmy over hairgelled presenters who annoy me on cbeebies endlessly!

FaddyPeony Sun 29-Sep-13 21:39:44

Thanks for the replies. I had a lame go at the alphabet earlier anyway before I got replies and she was interested for a while but then started putting her crayons to bed so I just gave up. hmm

Miaow your DD sounds so cute and yes, scarily switched on! Interesting to get your thoughts on this as an ex-teacher. That's kind of what's stopping me, though, I feel like there's probably a Right Way to do all this and tbh I'm (as I said) a bit crap and lazy. I sense that DD has a good memory and picks things up fairly quickly.

Baking that's great, I'm off to google this Alphablocks thing now, if nothing else it could be a good way to kill a quiet half hour I'm thinking.

Bakingtins Sun 29-Sep-13 19:10:56

Alphablocks (Cbeebies program on their website) is fantastic for teaching phonics in a fun way. I think you can help by having letters around, we have a nice Orchard Toys alphabet jigsaw, some magnetic letters and sand moulds. When she's a bit older there is a v good free website called teach your monster to read, my 3 yr old is very keen.

MiaowTheCat Sun 29-Sep-13 18:50:13

DD1 is younger (almsot 18 months) but is OBSESSED with letters and numbers and her face lights up when you give her the information about what they are - so fuck it, I'm running with her interests here!

I would do a couple of things (I'm an ex reception teacher so not 100% talking out of my arse like I usually am)
Personally - I'd avoid Ay Bee Ceee and use the letter sounds for now - just less potential for confusion. I'd make sure I was saying the phonic sounds correctly as well (things like M being a particular bother - it's not Muh but mmmm) - someone put a youtube link in AIBU the other day to a video showing the correct way of saying them. You're not going to fuck anything up if she's interested in them and you're pronouncing them correctly (and I know too many teaching staff who fall into the "muh" habit still!).

But I've done things like answering her with what the letter or number is when she points to them - helping her when she's dropping bricks into a bucket and wants to know what number comes next (she can do wo doo fee with 1-to-1 correspondence) and stuff like that. We have letters on her bedroom door and when we go past she points to letters and I tell her the sound (there's a couple I'm 95% sure she's identifying herself as well) - all led by her but she's so bloody switched on it's faintly frightening - she'll sit on a mountain of books "reading" them for a good hour happily (and the stories she tells are a bloody damn sight more interesting than Stripy Horse or Little Puppy)... if all else fails the dog gets read to a heck of a lot. If nothing else - speaking clearly and in decent sentences is one HELL of a good starting point for their own language development really.

Takes bloody hours to go around Tesco when she homes in on every price label wanting to know what the numbers say!

FaddyPeony Sun 29-Sep-13 12:36:54

Good point ballroom about confusing her if she learns them differently in an official way later on. Should probably leave it to the professionals. English is such an irregular language to learn!
She's fairly good on colours. I could start doing shapes and numbers properly though with her for sure.

Alphabet I wouldn't bother. From what I've seen with ds the school teaches alphabet sounds with 'phonics' alongside learning the letters. I would be worried teaching them one way and nursery or school teaching another might confuse them.

sparkleshine Sun 29-Sep-13 12:18:43

At 20 months I wouldn't worry about it but it's great she knows them. My nearly 4 year old hasn't got to grips with any letters yet even though he goes to nursery. They will do that at school.
Won't do any harm in bringing numbers and letters, shapes, colours etc into play but as for sitting down and teaching I wouldn't bother.

FaddyPeony Sun 29-Sep-13 10:39:43

Anyone? Or should I just leave it til she's older?

FaddyPeony Sun 29-Sep-13 10:08:49

Ok, so my default setting is to be lazy as fuck wrt to my DD's development and just let her pootle about as she likes. I think however that I should probably start re-evaluating my approach of benign neglect because apart from anything else she is far easier to manage when I interact with her properly.

So. This morning I learnt that she knows some letters, because she started naming out the handful of fridge magnets that were dumped on the table. Neither DH nor I has ever taught her and I've just checked with Granny (who was babysitting last weekend) and they're not her work either. DD must have picked them up from CM or from telly I guess.

Anyway, so how do you DO the alphabet with toddlers? Do I just write out all the letters and tell her what they're called? I just realised that I have no idea how children learn this kind of thing. But I feel like she would enjoy something like this and that I should do it with her.

Any tips MN?

P.S. She's 20 months.

Join the discussion

Join the discussion


Register now