I'm feeling really stuck for birthday present ideas for my DD who will soon be 3.  She already has a balance bike and a scooter for outdoor exercise and play.  She is not that big on toys and puzzles - she loves imaginative play and we also have a play kitchen and food that she likes.  But really most things she only plays with very sporadically and I'm loath to spend lots of money on things that she will never really use.  I'm tempted to put some money in her savings account and just give a few small gifts (we are also having a birthday party for friends at nursery so she will get plenty of presents to open from there).

Am I being really mean and lacking imagination?!   I'm a bit tired having recently gone back to work after maternity leave so that may be part of the problem 

Thank you for raising this topic Kimba - this is one of my big worries too as we will be sending my DD to a standard school and I am worried about how she will get on there.
I definitely want my DD (aged almost 3) to learn to try - currently she really struggles to keep trying at activities that she finds quite challenging - she gets frustrated and gives up.  So I can't decide if it is better to have given her this headstart so this is less of a problem.  My gut feeling is that it is better to have the problem of motivation for children who have undergone early learning than for a child who feels unable to keep up with peers at school and loses self-esteem that way.

But I think we are kind of on the cusp of DD 'getting' reading - she is now able to blend words if I sound them out.  Should I just stop?!!  I sometimes wonder if I've got stuck on a treadmill of teaching and would be so disappointed if it actually ended up disadvantaging her after all the effort we have both put in.

Manda - I really agree with the idea of stretching in a variety of different areas, not all academic.  I listened to a radio programme about gifted and talented children and this was one of the main learning points - not to get too focused on one area as the child can become a perfectionist and get quite stressed at the prospect of making even minor mistakes.  It was also important to include activities that do not involve any kind of grading or testing (including self imposed by the child who may be comparing themselves to peers and setting high standards) but are purely for enjoyment and relaxation.  I think gymnastics will be a good one for us too and hopefully she'll come around to piano in the end   

Out of interest, I was an early reader myself and I recall being given graded readers at school that I knew were way too easy for me.  We had to progress through the whole scheme before being allowed to move on to reading 'real' books.  It was a big of a drag but I remember reading them really quickly (my mum did not make me read them aloud to her which we were supposed to do!) and then getting back to reading something more interesting at home!  It became a sort of game of jumping through hoops.  I can still remember feeling really annoyed at myself because I mispronounced the word picturesque at age 7 or 8 when reading aloud to a teacher who then refused to let me progress more quickly through the books!!  But we made up for it by having extra library books (I was allowed more than the standard 4 because I read so fast!).

Out of interest, what are people's thoughts about teaching maths concepts?  Do you also wish you had done less?  My feeling is that maths is taught quite badly in many schools!

This is all food for thought.  Perhaps important to focus on our writing skills soon to balance against the reading, plus perhaps we should move on more to reading in other languages (roll on the French and Spanish curriculae for LR please!!) and of course music.

I do agree with Manda about this - I have read some research that writing affirmations that don't have a personal meaning can be quite detrimental as people just feel it is untrue and can actually reinforce the negative thoughts.
You might try to generate some personalised positive statements / affirmations together during the time that things are going well.  It is particularly helpful if they includue specific examples from real life
e.g. It feels good when I am kind to others - and then under this write a list of times that she was kind to someone and felt good - keeping this type of positive diary over time can build self esteem and remind both of you of the good times!  Then maybe ask her to read it when things are not going so well.  You could help point out examples and qualities that you value in her.  Taking time to do this together can be very powerful.
In terms of discipline, have you considered time out?  I thought 123 magic was great (I bought their DVD which was really good) but also combined with lots of positive reinforcement and praise for when things are going well.  This could include reward charts for positive behaviour.  With my highly emotional daughter I find that the more badly behaved she is being the more important it is for me to find something to praise in her behaviour (it sometimes feels impossible!) but this helps to break a negative cycle. But the time out is really great when emotions are running high (for both of us) to allow a time to cool down. 
Also, do remember to acknowledge the emotions that are underlying her behaviour.  My DD is going through a habit of saying "shut up" (big SIGH!!)  It really infuriates me and I tried everything to stop her from time out to explaining why she shouldn't say it etc.  What worked best is to ask "Are you feeling upset about something?" and discuss her emotions.  Really, it has become a way for her to express her anger / frustration etc and understanding this helps me feel less annoyed with her.  I can empathize with how she feels bad, even if I don't approve of her behaviour or the way she expresses her emotions.  I find that any discipline is better done after this (because sometimes she's just being plain naughty when she says it!) because she feels more listened to and understood.
Good luck!

We also like marshmallow math. We have had a LOT for teddy bear picnics with one cup and one plate etc for each bear!  And we are using Numicon about once a week although DD is a bit bored with it at the moment.

I still don't feel she is ready for a structured programme yet. We are playing with several maths apps on the iPad and this is working well at the moment.

The apps we like at the moment are:
monkey math preschool Lunchbox ( this is quite easy for DD but she really enjoys it!  The most challenging game is a memory match which I was really pleased to watch her learn the patience and a strategy for solving)
Monkey mathSchool sunshine
Eurotalk maths - this is quite expensive for an app but it has 10 modules and covers a really good range of concepts from matching and sorting, counting, patterns etc.
Fingercount - very simple idea good for reinforcing counting

I would be very happy for more math app suggestions for this age group as I like to rotate the apps each week.

Hi Lelask

Thanks for the list of resources - we also use most of those.  We also really like Speekee for Spanish and French with Serge DVDs.

But I have not heard of languagemom before - I am very interested in this!  Could you give some more information about what is involved in this programme?

Thanks very much 

How rigidly do you all think it is important to stick to these word lists?  For example, they are all one syllable words which makes it easier to learn the rules of phonics but less interesting in terms of concepts and ideas and general EK.  For example, for ee, I'd quite like to use between as there are some good potential pictures for this.  Does this slow the process overall?  I guess this brings in a bit of whole word teaching rather than pure phonics.  I realise there may not be a definitive answer to this!

Hello Chris
That offer sounds very interesting!  Can you give a bit more information about this as I'm very interested but not clear what is involved or included. There does not seem to be any info on your website?
Thanks!

Wow - Nee1 that list of drills by Hegge-Kirk is amazingly comprehensive!  Thank you!  I'm not sure we'll cover ALL those words but it really helps to have an order to follow rather than be making one up!

DD can blend some words, I think, but she HATES HATES testing (and considers being asked to blend s-u-n a test!) plus she does not like slowing down to sound out words - it seems to annoy her!  So it's not easy to do this very often.  However, she is able to read and tell the difference between sun, run, fun etc.  I'm not sure if I can assume this means she can blend or not, or whether they are just memorized.  This is another reason for wanting to go through a comprehensive phonics programme from the start even after doing many fleschcards.  I like these cards very much but I definitely prefer the list provided by Nee1 as it seems to make more sense to me.

I have found that DD does not like easy reader books that contain too many simple words - she finds them boring and I find them a bit contrived.  I have quite a few and she basically refuses to read them all!  She is much more interested to try to read more complex sentences that include a whole range of words on topics that are more interesting.  I don't know if this is a good or bad thing to be combining whole word and phonics in this way but it seems to be the only way to progress for us right now.  When reading books together we share the reading - I'll point out words that she can read and she finds this fun.  At the moment she has a fascination with the word "the" and enjoys picking this out on a page and counting how many there are!  I am hoping this will teach her to look for the gist of meaning in a sentence even if she does not understand every single word.

Thanks very much maquenzie - very helpful.

The phonemes you mentioned above are actually all digraphs, not blends. I have (mostly) done blends first, but I don't see why it'd be a problem to do digraphs first or even at the same time. Depends on the kid, probably.

Ha ha see how little I know!!!   

I think she does know a lot of this already but it is trying to systematize and repeat to build confidence in learning to decode.



If anyone knows of a good internet resource for this too, I'd be really grateful

I've been teaching DD since probably 4 months, she is now approaching 3 and is slowly moving towards reading which is fantastic.  We finished the LR semesters 1 and 2 ages ago and since then I've been using Fleshcards on powerpoint plus I am making other powerpoint presentations as well.  I have opted for powerpoint rather than LR as I find it a little quicker to make the presentations (you don't have to save the pictures to file - you can just cut and paste from google images!).  I have found that tailoring the content to her interests is really important for keeping her enthusiasm so it has been more successful to make our own rather than using other people's files.

She does not seem to have intuited phonics from whole words teaching, so we are now working through a type of phonics programme but I also try to use this as a form of EK - so introducing some interesting and useful facts along the way.  I have also tried to bring in the idea of sentences and starting to pick out works, including sight words and she is now able to read a number of simple sentences that she has not seen before.  For example, I will do the word on one slide:  e.g. run and then on the next slide (no picture) we have a sentence with the word on it (look at the rabbit run across the field) with the word run in red.  Finally we have a slide with picture and sentence together (rabbit running etc)

We also do one presentation per week on an EK topic of interest.  Again we do the sentence with no picture first to help with reading and then show the picture.  This week for example we are talking about clouds.  They cannot be too long otherwise she loses interest but again this is working well for us, especially if the content follows something else that is going on in her life (e.g. she is doing a dance about clouds this week at her kindermusic / signing class which is why I made this presentation to go alongside). Last week the dance (and therefore our presentation) was about robins!

Anyway, I have moved through the short sound vowels AEIOU in the middle of words (e.g. run, sun) and at the beginning (umbrella, under).  So now I want to move onto blends.  I am wondering if there is a recommended order for teaching phonics.  I have done many of the fleschcards presentations (up to #19) but I think we need something very systematic to help. 

I was thinking of moving onto Ch and Sh next and then Th and Ng simply because this is the order used in a phonics DVD that we have watched.  But I'm not sure whether this is correct and where to go next.  Also, when to introduce sounds that are spelled differently (e.g. ea / e sound the same in bread and bed)?

All advice hugely appreciated, thanks!

I love the idea of child-led learning.  We just signed up for a trial of Speekee last week and my DD aged 33 months is really enjoying it - she has asked to watch the first episode every day for the past 3 or 4 days!  i also really like having a curriculum to help plan our learning and that it involves simple bite sized activities that only need take a few minutes if you have a very active toddler who has a short attention span (I do!).

I like the mixture of puppets and real Spanish children.  DD definitely responds more to the children than to the puppets - she's not so keen on the songs that only involve the puppets.  I have also found that the interactive conversational element in the first episode has been really helpful.  This is repeated several times (e.g. como te llamas... me llamo... etc) and I have been able to pause the programme and ask the same question to my daughter.  This is the first time after showing quite a range of spanish DVDs that she has been willing to reply!  She will say "muy bien" "me llamo..." and "y tu"!  I am very excited about that    I don't think that I have seen this in many other teaching materials for young children which tend to emphasize flashing words etc, but have less emphasis on drawing the child into getting involved and answering questions etc.

But, to comment on your original question, whilst I love the idea of child led learning, I would be less enthusiastic about having non native spanish speakers involved.  As a parent who speaks some spanish but with an English accent, I think it is really important to be exposed to the correct accent as much as possible on teaching materials such as DVDs etc.  If there are children on the DVD also speaking with a very anglicised accent then I would be worried about this confusing the child and making them less likely to make the effort to try to pronounce the language more correctly.  Having said that, there is nothing DD likes better than seeing someone else make a mistake and being corrected so watching another child modelling how to learn a language could work very well!  But could you use native spanish speaking children pretending to make mistakes and being corrected?! 

What type of child led activities did you have in mind?

Hi all
I would be really grateful for some recommendations for good ipad phonics apps. Having started with whole words and LR and now working through fleschcards on powerpoint and reading bear. My 32 month daughter is just building confidence and I think a simple fun app would be good practice. She likes meet the phonics letters app. It is quite simple without too many distractions and this seems to be best for us. Otherwise it is sensory overload and she isn't interested.  I find she enjoys it most when the game is really quite easy for her but with a bit of challenge.

I'm not looking for writing letters or alphabet phonics as she knows this from leapfrog letter factory.  Would love some simple games picking out simple words ( e.g. Cat hat / jet get met etc).

And being fussy - prefer not flashcards as they don't hold her attention!!

Thank you for any ideas!

Thanks for all these ideas!

 I just started by buying a cd boxset of The Gruffalo, Room on the Broom and 4-5 other stories all by Julia Donaldson which DD loves. Quite looking forward to our next car journey!

I feel the same way most days!  It often seems that everyone else on this forum is making amazing progress and we are somehow getting left behind.  I totally agree that you need to try to get some sleep (and maybe some 'mummy time' if at all possible during the day or evenings 

Don't forget that any time you spend teaching your son is valuable , no matter how small - and so much more than most people are doing with their kids, so do not feel under pressure to do too much at the start.  Also agree with prioritizing - choose one area at a time and get established with that - don't try to do 'everything' all at once!  We probably only manage to spend around 15-20 minutes during breakfast for early learning on the computer and then short 5 minute (or less) activities through the day.  I've been trying to bring learning into play as much as possible (for example maths by throwing a tea party for all her toys, allowing us to talk about numbers, ordinals, one to one association of objects, fractions - sharing cakes etc).  We might watch a language DVD at some point in the afternoon too. 

We are learning music through soft mozart and it is fun but really really bite sized pieces of learning (perhaps a minute or two only) work best for us.  Quite often I get to the end of the day and think we haven't achieved anything but when you go back through, there are plenty of tiny pieces of learning and they all count!!

Good luck!

Having been given a book / CD set for Christmas (One Snowy Night - by Nick Butterworth - a really lovely story for younger children), we have been reading the book and listening to the story on CD as well when in the car.  I had not appreciated how much of a hit this would be with DD aged 33 months!  She absolutely loves listening to the story and also wants to read it again during the day.  This seems to be developing a very different set of skills to purely reading - there are no visual cues or words so it means she needs to concentrate when listening and also use her imagination.  I'm wondering about other people's views on this - it will obviously not teach reading but I'm hoping it might encourage concentration, story telling, imagination, memory etc.  I'm considering buying a whole heap of other books on CD too - having one story on constant playback in the car is not quite so much fun for the driver!