2 y.o. started reading (phonics). Suggestions?

[AnotherBookWorm]

Hi all!

I would like to tell you our early learning story and ask for some ideas to continue from now on.

It's been a year since we started our early learning adventure. We started with Doman flash cards at 15 - 18 months (not too successful for us, by the way!). After that we did Little Reader, which was much more fun. At the beginning she loved it, then she slowly lost interest. She never read any words by the whole word method, but she learnt lots of new vocabulary (animals, furniture, etc). We almost finished the first semester, then gradually stopped showing it (I didn't see the point in showing it to her if she didn't want to! I decided I'd rather wait until she became interested again).

In the meanwhile, I taught her the letters by their sound, not their name. By the way, I teach my daughter Spanish as this is my mother language. Spanish is -unlike English- extremely easy to read by the phonics method, because letters are pronounced always the same. After some time she was able to recognize each letter in a word, but it didn't make any sense to her. She would read f. e. A, N, N, A but she didn't really connect those letters with the word Anna.

A couple of months ago she started blending simple consonants and vowels (I think it's called blend?), like this: B + A = BA, B + E = BE and so on...

And now, not long ago, she started reading short 3-letter words (pan, sol...). She sometimes asks me to read her a word, and then tries to do it herself. But she really struggles with longer words. It's like she forgets the first syllable after decoding the first one. For example she will start to read "Dora". Then she says "d, o, DO". Then "r, a: RA" Then I ask her: so what's the word? And many times she doesn't know any more! She just remembers the last syllable.

I'm wondering whether she's too young for the phonics method and she simply is not physically able to remember those syllables at all? (She's only 2,5 years old). What do you think? It also seems quite a lot of work -and slow!- to read each word by the sound of each letter (when I was little we learnt the syllables as a whole, as in ma-me-mi-mo-mu, not each sound separately).

Anyways, she seems really interested in decoding printed words when she sees them (car brands, words on everyday items and so on) and I would like to help her to continue learning but at her pace and in an enjoyable way.

What do you think? Should I encourage her to go on "decoding" words by sounding each letter separately? Or should I change my approach? I wish she had interested in the whole word method but she never remembers any sight words.

Any suggestions will be welcome!

[mom2bee]

My understanding is that most children in Spanish speaking schools learn the vowel sounds and then the syllabary, NOT the individual consonant sounds.
I would not use English phonic practices with the Spanish language. I would teach Spanish phonics the Spanish way by teaching vowels and then syllables as "chunks" just like in English the digraphs "th" "sh" "ch" "wh" are taught as one,  I would teach "ma, me, mi, mo, mu" etc.

There are some really helpful videos on Youtube about the alphabet and the syllabary . These videos are about 2-3 minutes each so you can watch them like you would a clip of any other tot friendly educational show.

You can also look into getting the Nacho Libro Inicial Lectura or a similar reader series that was written in Spanish, for Spanish speakers by Spanish speakers (i.e Coquito or La Pata Pita). Also, there is a website "ReadingA-Z.com" that has thousands of leveled readers available in English and many of them have been translated into Spanish and French. You can download many of them for free if you sign up for the free trial (no credit card required). There are also several English readers translated into Spanish (French and German to) for free on HubbardsCupboard.org

Also, get an ISSUU account and you can read or download PDFs of Mexicos Board of Education curriculum for PreK-6th grade. They have things like Reading, Mathematics, History, Geography etc. After Nacho and ReadingA-Z those materials will give plenty of reading practice for a child.

[AnotherBookWorm]

I'm really thankful for your reply mom2bee! It took me some time to reply because I was actually trying to find and research the resources you listed. I'm so happy you found so many resources for us!
I have decided to follow your advice and present my daughter with syllabaries too, I didn't manage to get Nacho's book in Spain but I bought a few lovely ones: Letrilandia and Parque de papel. I wish I could get the one you listed but I think they don't sell it in Europe (at least I didn't find it).
I also took out our old baby books, the ones with one picture - one word and she now likes to sit down on her own and "decode" the words under the pictures (sounding each letter separately). I just let her do it her way as it's her idea anyways. Maybe she will switch to syllables on her own, hopefully, because now she reads the syllabary sounding each letter first. I suppose she will learn the syllables eventually?
Anyways thanks! And any new ideas or suggestions are very welcome!

[AnotherBookWorm]

Just wanted to share an update on our progress.
It seems our daughter is enjoying reading her way (phonics method) and can now read just about any word, no matter how long, in Spanish and phonetically similar languages. It's quite amazing!

She sometimes reads a whole sentence, 4-5 words maximum. But she is usually too lazy and prefers reading books with only one word-one picture.

I don't really ask her to read anything, she reads when she wants to and what she wants to. If I ask her, then she always says "NO!! Mommy reads it!!". I just leave the books lying around open sometimes... or pretend I am reading them...

I wanted to ask for some advice if someone can help.

She sometimes seems to read the letters from back to front. She also has problems reading a sentence if it is written in more than one line (she will start with the lower line, then go up, then stop or go to the middle...). I tried to explain her that we read from left to right, up-down - to no avail. She can't understand it.

Another thing which is worrying me is whether I should be encouraging her to read longer sentences, but I don't really know how to do it, as she doesn't like being told what to do. I guess she will start on her own eventually?

Thanks!!

[Wolfwind]

This sounds so much like my daughter! She loved phonics but couldn't blend for about a year. Even when she could, she would only do a word or two at a time. She definitely couldn't keep track of multiple lines when she started reading words.

For me, it ended up just being a matter of time. At age 3 I knew she could read, but she wouldn't. We did phonics time every day, and in a good mood she could read the single words presented (we used Reading Bear at that point), but she wouldn't read in books. It took a solid year before she decided to read. At age 4 she started reading very very short books (a couple lines per page) and then it finally took off. Now at four and a half she's just started reading chapter books independently.

I still think that maybe there was something I could have done better, but I just kept at it a little bit every day, kept it low stress, and waited. It took a year, but now she's an excellent early reader.

I don't know if that's what you want to hear, but I hope it gives you faith that it will work out!

[Orsi26]

For building the habit of left to right, top to bottom you can try:
- when you dress/dry after bath etc. always put the right arm/right leg first
- do any activity in these directions (like sorting for example, making cookies, putting toys away etc)
- put out 1 sentence first, then the next under then the next under and so on to build a story (whether with flashcards or with letters)
- use memory story cards, and always put them in that order
- do arts and crafts like stamping etc in that order

don't force, just show her quietly how to do it, and let her chose to or not. She is 2 so compliance is not her strongest point right now. However you need to stay consistent in the way you do it.

if still trouble, drop me a line!

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