Little Jack's Corner » Dr Suess

Teaching a 26 month old the Alphabet

Lisa — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 12:00:41 +0000

…why we just read and read til we were silly in the head!

But seriously though, I’ve been reading Dr. Seuss’s ABC to Jack at every nap and at bedtime since Maggie was born on May 15 (it was my way of spending some extra-snuggly mommy/son quality time with him while daddy handled the baby).

This book is awesome. It’s one of his most famous ones and starts out with “Big A, Little a, what begins with A? Aunt Annie’s Alligator, A…a…A!!”. My mom read it to me even as I approached teenhood (we always had a mutual fondness for the humor in Dr. Suess).

So imagine this… Jack is laying in his 3-sided-crib-turned-toddler-bed tucked under his blankie and I’m snuggled up beside him with a huge pile of books beside us. The “night night light” lamp is casting a dim glow around his yellow nursery, and cozy darkness envelops the windows. As I lay there reading, I always point to the words that I’m reading.

Speaking of…. I can’t imagine how a child would ever learn to read if the words he is hearing during a story isn’t being pointed out to him? My mom did this when she read to me, and I’ve always done it for Jack. It’s so simple – just place your finger under the sentence and move it along as you read the words. Not hard at all, really. Yet I’ve never seen anyone else do it. Not even at reading circle! But yeh. I’m a pointer. And the ABC book is a beloved favorite that we both enjoy pointing our way through and laughing over each night! Who’s to say bedtime can’t be educational, even for a two year old?

And that’s what our bedtime routine looks like. Right after bathtime and one last drink of milk, we snuggle up together, just us two, and we read the night away, typically 8-10 books in a sitting. I love it, Jack loves it, and all is right with the world.

With my son, I have great great fun! Great great fun when the day is done! (Ok, sorry, Dr. Suess I am not.)

Other than the ABC book, a few of the current books we read night after night include “Katie the Kitten”, “Green Eggs and Ham”, “The Foot Book”, “Hand, Hand, Fingers Thumb” (can you tell I <3 Dr. Suess???), “Maisy Makes Gingerbread”, “The Owl and the Pussycat” and “Beady the Bear” (which I HIGHLY recommend as a read aloud!).

But I digress…this post was supposed to be about teaching my toddler the alphabet… right?? Anywho.

Well, at the beginning of the ABC book, we sing the alphabet song twice (because the entire alphabet appears on the front inside cover) and then we sing it twice when we finish the book (we might as well because, yet again, those crazy ABC’s appear right there on the inside back cover too!)

While reading, I also casually go over letter sounds. We never hit all of them as I must gauge his current interest and only do as many as he prefers. For instance I may quickly go over the sounds for A, M, T, and S and nothing more. He absolutely loves it though. He’s always loved the “what does ____ say?” game, so translating it into the beginning stages of reading readiness works very well for us. I began by simply saying “A says Ah ah ah!” and “B says buh buh buh” at the beginning of the book while pointing to the letter in question. Once in a while I’ll slip in what a letter says after reading a random page (“Look! P says Puh Puh Puh”). We went through this for about a week before he began to show letter recognition. Once his recognition kicked in though, I began to ask the question “What does A say?” first and then I would wait a second to see if he would reply, if not, then I would answer the question myself and then continue with the book.

During the mid-half of the 2nd week, he began excitedly voicing many answers himself while pointing to the correct letter. (This really excited me!)

Later that same week, I began blending sounds into words to emphasize them too, such as this line from Dr. Suess that goes “Buh” “Barber, Baby” “BUH” “Bubbles, and a BUH Bumblebee”. As I emphasize the sound, I point out the letter and run my finger across the word I’m reading. I also began pointing out letters in our other books and in print elsewhere – for instance, I would point out the “c”, “a”, and the “t” in Pussycat while reading “The Owl and the Pussycat”. “Look Jack! hey! There’s the letter A! What does A say?” - and he would grin, bounce, and reply “Ah ah ah”. To him it’s a fun fun game that (currently) has very little meaning behind it. To me, however, it’s the first itty bitty baby steps in a life long love of literature (which is my goal).

Somewhere in the 4th week, he began to actually pick up the ABC book and point out letters by himself and say the correct sound. (Now THIS really excites his Dada!). Jack-Evan is absolutely thrilled that there is something new in his world that he can “recognize”. Whoohoo! He’s making connections, people. And isn’t that what growing up is all about?

As of today, a little over 6 weeks later, he can correctly recognize, point out by himself and make the sounds for A, B, C, and P anywhere we are. He can make the sound for S, T, and M if I point them out for him. He can also sight read the word “Papa” (his favorite person in the world- so that came pretty easily). Sometimes he finds letters on his own without any prompting from us. And in all truthfulness, outside of our nap and bedtime reading sessions, I spend no time working on the alphabet with him other than the occasional moments he brings it up himself. So the ABC book has been a great tool in encouraging both me and Jack to not only spend a little time together but to work on the alphabet as well.

One last note…if anyone was wondering, I believe in teaching a mixture of phonics and sight reading. Phonics teaches a person how to decode the written English language, and sight reading builds speed. They go hand in hand.

Does Reading to Babies Really Work?

Lisa — Sun, 24 May 2009 10:20:03 +0000

I’ve talked before about how much I love reading, right?

(No no, don’t groan.)

So yeh, I love reading. Make that an absolutelyhavetoorIwilldie kinda love of reading.

Then it should come as no surprise to you that even though he’s only one year old, I already encourage literacy in Jack-Evan.

I’ve been reading daily to my son since he was born – or, at least trying to. Sometimes we miss a few days of reading, but more often or not, he encounters some form of literacy component in his daily life even if it’s just him watching me read silently. Our read-aloud materials run the gamut from Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes to Sondra Boynton to Dr. Suess to Classic Poetry to Pilgrims Progress to (more recently) Lord of the Rings. For at least an hour each day, usually around noon, I read aloud to Jack while he’s playing on the floor near me. We also have spontaneous reading sessions at the park, at bedtime, or just whenever the mood hits. Then, once a week (twice a week beginning in June) for 45 minutes we’re at the library story time for toddlers.

I also spell out things for him often, point out words, and do sign-language finger spelling of his name and other various words. We have sung the ABC song a couple times a week with him since birth too.

In addition to spelling, finger-spelling, and the daily reading, we also use the “Your Baby Can Read” DVD’s and Flashcards. They’re actually the only things that Jack-Evan watches, or even shows any interest in watching, on the TV (besides when he watches Scooby Doo with his PaPa!). Each DVD lesson on “Your Baby Can Read” (there are 6 lessons total, I believe) lasts around 30 minutes and builds upon each other. I played the starter lesson once or twice a week for a few months, but within the last 2 months, Jack has shown so much interest in the program that I’ve moved him up from the starter lesson to the 1st lesson. He’ll actually sit through the entire 30 minutes and interact with everything going on in the lesson, and he’s beginning to pick up words like crazy from it. Last week, they showed the written word Bubble in the lesson, then they said “Bubble” – and he repeated “Bubble” out loud, then laughed. He gets so exited when I tell him I’m putting his DVD on and he’ll stand up and starts dancing to the opening music. For the past month or so, the lesson has played twice a day with Jack-Evan focused completely on it and interacting with it to the exclusion of everything else.

Also, now that Jack is a year old (his birthday was May 4) I have added the other component of the “Your Baby Can Read” DVD learning system – the flashcards. These flashcards include 12 key words that match up to the words he is learning in the video lessons. There are 6 doublesided pastel colored cards with just plain comic-sans type black words printed on them. What’s cool though is it also has a slide out panel that features a picture of the word shown.

Now, let me be frank before I continue.

When I started all of this, I wasn’t sure what would work and what wouldn’t. There were times when I wasn’t sure if I was doing the right thing or not (I’m still not, and probably never will be). I never was a fan of flashcards for babies so every time I even looked at them before, I just rolled my eyes. I’m also not one of those moms believes in forcing a child to do formal learning. At the first sign that Jack-Evan is tired of something I move on to something else, immediately. But I do believe wholeheartedly in offering opportunities and new experiences each and every day. And I believe wholeheartedly in the power of literacy at an early age (I myself was reading at 2 years old without any formal prompting from my own mom). My husband was 5 years old before he ever had anything read aloud to him – and that has strongly affected his reading ability even to this day. The written word should be part of a child’s life from day one – I just wasn’t sure how to go about introducing it to Jack-Evan during his first year of life. Therefore, as any mom would do, I just did the best I could.

So anyway….

At first, I felt like everything I was doing – the reading aloud, storytime, and DVD lessons – made absolutely no impact whatsoever on Jack. For the first 10 months of his life, he showed absolutely no interest whatsoever in books, pictures, stories, rhymes, nor poetry. Zero. Zip. Nada. No interest whatsoeva. Yet I kept on plowing away with reading and showing him the starter video of “Your Baby Can Read” once a week or so. At times, I even felt foolish reading to him and as much as I hate to admit it, I hated reading aloud. (Or rather, I use to hate it, though not so much anymore). He just wasn’t responding to my efforts at all, and I began to feel disappointed. I mean, I had read so many testimonies of parents who’s 3 month old child would stare intently at a book during storytime, or who’s 6, 7, 8 month old child would sit raptured by the board book being read, or by the 9 month old who would hand her mom her favorite book to read. Then there were the local children -babies who were the same age as Jack- at our own library story time who would sit and show interest in the story, while Jack didn’t even have a clue that a story was being read.

I felt foolish, I felt it was pointless, I felt like he wasn’t ready, I felt like all of those testimonies were lies, I felt like I should just wait until he was 3 or 4 or 5 or 6….I just felt….like giving up.

But I didn’t. I just kept on with my plan of immersing him into daily literacy. I wanted those doors to be wide open for him whenever he was ready to blossom.

Then, slowly, in his 10th month, a miracle happened and he blossomed.

His first step towards acknowledging the world of books came 3 months ago when he suddenly picked up a book and, instead of trying to eat it, he opened it and began flipping through it. By the end of March, he began bouncing to the rhythm of the poems being read. By the beginning of April, he had formed his first attatchment to a book – “Brown Bear, Brown Bear” and would grab it when I would start reciting it from memory.

So now, back to the flashcards. Roughly 8 days ago, I pulled out the flashcards that go with the DVD reading lessons. We went through all 12 words slowly, and then I decided to concentrate mostly on two main words – “arms up” and “dog”. Dog is actually one of the first words that Jack said, and he adores dogs. Anywhere we go, if he spots a dog either in real life or in photos he lights up and yells “Hello dog! A dog, dog, dog!!! Hey there! Huh Dog!”. As for the other one, “Arms UP”, that’s just something that was fun to do.

Well, after only 3 shows of the “arms up” card, he had that one mastered (complete with him throwing his own arms up, along with mommy, and giggling). He also adored the “dog” one (of course).

Since then, we’ve used those cards no more than 4 sessions for about 3-4 minutes each session.

Friday, we were sitting on the couch playing with the cards, and I sat him down on the floor, tossed all 6 cards down randomly for him to rummage through, then settled back to read my Woman’s Day magazine (silently!), hoping for a few moments of peace whilst he played by himself.

Not surprisingly, I didn’t get much peace. Within less than a minute, Jack was standing up beside the couch, crying “Mummum, Mum mum!” and holding his one hand out for me to pick him up. It’s what was in his other hand that surprised me! During the few moments that I had been absorbed in my magazine, he had found and picked out both the “Dog” and the “Arms Up” card from amongst all 12 words.

I was in shock. Finally, progress. I AM doing something right. Something, s-o-m-e-t-h-i-n-g I’m doing is working, and is clicking in his little brain!

It was a nice reassurance.

He repeated the feat of picking out those two cards yesterday in front of his dad, which elicited the exact same shock. Last night, he also picked out the “Dog” card, turned it over, looked at it, then said aloud “Dog, Dog”.

More reassurance.

So my kid is like me afterall. He loves flashcards.

And a new door has opened very wide for him.

Little Jack's Corner » Dr Suess

Teaching a 26 month old the Alphabet

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