**When did you child know all his/her letters?**

[susykt4]

My daughter knew all uppercase before 2 and all lowercase before 3. She was reading before kindergarten. I was all smug and superior UNTIL she was bored off her gourd most of K! She's now in 4th grade and while bright, she is not the greatest student. I think her boredom in K carried over and she just doesn't try or care about homework. Her teachers are usually shocked at how well she does on achievement tests because her classroom grades are mostly Bs.

My son knew all of his letters before K thanks to daycare, but is an average reader in 1st grade. He is much better at being a student than his sister, though. He wasn't bored in K and has always been good about homework, etc.

 

[arielmomma]

My son knew the letter sounds at age 31/2 -4, but did not know the letters themselves by name fully until age 5-5/1/2. But he was able to learn to read by knowing the sounds, so knowing the letters by name wasn't really a big deal.

I must admit that I do not think that learning the letters early on is a critical early childhood skill. It will come soon enough with school. It helps when the letters have meaning, without meaning, they are just memorizing for the sake of memorizing. Not that teaching them early is a bad thing. Education is always a good thing. I just wouldn't stress over it.

 

[princessmom29]

While I don't think the ability to recognize letters indicates greater intelligence, according to our schools, my children were expected to enter kindergarten knowing and writing their letters, numbers 1 - 10, writing their first name with the first letter capitalized, and knowing their address and phone number. I also think different milestones click earlier for some kids, and that third/fourth grade are the great equalizers.

I think a lot of preschoolers know their letters, but for some, it just hasn't clicked. Dd8 was reading chapter books in kindergarten, but my twins are really just getting the reading down now in first grade (where I don't have to give them every third word). It's finally clicking for them! My oldest not only read early, but was writing incredible stories in first grade. Now that she's in eight grade, I have to admit, she doesn't write well AT ALL, and I am allowing her not to take honors English next year. Oh well.

those are the exact same expectations our public schools give out. My DD is in private K. They have to test in knowing these things to enter K. In public school it is more of a recommendation. My sister teaches public K and she gets everything from children who are reading to not recognizing any letters, colors, or shapes. She had 3-4 kids last year that did not know their last name when asked. I think a lot depends on how receptive the child is, and how much effort the parent puts inot teaching things. To make a long stroy short, public K curric. expects them to come in knowing letters and numbers 1-10 by sight and starts for there so iwoudl think that would be what i would be shooting for as a minimum for entering K.

 

[JennSaint]

We loved the Leapfrog Letter Factory....a cute video with a very catchy song and some fridge alpha magnets that also played the song. It was also a fun Leapster game.

As a former preschool teacher I can vouch for Leapfrog Letter factory DVD. When meeting with parents of children who knew all or most of their upper and lowercase letters most would give credit to this dvd.

 

[savannahcat]

My daughter knew all uppercase before 2 and all lowercase before 3. She was reading before kindergarten. I was all smug and superior UNTIL she was bored off her gourd most of K! She's now in 4th grade and while bright, she is not the greatest student. I think her boredom in K carried over and she just doesn't try or care about homework. Her teachers are usually shocked at how well she does on achievement tests because her classroom grades are mostly Bs.

My son knew all of his letters before K thanks to daycare, but is an average reader in 1st grade. He is much better at being a student than his sister, though. He wasn't bored in K and has always been good about homework, etc.

This sounds just like my daughter. She's in K now, but was reading well beforehand. She's complained so much about being bored that I have a meeting with her teacher this week to talk about giving her some more challenging work. Her birthday is 9/20 and the cutoff for K is 9/1. We could have had her tested for 1st grade, but decided to keep her in K for social reasons. I fear that she will end up in this same situation as her education progresses.

To the OP - I also strongly recommend the Leapfrog Letter Factory DVD. Both of my DDs could identify all the letters and their sounds around their 2nd birthday, but I can't take any of the credit - it was ALL thanks to that DVD!

 

[MSSANDRA]

As a preschool teacher/director, I see 4 as being more the norm. Many children can and do learn the letters at 2 or 3 but it is a concept that many children just can not grasp till 4 or 5.

I look more at thier ability to manipulate the letters than just being able to reconize them. Do they know the sound? Do they understand that the letters work together to create words and words create written language.

Being well prepared is great, but most well prepared children loose that edge by 2nd or 3rd grade. Many little boys are just not interested.

My DN knew NO letters going into kindergarten. He just did not care. By 2nd grade when they test kids, we was AIG everything. Now is High school, all honors, AP classes and plans to be a DR.

DS knew all his by 2 and was reading before kindergarten and is also a bright kid at 17.


DGS just 3, knows most of his but is already trying to sound out words.

Unless he is in K or above and his or her teacher is concerned, I would not worry too much. Look for ways that he likes to learn and buy into those. puzzles. movies, drawing letters in the sand (DGS learned his this way), reading books, whatever as long as it is fun and you both feel good about it.

 

[kohlby]

My oldest knew the sounds by 4.5 and the letters by sight by 4. He didn't know his a,b,c song until 5 though. He's like me - smart but a terrible memorizor unless it has meaning to him. He learned the a,b,c song after he had started very simple reading. He's also the kid that couldn't count past 12 until he was 5.5 - yet he could add three digit decimals with carrying. At 6.5 his reading level is a year ahead but he still can't spell his last name. He learns out of the traditional order.

My middle child knew the letters before 18 months. And the sounds before 2. I didn't realize she knew them until she started telling me them out of the blue one day and got them all right. So, she likely knew them before. She's one of those freakishly gifted kids so I realize she is definately not the norm.

I didn't teach my kids their letters formally. We do pure radical unschooling for kindy and below. Simply doing things like reading or showing them their names helped. My middle child did watch the leap frog video a few times. And despite seeing it so little, I still think it really helped her learn them.

 

[ekatiel]

We loved the Leapfrog Letter Factory....a cute video with a very catchy song and some fridge alpha magnets that also played the song. It was also a fun Leapster game.

Dd13 and ds6 could identify all upper and lower case letters before they were 2, and the others before 3. Want to know the secret? Leap Frog Letter Factory DVD! Give it 3 days! I remember when I realized ds knew them - he had no language at 18 months, started ST at 20 months, and at 22 months, just for fun, I pointed out all of the upper and lower case letters on the fridge (again, leapfrog). He knew them all! Of course, then I started freaking out thinking he was autistic. Turns out he just loved the DVD!

As a former preschool teacher I can vouch for Leapfrog Letter factory DVD. When meeting with parents of children who knew all or most of their upper and lowercase letters most would give credit to this dvd.

Another Leap Frog mommy, here ! That video is amazing! DS#1 knew all letters and sounds by about 3 and a half, DS#2 knows about half the alphabet right now (he's 3 and half). Our new find is the "Meet the Sight Words" DVD's! They are AWESOME!!! DS#1, who's five, watched the first one for a week or two (in the car) and learned all 15 sight words on the video. He is able to pick them out anywhere. We are watching DVD #2 in the car now.

Reading teacher soap box alert:
Another important skill for reading is phonemic awareness. Rhyming is VERY important, as is hearing individual sounds in words (regaardless of whether the child knows what letter makes the sound). DS#1 struggles with phonemic awareness, so we play lots of rhyming games and "stretchy word" games where I stretch out a word into its sounds and he trys to guess what word it is. After knowing his letter sounds for 2 years, he is just now starting to decode 3 letter words. The decoding came after focusing on phonemic awareness. --Katie

 

[deerhart]

Also realize that there are two forms of reading.. phonemic reading and sight word reading. The difference is one you sound out, the other you recognize the word as a whole.

Due to my oldest son's disability, he was sight word reading from age 2 until almost age 7 (he has an amazing memory, but part of that is pure training from almost the get go to compensate for his CAPD). He could not sound words out to read them until after we had done over a year of CAPD work on earobics. Even today he has difficult sounding words out and getting the proper pronunciation unless someone else says it first (it has to do with his auditory memory and the time it takes him to process sounds).

Also, anything you get to help teach the child, you will want to reinforce over and over the learning in everyday situations. Trips to the grocery store are wonderful for this because they have signs over each aisle that are big and noticeable, many of wording on their walls labeling places (like MEAT, DAIRY, SEAFOOD) which are large, colorful, and noticeable to small children. I know many a trip I spent the entire time getting asked that (with a point) and then saying the word, spelling the word, and saying the word again and having him repeat me.

 

[disykat]

My son knew them all by about the 6th week of Kindergarten, so about 5 1/2. He's now 10 and doing great in school. I'm an Early Childhood Curriculum specialist, I coach teachers and write curriculum, and I feel that this is a skill that's way overrated, and pushed way too hard early on.

I agree that the Leapfrog videos, or for a 4 or 5 year old, the Leapster games are a great way to teach this. I also really like Starfall.

Great post. My kids were in Kindergarten as well - though it probably took them longer than six weeks to have them all firm. It just wasn't something they cared about, they were busy learning other things. One of my children is very academically gifted, my other child is an average student. Guess which one knew all his letters first?

 

[Halbleib1]

My son knew most of his abc's by age two. He has a carebear abc toy that he played with a lot as a toddler. It has buttons that you push and underneith it reveals a picture that the letter represents. The toy tells him the letter as well as saying for example: A is for apple etc. It also has a button to sing the whole song. He recognized the letters before he could resite them in order. He is now age 5 and not yet in school. He starts school next fall. All kids are different so do not push your child. My son has had a speech delay since he was a year old. He is improving everyday but we still have times where we do not understand what he is saying. He still gets frustrated trying to tell us certain things. He can spell his name as well as some other words. He also knows his numbers. He can count to 100 but he misses a few in between at times. Every kid learns at a different speed so do not pressure yourself or your child if you do not feel they are doing something that other kids are. I use to get really frustrated with my sons speech delay and feel like it was somehow my fault. Or that I was not doing something for him that I should have been doing. Once I let it go and just concentrated on helping him with his speech the best way I could it improved by leaps and bounds within a year.

 

[bumbershoot]

My son knew them all by about the 6th week of Kindergarten, so about 5 1/2. He's now 10 and doing great in school. I'm an Early Childhood Curriculum specialist, I coach teachers and write curriculum, and I feel that this is a skill that's way overrated, and pushed way too hard early on.

Whew! Thought DS was alone.

We've had the fridge magnet LeapFrog thing, you put the letter in and it sings a song about the letter, since he was 2ish. So he's had lots of exposure, along with DH reading to him, for ages. But it's really only now, at 5.5, that he's totally getting the whole alphabet thing. He knew stuff by rote before, but...eh, that doesn't always mean you understand it.

I was reading (out loud) at 2...doesn't mean I understood all that much!


Anyway, he's doing his kindergarten level homeschool work, and after leaving it for a few months (I got sick, he got sick, I got lazy, etc) he's doing *incredibly* with upper AND lowercase letters...the amazing thing? I haven't taught him lowercase. He's just flat out getting it. Yay!

Also realize that there are two forms of reading.. phonemic reading and sight word reading. The difference is one you sound out, the other you recognize the word as a whole.

That was me at 2. And beyond. I hate HATE phonetic spelling; worse years of my life were elementary school while that was being taught to the other kids. And listening to the kids sounding it out aughhhhh. I was young for my grade and really really shy, so there was no chance having me skip a grade would have worked (though it was discussed)...I did go to the 4th grade class for English while in 3rd grade and hated feeling so obvious... But gosh, it was so boring.




No matter what we didn't want to push things with DS. Once he was 2+ and not reading on his own, we completely relaxed. My husband was *forced* to learn to read at about 8, when everyone was freaking out that he wasn't. Reading remains his least favorite activity, and he's likely a bit dyslexic as well (though there was never any diagnosis as his parents simply thought he was lazy and his teachers dropped him through the cracks). I've since learned that 8 is a totally respectable age to learn to read, especially in a boy, so there is just no pressure on DS at all. I don't want DS to dread reading!

 

[mrsbornkuntry]

All 5 of my kids learned in a completely different way at different ages. Most recently my 5yo learned all of the letters and sounds at 2 years old from one of those Leapfrog fridge magnets, then by 3 he had forgotten all of them . When he started kindergarten this year he could name about 19 of the letters and about 10 of the sounds. Most of them he knew from the Leapfrog Letter Factory dvd, I love that dvd and the visuals that they give to go with the letters are great. By his first report card he knew all of the letters. Oh, and it wasn't until just recently that he could sing the ABC song, but his teacher told me it didn't matter anyway because they "unteach" it in kindergarten because they want the kids to SAY the letters instead of sing them so they recognize LMNOP as individual letters.

My now 13yo learned them from Reader Rabbit cd's on the computer when she was 3-4. My now 12yo learned them in pre-k. My now 10yo learned them in 1st grade. He had trouble grasping them, he wasn't ready although we tried everything, but he got extra tutoring in first grade and by Christmas break he was reading at grade level. He's an avid reader now and hasn't had trouble since. I think part of the problem was that he is a tactile learner and we were trying to teach him visually, I wish I'd realized that then.

My 8yo and 5yo both picked up numbers first, they would point them out everywhere. They learned those with no effort on my part.

 

[crisi]

Its a continuum. They'll start by singing the ABCs, but they often miss some letters for a long time, and singing the ABCs is pretty meaningless.

Our kindergartners are expected to recognize and correctly identify only SIX letters going into Kingdergarten. They need to recognize all 26 of them leaving kindergarten.

Even then it might take several years before b and d stop getting interchanged. Or before they can identify all the sounds.

And I wouldn't worry about it too much.

 

[Mathfailure]

My son and daughter were different, and neither did really well at it independently until Kindergarten. And I did not care. I knew they needed to learn something in Kindergarten! That is why they don't start in first grade.!!

By the way, we lived next to New Hampshire during those earlier years, and New Hampshire did not have public Kindergarten, and so many children did not start formal learning until 6 or later. They still did fine.

 

[WantToGoNow]

My ds8 could recognize the letters at age 2. He had the sounds down by the time he was 3. However, he couldn't grasp the concept of putting the sounds together to make the words - knowing the letters isn't enough, they have to know what they do. He did have a fairly severe speech issue that I believe caused him problems with phonics. He's in 3rd grade now and can read fine, but he's still not fast enough to satisfy his teacher.

My dd6 had no interest whatsoever in learning anything - letters, numbers, shapes, etc. I put her in preschool last year and she took off - by the end of the year, not only did she know the letters and sounds, she was starting to read. She's nearly halfway through Kindergarten now and has met all of her Kindergarten expectations and is reading quite well.

What I learned from this, it really doesn't matter how early they learn these things. They will all learn to ready eventually (hopefully anyway).

 

[BellyBaby]

My DS knew his, (capital letters) to recite and by sight by 2, my DD not til she was almost 3. I got to stay at home with DS til he was 2 1/2, still home with DD. We have lots of time to talk and learn. She's 4 and knows the sounds each letter makes about 80% of the time.

We don't set aside "learning time" or anything. We just ask here and there, "what makes an "ess" sound?" casually. She loves books, so the interest is simply there, she can't wait to be able to read.

 

[llori7]

I can't remember on my oldest. He has always struggled in school.

My middle knew *most* of his letters going into kindergarten at 5 but didn't know all of them and didn't know any sounds and he left kindergarten reading at a 2nd grade level and is now 7 and reads at 5th grade....so even though he didn't know his letters *early* he is doing just fine now.

My youngest is 4 1/2 and only knows maybe a couple of letters.

My son just turned 4 and doesn't know very many letters. Your post reassured me that it will be ok!!! I think I am going to get him the Letter Factory DVDs people are talking about. Thanks for posting!!!

 

[arcticdisneylovers]

In my experience (I operate a home daycare), there is a wide range for "normal" I've had 2 year olds that know their alphabet and 5 year olds that still do not know it. There are lots of approaches but I always try to focus on making it fun. There are lots of games, picture books, puzzles and electronic tools!

 

[starsweeper]

My kids are 3-1/2 and 3-1/4 years old. They are just learning their letters. They've had a letter/phonics laptop since 2, and I worked with them some, but it really started to click once they began preschool in the fall. They get so much repetition at preschool and spend a week per letter, so it really sticks. I didn't think my DS knew his letters as well as DD because when I quiz him he frequently makes mistakes. However, his teacher told me today he could name everything in the classroom that started with a T, and when directed towards a non-T item, he knew it did not start with a T but a C, A, etc. I think he pretends not to know around me to see what I'll say and get more attention.