learning to write
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Learning letters, phonics and name talk

N still isn’t that excited by learning letters.  It astounds me when I see children the same age or younger recognising and naming all the letters in the alphabet, or writing more than their names.  N’s only just drawing picture of recognisable people, and writing more than a N is a long way off unless he suddenly has a surprise conversion to sitting down and learning detailed letters and numbers.

Both nurseries do phonics with them, and provide activity sheets with pencil control practice for him to try.  He’s definitely improving his pencil control, but motivation is lacking.

learning to write
There’s a N in there, and possibly an a

With letters, he recognises lots that are in his name (first and surname), but doesn’t attempt to say the sounds.  He’s got a pretty long name so that’s 10 letters he recognises. But he’s better at recognising my name.- mostly the m for mummy and there’s 2 m’s in my name.

Today I picked him up from nursery and they’d been split into their ‘school year groups’ with the older ones looking at and writing letters.  Currently N only writes N’s or ‘up down ups’, as he calls them.  Lots of them across a page if he has the chance.

His key worker mentioned they were looking at letters and he’d recognised ‘m’.

‘M in my mummy’s name’.

Then he was shown an ‘r’ which isn’t one he’s really come across much.  Total blank when he was asked if he knew it.  Then he was told that ‘r’ is for his daddy’s name.

‘That’s my daddy’s name’.  Excitement.

We headed home and N was still excited about letters and names he’d be talking about.  He even then told his dad about it when we got home.  His little face was a bit crushed when the OH teased him saying ‘but my name’s not that, it’s daddy, so it doesn’t start with ‘r”.  N’s not stupid, he knew exactly that he was being teased.  I’m not sure how long the OH’s going to be able to tease him for, N’s getting wise to his tricks!

I’m really hoping he keeps getting excited about letters, and hopefully it’ll encourage him to try and learn some more.

How do you encourage your children to get excited about learning letters, reading and writing?

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10 Comments

  1. I tried really hard not to stress about Grace and her learning when she was this age – I think they pick up on it otherwise. That said, we used to play a lot of word games. Thank you for linking to PoCoLo 🙂 x

    1. I know what you mean. I still want it to be fun, especially before starting school. It’s hard to know how much to push to help prepare them for school

  2. Don’t worry about other children. He is still very young and they all catch up eventually. Beanie loves writing her own name but is not remotely interested in other letters, bless her! Starting by recognising all the letters from their name in other words can be a nice little activity. x

    1. Yep, you’re right.

      N does love pointing out and recognising letters he knows, he’s just not that fussed about naming them or any that aren’t in his or anyone else’s he knows’ names. It’ll come. At least he’s now choosing to do his activity ‘writing’ sheets without me having to cajole him.

  3. Yesterday we went to my son’s school and the parents had a quick lessons on phonics and tho we study this in school before its hard to remember so its nice that the school is helping us help our kids. #pocolo

    1. This is where I find it hard. I don’t recall ever learning phonics, and didn’t learn anything til words or writing wise until we went to school. But just picked it up really quickly. My brother was the same. So being asked to help with their phonics is a bit of a nightmare to make sure you’ve got the right phonemes and sounds. Good that you get to go in.

  4. My daughter loves reading so much that when I asked her what she wanted for her upcoming birthday as well as Christmas, she replied ‘Just lots and lots of books!’
    My son loves books too but a different type – usually non fiction about science or animals. I think it’s important to encourage them to read but focus on what subjects and types of books they love.

    1. I used to be like your daughter too. Book worm.

      N does love looking at and ‘reading’ books, so hopefully it’ll all click at some point

    1. Let’s hope so, I can’t believe how far ahead some children of similar age or even younger are. Just so depends on what they’re interested in.

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