08 Feb 2012 2 Comments
Teaching Our 2-Year Old to Read
I know that in general children usually don’t start reading before the age of 4 or 5. However, a few children are able to read earlier, and most of them just pick it up. They don’t really learn through direct instruction.
I really believe that the key to reading readiness during the toddler years is indirect instruction (and with that, I mean play) which involves introducing your child to toys and books in a way that gets them excited. Basically, our job is to show them that letters, numbers and learning are not just important but A LOT of FUN!
Before Michael and I had kids, we agreed that we won’t be pushing them into something they’re not ready for but we will do our best to teach them while allowing them to explore and develop at their own pace. Needless to say, Jordan makes us very proud that he knows all his numbers, lower case and upper case letters, and the sound each letter makes.
When we realized that, we started showing him simple words and we are truly amazed that he picked it up right away!
We actually started him with letters around 15 months. We got this fridge magnet toy by LeapFrog. The recommended age was 2+ but we just put it on the fridge anyways and just let him play with it. Basically when you press the letter, it will say “A, says a. B, says ba” etc. Then around 17-18 months, we got an alphabet app on the iPad and he would always play with it. That’s when he first started saying the letters. His favorite was the letter “T” for Thomas the Train.
Shortly after that, we noticed that he loves puzzles. He would always play the puzzle game on his dad’s phone whenever he gets tired of playing with the alphabet app so we got him the wooden Letter puzzle by Melissa & Doug and he loves it! They also have the Numbers puzzle. That’s when we started to actively teach him the letters. We would say the letters and what sound it makes while he’s playing with the puzzle. We wanted it to be more of “play” than study type of thing. We also let him watch LeapFrog’s Letter Factory and Amazing Alphabet on DVD.
Before we do our reading session, I would ask him first if he wants to read. He says yes most of the time but there are times that he would say no and I’ll just let him do whatever he wants. Sometimes, he’ll ask me or his dad to read but we’re just basically following his lead now. We don’t read to him every night anymore – just whenever he wants us to.
So here are the list of products that we think helped him recognize and learn his numbers and letters:
