encourage them to go ahead at their own pace but not feel like you're rushing them? My almost 3yr old is just something else. She knows all of her alphabet and their sounds. She can count to twenty - she messes up a couple of the teens - thirteen and fifteen specifically. But she recognizes her numbers. She loves to count. She loves to color and draw. She loves puzzles. She can do 12 piece puzzles on her own with ease. I'm just not really sure where to go with her at this point. I'm not sure she's mature enough to pick up reading though I think that she would love to whenever she is ready for it, she LOVES books. Loves to have me read with her and loves to pretend to read the story back to me. None of my boys were quite this ahead at this age. My oldest is the closest and he taught himself to read at 4.5. I feel like she needs more time with fine motor stuff, tracing letters, cutting etc. But at the same time I feel like continuing to go over the sounds letters make is kinda repetitious for her at this point. Gah, I'm really stuck here. She picked up all of her knowledge from leapfrog by the way. I didn't sit and drill this stuff into her head and it surprised me that she retained it. Thoughts?
Repeating those sounds are going to help her in the end... I promise! Let her trace things in shaving cream, in rice, in sand, in anything messy and fun...lol Let her write letters with chalk, markers, bingo markers (do a dot or something they call them for kids), etc. Keep doing puzzles and read read read to her. She will get it when she is ready.
At three, she'll let you know when you're "pushing". As long as it's fun and she's enjoying it, you're fine. When she starts dragging her feet and is no longer interested, you need to back off. (Again, I'm talking about preschool. My 13yo, on the other hand.... I give him a Study Guide for literature, and I hear, "You KNOW I don't like to do these things!!!" And, unfortunately, that's how he is with history, grammar, writing, reading, math....)
I might just have some more fun with the letters and their sounds for a little while. I liked getting some fridge letter magnets and playing around with them while I was doing dishes or making supper. She would make fake words and I would read them or I would try to find a letter and "couldn't" find it. Silly things... I started something semi-formal when she started to read on her own. I liked using Getting Ready to Read from Currclick in a play-based manner when we started.
I agree with keep going over letters/phonics with her if she isn't reading for blending. My oldest wasn't ready for blending until recently but we kept going over basic phonics so he he had a firm base when he was ready to blend. Starfall.com is a great free resource. Also, search youtube for some free, fun videos/songs for phonics. There are lots of songs. Use songs that teach her rules, she'll remember them once she is ready to blend. Things like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuNhrogY-Mo and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gHPaVxkdPA Also, you might consider teaching her ALL the sounds each letter can make, instead of just the typical "This letter says this" This totally confused my oldest when it came time for long vowel sounds. I know all about spelling teaches all sounds at once, I would assume all about reading does too, but I don't know. Even though my youngest isn't doing the all about spelling, we simply pulled out the cards to learn all the sounds each letter made...
been there! MY dd went at her own pace, wanted to start "school" at three, "kindergarden" so on her 4th birthday she starte K, finished K and 1 by the time she was 5.. we went on from there , she graduated at two weeks past her 16th birthday and she would have gone faster but i had a ds who graduated one year before her who was nearly 3 years older .
