Tricks of the trade? Kids and learning

Ok here is the problem with wanting to teach her to read. She first needs to know her letters and sounds associated with them, before she can stretch out words (Sound them out). What you can do with her, is continue to give her samples of good reading and fluency. Fluency is how smooth you read using changes in ton with puncuation marks and mood. This is a wonderful help for beginners. Children do not start working on reading until 1st grade. They work on learning their letters first. Secondly, with the counting. Start counting things with her every where every day. Like in the kitchen, help her count can goods. There are books, shoes, cars, trees. Let her hear you count and point to each object as you do so. She will get the hang of it with practice and in time. Your a good mommy for wanting to do all you can for her. But there are steps you have to follow and you can't jump from step 1 to step 3 and leave out 2. Does that make sense? I hope something here will help you.

I am the mother of three children and when they were smaller (they're 12,8 and 7 now) I use to try and make a game out of teaching them stuff. We would play Simon Says to do their names, you know, Simon says copy what Mommy does, then I'd write their name and get them to copy it. I don't know about how to go about getting her into reading with you, I don't think I had enough patience for that, lol. But we worked on counting using Smarties, when they got them all right, they got to eat the Smarties etc...Just ideas like this to make it fun and entertaining for them. Good luck to you. It's nice to see parents interested in teaching their children instead of waiting for them to go to school to learn it.

In my oppinion there is nothing bad in you helping your daughter to learn :) Thanks to this she will more easily develop her abilities in future and well she maybe will be smarter then other :) But you cant force her at any kind - if you will make learning a fun it will be both good and useful :)

You've had loads of replies to this post but I thought i'd just add a few things that haven't been mentioned so far that you might want to try. You say that your daughter can count up to 10 but can she recognise the numbers 1-10 when she sees them? It might be worth making or buying some flashcards with the individual numbers printed on them, make them big and chunky and you could make recognising the numbers a game by laying them upside down and you each take it in turns to turn them over and say the name on the card. The other thing you can start to do with her if you haven't done this already, is begin to help her recognise the values that each number represents. Again you can turn this into a game by making another set of flashcards to go with your number cards, this time instead of numbers the cards have dots on to represent the values ranging from 1-10, each time you show your daughter a number she must find the corresponding dot card. The other way thing I wanted to mention about teaching her to write her name is instead of getting her to write it over and over again, find a shallow tray and fill it with salt or sand and get her to use her finger to write her name, she'll probably find this a fun alternative to writing her name using a pencil, and the sensory experience will help her remember it. Also to help her with her letter formation, write her name in yellow pen and encourage her to trace over it...you can also draw patterns for her (jagged lines, circles etc) and this will help her develop her pencil control. Hope this helps, i'm sure you'll do a great job, the only hurdle is making it fun for her and you seem very keen to do this, so i'm sure you'll do a great job.

I know she likes CUPCAKES! what if you were to say ok. you work on two or three letters before bed with me and you can have a mini cupcake?! think she'dfall for that old scam? or how about the ol' reverse phsycology trick? I dont think you can learn to write the letter b! it must be toooo hard. lol I dunno if it'll work. What if you got your oldest to try to teach the youngest ? kids tend to learn from other kids easier i believe.

I raised 4 kids, 3 sons and one daughter. Don't rush your kids to learn things faster than they are ready, especially at age 4. When she is ready to master another letter she will work on it. However there is a balance between letting them move ahead and challanging them. Work on new letters and the letters she knows, and always reward her efforts no matter how small they are and praise her for trying and succeeding at tasks. Girls especially will let you know when they are ready for the next 'level' of something. As far as teaching her to write her name, if you put a poster in her room or play area that is her name, she will see it and become more familiar with what it looks like. That is the same with all letters, colors, shapes etc. When you are going somewhere or you are giving her a meal even, if you point out letters on signs, the cereal box, juice carton, etc or point out colors and shapes, she will pick up on them along the way!

Here are some websites that I frequent daily as my 3 year old is learning how to write. Handwritingworksheets.com allows you to put her name in and it will print out with the dots and all and the learningpages.com does alphabets and numbers. Hope this helps.

I am a mom of 4 and all of my kids went to pre-school when they turned 3. There they taught counting, colors, and to recoganise there name in print. So you are not starting too early. MY youngest just turned 3 and has already started school and they really make learning fun there. Try to make it a game for your daughter if you can. to her it will just be a fun game and she wont even realise she is learning. That way you can get the satisification that you are still teaching her something while keeping her attention.

ya dats gr8

I would advise you to develop a chart of alphabets but studies have shown that visualization gr8ly helps in learning fast ,so i think better make charts of alphabets or numbers and make her see them, or take a look at many online sites which provide learning tools or tutorials with the flashy applets developed...hope u would find my suggestion useful///

We have a program called reader rabbit. He helps them with sounds of letters and all.They have this for all ages. Also we get my three year things, the books with tapes. He listens to the tapes first and then we go over the book with him before he can listen again. Anything with sounds or music helps the younger ones.

Just an idea for her learning the letters of her name. I guess that her name has an 'a' in it so you could make 10 a's of different sizes and hide them around the house then she has to find them, you could make flash cards with things starting with 'a' and also place these around the house....I would just play these games with the same letter for a week so she gets used to each one. You can also get the play dough out and make the shapes of the letters with that...my ideas are endless but hope that helps and I hope you have fun playing with your daughter because play is the best teacher there is.

I prefer to buy dvds that are educational. There are some about reading and my kids love it. They love everything on tv. It's also a good babysitter but I'm also around or my maid is around. Kids learn differently too. My eldest who is 9 needs a lot of assistance and motivation. My 6 year old used to act like she was not paying attention but later on you will see her use what you've taught her.

hmm i was thinking the samething. or at least kind of like that i like your idea.

I teach children who have difficulty reading how to read, which I know isn't the same as your child, but I think I can make a few suggestions. I'd read more than once a day. During one of these times, you read to her. The other time, you take turns reading. If she doesn't know all of her letters yet, either have her repeat after you (nursery rhymes or Dr. Seuss are good for this), or have her guess what is happening from the pictures. (This helps kids maintain their interest in books). I like to write words on post-it-notes (bed, chair, table) with a picture of the word. Then I give the child the post-it note and they stick it on the named object. After a few times, I stop drawing the little picture. For some kids, I make writing a dance. They write very big letters using their whole arm while standing up. Sometimes we see if we can make the letter with our bodies or our hands. Sometimes I stick a very large piece of paper to the wall, and we write really large letters.

Okay, she can count to ten, is it one to one counting objects, or is it rote counting? Four is NOT to young for her to learn. She may act like she cannot count, because she is bored, and needs more challenge. Here is a useful number and reading activity. Cut out pictures of people she might call on the phone--picture of the police/fire/EMS for instance--glue it on the page, write 911( always call it nine one one, not nine eleven). Picture of grandma, grandma's phone number, etc. Also make a page in the book with a simulated number array, so she can practice touching them, and saying them. Do the same kind of picture book with pictures and words, let her "read" it to you. Environmental reading--emblems of the stores and restaurants she goes to, a picture of the school she will attend, all with the name written. Tell her she can read. So many people say, "You are too young, you cannot read" and kids take that as truth and do not try. Let her dictate a letter to you, then let her sign it. Get some early primary paper, trace her name with a yellow highligter, and show her how to copy it with correct form. Be sure to teach her whatever style printing her local elementary will teach her. There are tons of ideas availalble, but I am sure you can come up with some on your own with just a little contribution from us. Good luck!

the best suggestion I have is (and this has probably been mentioned) make it fun...make it a game or depending on her personality, make it a challenge for her without her knowing its a challenge...does she enjoy watching you do things and get curious about it? use that to your advantage....Also I would look into her astological personality (trust me this works) and gear your teaching her to that...for example my daughter is a Taurus and for the life of me I had a hard time teaching her when she was young but then I foudn out she is stubborn and very hands on..once I clue in to that teaching her became a breeze and now that she's older (11.5) I REALLY see those traits in her....Ppl think its silly but it really does make a huge difference

I know how your feeling,I have four children and yes they all grow at different rates,I just had a diagnosis done in October on my four year old and he is now on the autism spectrum,he started out slow,but now with therapy in communication he counts to 30 and 10 in spanish,knows all colors,shapes,can read certain words,knows every sound each letter makes,he blows me away.but yet has the label of autism and people look at me like my child has problems.I would just say to take time be patient with her,mabey ask the local schools for any pre-k 4 programs out there,it worked for me anyway.good luck and Im sure she will progress when she is ready

I think one of the most fun toys (learning toys that is) for that age is a Leap Frog Leap Pad. The child has to "touch" the book with the pen to find out what it says. It puts the word in front of them and then when they touch the word, it says it out loud. They are great learning tools and the child doesn't realize that they are learning. You could also take her to one of the book stores that is huge if there is one nearby and let her "pick" her own book to buy fromt he children's section which usually has toys and stuffed animals also (like Barnes and Noble). One other thought is to take her to the library and start teaching her "about" the library starting with the children's section. I will say this is only neat if you have a good sized library that has "kid" bathrooms with tiny potties and usually a small castle or something that has been made into a reading "loft". You could give her "small" treats for completing the letters, like if she loves m and m's, tell her she can have a few when she writes each letter of her name and a really special treat when she gets the "whole" name, maybe a trip to McDonald's? This only works if you don't give those things all the time already. Sometimes, it gets hard to reward our kids for hard work because they get things so easily anyway.

Well I have no kids of my own, but I remember my mom when I was just a kid. What she'd do is that she would buy me many interesting books.. and then I will sit in her laps and she said to me to read to her.. So I just read it to her though with difficulties and she will correct me and help me out along the way.. I love it.. and it does make me love reading and learning.. Of course, dont do too much of this as well.. you know how it is with kids, they tend to get bored easily and the attention spam is low. So I sgugest to get an interesting book and she likes.. or the next time that she wants you to buy books for her.. make her promise that she should read it together.. not just you reading it to her.. i hope it is helpful