Jennifer132 Posted October 28, 2015 Share Posted October 28, 2015 If you have children who, by four or five, didn't learn their letter sounds and numbers by osmosis, do you have any favorite toys/resources you like to use to teach them? Nothing too crafty (so not me). Eta: by osmosis I mean that they didn't just pick up these things from regular reading of books and playing with educational toys. I do sit with my little girls reading and pointing out letters and sounds, numbers, etc. They did learn shapes and colors this way, but the alphabet seems to be coming more slowly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ktgrok Posted October 28, 2015 Share Posted October 28, 2015 Letter Factory by Leapfrog. Its not available streaming, you have to buy the DVD. Well worth it. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abba12 Posted October 28, 2015 Share Posted October 28, 2015 Definitely letter factory. Also, we're quite liking get ready, set, go for the code for cementing/practising them with my younger DD Numbers were helped by the show Peg + Cat, love that show. Also, for little ones numbers/math I like Mathematical Reasoning, Beginning 1 and Beginning 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess4879 Posted October 28, 2015 Share Posted October 28, 2015 Letter Factory here too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hollyhock Posted October 29, 2015 Share Posted October 29, 2015 I used Starfall for this. The only kid I explicitly taught letters and sounds to was my oldest. The rest I just let them play on Starfall from the time they were 3 and they picked it up. It's the only thing I outsource. :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kiara.I Posted October 29, 2015 Share Posted October 29, 2015 Yup, if screen time is okay in your house, Starfall.com. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HomeAgain Posted October 29, 2015 Share Posted October 29, 2015 Montessori. I introduced one tactile letter at a time with its sound (no name) and left them out to play with. As soon as he grasped one, I added another...and then showed how to smush them together. Our letters were made by Learning Resources, I think(?) and had raised arrows to show the finger how it should be written.Same thing with numbers. I have a set of spindle boxes and 45 spindles. You can make one easily with divided trays and pencils. But the first box had the numbers 0-4 over their respective compartments, and at first I only put out 10 spindles. We'd go over each one together: see the zero? It looks like a big hole. Nothing goes in the big hole. See the one? It looks like one stick. 1 stick goes in its box..and so on and so on. When he caught the pattern I added the second box, numbers 5-9. Then we introduced MUS blocks to take their place and continued with the 10s, using cards that I could layer to make "10 and 1" (11) "10 and 2" (12)... with the MUS blocks above each pair showing the same. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eternallytired Posted October 29, 2015 Share Posted October 29, 2015 Letter Factory and Starfall here, too. And when they have letter sounds down, try out LeapFrog's Talking Words Factory. All three of mine started sounding out words independently. I read to them a lot, true, and as soon as they knew letters I'd point out familiar ones (beginnings of store names, easily-decoded words in books)...but I still think that the Talking Words Factory video made a big impression on them and gave them the idea to try decoding on their own. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tsuga Posted October 29, 2015 Share Posted October 29, 2015 They learned them in a Montessori-style pre-school in German. One letter at a time with hands-on activities, tracing the letter in the sand, make the letter with blocks, put the letter on the wall and one day, do actions beginning with that letter, another day, bring pictures, another day, draw. Go on walks and have the letter with the teacher then point at trees: "T-ree. Tree. Tree. T. T. Tree." 30 letters with the ess and the umlauts, one per week. They did not learn by osmosis as they are pretty distractible but the hands-on one by one method with lots of actions and sensory data to accompany the letter seemed to set them up well. Like most kids who learn to read around six or seven in countries where school starts in first grade, their reading has taken off and they've gone seemingly from CVC to reading chapter books within a matter of the first two months of first grade. But we spent a LONG time outside and in the sand and in the paint and tracing letters with our hands, heads, etc. before that. I'm not anti-technology, but I think the human brain developed in four dimensions with smell, sight, touch, sound, and taste, and I liked that the German schools took that approach. They never stopped anyone from reading who was reading but the also let it sink in on all levels before requiring it at around 7. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KSinNS Posted October 30, 2015 Share Posted October 30, 2015 HWOT-the wooden blocks are good to start the caps, accompanied by writing for older kids. Then flashcards for sounds. T just needed a ton of practice and drill to get it. D needed less practice, but it still took a long time (years). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Squawky Acres Posted October 30, 2015 Share Posted October 30, 2015 I am embarrassed to admit it, and wish I could tell you my children learned their letters by forming them out of leaves and sticks and homemade salt dough, but I have to agree with many previous posters that Letter Factory is what worked for us. They don't need to watch it all that many times either for the information to stick (and you probably won't want to watch it too many times -- it is ANNOYING, but effective). I'm not sure about numbers. I think Kate's Preschool Math book would be good for numbers. We also had some wooden numbers that we would pick up and then do "7" hops or spins or barks or something. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
73349 Posted October 30, 2015 Share Posted October 30, 2015 A Leapfrog fridge magnet toy. You put the letter in and it sings, to The Farmer in the Dell, "The ___ says ___, The ___ says ___, Every letter makes a sound, The ___ says ___." It does both the short and long sounds for vowels. The down side is it's all capital letters, not lowercase. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SparklyUnicorn Posted October 30, 2015 Share Posted October 30, 2015 Another vote for Letter Factory. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RootAnn Posted October 30, 2015 Share Posted October 30, 2015 We had & I used the Letter Factory. That has helped for exposure, but the below plus actual work with numbers & letters is what made them actually learn them. Numerals - UNO is awesome. It includes colors if they don't know those yet. My kids can start playing UNO at 3 & I don't have geniuses. We all call the card we put down (yellow or 6s). The kids match the number or the color. LOE phonogram game cards. (I bought two different color sets from Rainbow Resources along with the game book.) We play all sorts of games - some from the book, some made up ourselves. We actually use these to teach the sounds of the phonograms, not the names of the letters. But, I also use the cursive cards along with the print cards to teach matching of the cursive to the print letter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ByGrace3 Posted October 30, 2015 Share Posted October 30, 2015 Well, Letter Factory for some reason did it work for my youngest...we used AAR pre-level and Starfall. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FO4UR Posted October 30, 2015 Share Posted October 30, 2015 What worked for us was a combo of all of the above; Leapfrog Letter Factory, sandpaper letters, starfall.com, and Happy Phonics....letter books (Dr Suess), and Sesame Street...whenever we got out playdoh or fingerpaints we would take a minute or two to make some letters before they had free play. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smarson Posted October 30, 2015 Share Posted October 30, 2015 Letter factory here too Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MeaganS Posted October 30, 2015 Share Posted October 30, 2015 The Frog and a variety of phonics apps on the iPad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HS Mom in NC Posted October 30, 2015 Share Posted October 30, 2015 We do letter sounds first. There is no need to know letter names when you read. Letter names can be learned after reading is coming along. We used flash cards and letter tiles. I glued together letter combinations (ch, sh, ai, ee, ou, ing, ight, etc.) and we built words and rearranged words for practice. My hands on kids enjoyed that. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WoolC Posted October 31, 2015 Share Posted October 31, 2015 Another vote for LeapFrog Letter Factory. We also used a Melissa and Doug alphabet train puzzle and went over sounds as we put it together. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holly Posted October 31, 2015 Share Posted October 31, 2015 ETC Primers are a great resource...it has just the right amount of writing for a 4/5 YO. If they are really struggling with learning letter sounds, just take a break for a few months and try again. It's amazing what a little time can do! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LMCme Posted November 5, 2015 Share Posted November 5, 2015 We're screen free, so I just wrote the letters on index cards and initially just focused on the usual sound of consonants (e.g., /k/ for c) and short vowel sounds for vowels. Didn't try to teach the names of the letters until that was quite sold. We made it a game -- we would jump on the bed together and "shoot" at each other with our fingers after each card, then play dead for a bit, then come back to life, do another flashcard, and repeat the whole process. Started with 2 or 3 and added a few each time the current stack was solid. We had a lot of fun, and he learned it pretty quickly. After that, we went to Ordinary Parent Guide where they start to do CVC words (I think it's lesson 27 or so) for 10 minutes or so a day, which is all the attention span he has at this point. This has worked great for us, he's enthusiastic about trying to sound out words when he sees them on signs or in stores, or if he sees a word he feels he can sound out when we read out loud together. Another thing we used is Progressive Phonics which is available for free download, and which he has fun with (silly stories and pictures). LMC Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macmacmoo Posted November 6, 2015 Share Posted November 6, 2015 A side note about letter factory. Eldest took to it when he was two and learned his letters and their sounds then. It took till he was five before we grasped blending. Next oldest has ben shown letter factory for years, but he didn't take an interest to the show till he was four. Once he was asking to watch it repeated on his own choosing then the letters and sounds stuck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EmilyGF Posted November 7, 2015 Share Posted November 7, 2015 I just taught them as part of our phonics program. It was pretty painless once we started doing it every day (maybe 5 min/day?). I didn't every want any talking toys or books in my house. Though I'm pretty impressed at what my kids learn by conversation, adults don't generally talk about letter names/sounds. Actually, I just taught one of my older kids letter names recently. You con't need letter names to read... Emily Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happynurse Posted November 7, 2015 Share Posted November 7, 2015 Leapfrog Letter Factory has a shocking way of sticking in the brains of young kiddos. My kiddo knew all of his letters and sounds at 18 months old, and is reading CVC words now at 3 1/2. He was a Letter Factory addict for awhile (probably because that's about the only TV he got). Also, I didn't teach him the names of the letters. When I saw a letter, an M, for example, I'd say that's an MMMMM (calling the letter its sound). Hopefully that helps! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lawyer&Mom Posted November 7, 2015 Share Posted November 7, 2015 I think it only took three viewings of letter factory for Dd 2 to learn her letters and sounds. It really is that good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mtomom Posted November 7, 2015 Share Posted November 7, 2015 Letter Factory was fantastic here for learning letters and sounds. I didn't find the next one so helpful for teaching blending, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted November 8, 2015 Share Posted November 8, 2015 You might also get their eyes checked. We did Letter Factory. It's fine, cute and adorable, but my ds didn't learn from it. Turned out he was dyslexic. Before we knew, we did MFW K5 as a letter of the week study (adorable!) and tried AAR pre- (adorable but out of reach for him). So it's just one of those things to watch. If their phonological development is off as well, I'd be more concerned. It's definitely good to get their eyes checked. Were they premies? Oh, you asked about that. Again, my ds has SLD math. His issues at that age were indicative of it. We now use Ronit Bird. The ebooks from Ronit Bird are FABULOUS, easy to implement, and affordable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ausmumof3 Posted November 8, 2015 Share Posted November 8, 2015 Combo pack of the letter of the week preschool curriculum (not all of it just the bits that made sense to me and a DVD. To be really honest it was the DVD that made it stick. The endless repetition helped. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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