Letters - Dearborn,MI

This is a skill that is expected to be solidified by the end of 1st grade. Relax and enjoy her.

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Go get "The Letter Factory". It is a 30 minute video and my son loves it!

No. Just keep working with her, but make sure you and she have FUN with it. Don't make learning a chore.

I would keep working on it. If she knows numbers, she knows that shapes mean something. Maybe if she likes art focus on a letter or two a week and have her color pictures that start with that letter, pictures of that letter, etc. There are a lot of letter ideas online for preschoolers.

Don't be concerned!!!! That is a skill they learn in kindergarten!!!!!! I know lots of kids learn it early, and that's great, but not something to be pushed at this age.

Best wishes!

Mine is the same way. Numbers are so-so. Sometimes she does and sometimes she does not -or at least acts like she does not recognize them. Going to the store can take forever if I let her walk because she always wants to count the tiles and gets up to 10 usually with no problem but if we sit down to do it she messes them up. Personally think she does it on purpose because she laughs about it. She knows her shapes and some of the alphabet, really good at colors. I just have trouble getting her to sit still because she wants to be off with her older brother and sisters. But she will pick them up. If she was 5, I might worry a bit.

I just really started working on letters with my 2.5 year old, and it was frustrating at first but now she is starting to get the hang of it.

I made "flash cards" with the uppercase letters on the from, and an animal picture with that letter on the back. We are doing them slow, we started with ABCD, and moved to ABCDE, and will do ABCDEF starting today. First we put out the letters and I ask her "what is this one?" (a for alligator) then B and so on. Then I mix them up and try to have her hand me the letters that I ask for.

I think associating the letters with animals she already recognized helps a lot. she lasts for a few minutes, not long... and then we move on to a letter coloring page. The little artist in her comes out and she sit there and talk about what she is coloring and it is a great time to work on her colors a bit too. (I have her tell me what color she wants and then I have her pick the right crayon out of the box).

Not long ago I was really stressing about this exact topic, but I was reassured that I didn't need to be worried, and she would indeed pick it up. I would guess your daughter will be the same.

(PS I suspect kids know a lot more than they let us parents catch on to...)

-M.

My son also loved playing on starfall.com! Loved it. She knows how to write her name----those are letters! She's going to get it.
Just play with them a lot. Maybe do 1 or 2 letters a week. Play "I Spy" games, when driving down the road look for a letter on signs or license plates. Sing the song, and work an alphabet puzzle. There are several variations of them; our favorite is a big floor puzzle that is a train...a letter in each train car. That way she's used to handling the letter and singing the song to find the next piece. You can draw the letter, paint the letter, make them with play doh, etc. But if you concentrate on one for a whole week, but in casual play not just "drills" at the table, she'll start getting it. It's a good time to learn---she's not behind.

Should you be worried or not? depends on if she is going to first grade this September. You are not the first person to ask this and I dont understand. We used to learn letters in first grade, then in Kindergarten, then 4 yr olds now people are worried if they dont know it at 3. I teach K and the average kids knows a lot of letters when they start (some know all and some none) the ones who dont know their letters learn them in K. She sounds terrific in her drawing and writing her name already- Fantastic!

I think this is normal. She probably just isnt interested. My son will be 4 next month and does no all his letters but still only scribbles *sigh* but he does have some friends the same age and they dont know all there letters yet. Once she becomes interested she will get it quickly I bet!

Try starfall.com, that really helped my son.

How many letters are you doing at a time?

I bought a Magna-Doodle and would work on just 4 or 5 letters each night. Every three nights or so, I'd add one. Also, stick with ONLY uppercase letters to start. Once they know those, you can start adding lowercase. It's just too confusing to expect memorization of 52 letters all at once!

So just start with A,B,C,D,E,F. Write one, ask her what it is, and tell her if necessary. Then erase and put the next letter up. Do them randomly. Backwards, forwards, mixed up, etc. I also did this with shapes and numbers. My boys knew what an octagon and pentagram (star) were!

Have fun with it and don't worry! She'll figure it out!