Hello there. Novice parent to a 19 month old boy here....

I've just read on the BBC web site that the origional "Janet and John" books from the '50s are being reprinted in their origional format i.e. not politically correct messing around....

It has lead me to think I should really be encouraging my little one to read and make sure he is all OK with reading / spelling / alphabet etc before too long.

Anyone got any good recommendations for books / series of books etc that I should look out for? I seem to remember Billy Blue Hat / Jennifer Yellow Hat when I learnt to read, but I am guesing 'nu labour have probably banned them by now - hence the need for some advice:hmm:

Ha'zram ha'rishon.:}

Don't try to teach him yet, just read to him and use books with plenty of pictures. All the old favourites, Beatrix Potter, Mister Men etc. When he is older you can read and place your finger under the words at the same time but don't try to make him read. Allow him to discover it naturally and as he gets nearer to going to school, find out which method of teaching is used there, that way he won't be confused by having to unlearn what he has already learned.

I'll second DX Wombat. We read to our son every night just before he went to bed, starting with simple stories, then moving to others. He's coming up for 8 with a reading age well in excess of that, so it seems.

So children learn to read by osmosis, no ?

All of the above...

We have always read stories to our six yeear old.. always had books for him to look at and enjoy.
The single biggest factor at an early age is to get them to understnad how to use a book.. ie that there is a story , that the pages are to be turned.. hey there were kids in the Reception class who had not yet grasped that concept...

So at 19 months it is picture books, it is time spent with the parents, grand parents etc having stories. If they learn that books are a source of entertainment and good time then learning to read will be so much easier as its already part of life, not a specific exercise. Plus they will want to know what is written there as the written word will have very positive associations.

Its tough in a visually and aurally dominated world... far easier for the kid to watch and hear than sit and read....

In terms of books for the future.... the very basic Peter and Janes are still very very good, pretty cheap and completely unitimidating...plus it is fun to tell the little one that you learnt using the same books..

Its tough in a visually and aurally dominated world...
I always thought reading was a visual pursuit! When did this change? I don't recall getting that memo...;)

Do they still publish the Ladybird Books?

If so, the early reader books are excellent for getting children interested in reading.

I agree with DX Wombat. Don't teach him to read yet - just get him interested in the idea of books by reading to him.

Back in the dark ages when I was a child my parents never bought me Christmas or birthday cards, they always bought me a book instead. This got me so interested in books that I just wanted to read as much as possible and could read when i was abou three years old.

I did the same with my nieces when they were young.

Howard,,

;) Would getting the memo have helped.....if ya can't read it.:}

Seriously tho... for a 19 month old the old ogle box is far more appealing than a book...and all too often is an easy baby sitter....

S'land.

They sure do...

We've always read to Leo, since he was tiny. Now he's 25months and loves to be read to, so much so he'll potter off, get a book and hit designated reader, shout "book, book" and settle down for his story. He's also just started to "read" himself, in other words, he'll get a book and make noises, pretend to use the items in said book, like apples on a tree and feed them to himslef, me, other characters in the book, he's been able to turn pages for so long now I forget when that started. We also put him a story tape on as he goes to sleep, he seems to really love that. I hope he continues his current love of reading, I know I still do and I think it's one of the nicest things you can have in life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQHX-SjgQvQ

:D:D:D Great fun.

Word cards.


Word on one side with the first letter in contrasting colour. When they have had a go, turn it over and there is the word and the picture.


Just don't push them too hard, if they don't enjoy it, it will be a counterproductive exercise.

It could be worth searching out a book called "Teach your Baby to read" I can't remember the author but he was a specialist in teaching brain dameged children and could get them up to a normal level so he then posed the question, "if a brain damaged kid can read at a normal level, What's wrong with normal kids"? Using his techniques a child can be tought to read from 18 months and can be taught maths from even earlier. By the way one of the things he found was Red lettering on a white background has the most impact.

Thanks R 4 Z. Just got a copy of the book from a well known Internet based Book store. Looks like exactly the type of advice I needed! I'll let you know how little one gets on with the book / flash cards:ok:

C Driver, Check following reviews on Amazon
--------------------------------------------

Good Morning, Good Night ~ by Melanie Mitchell

Lady Lexxity may have comments on this one



Are You Ticklish ~ Melanie Mitchell again


What Makes a Rainbow? ~ Betty Ann Schwartz & Donna Turner


How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night? ~ Jane Yolen & Mark Teague


Good Night, Sleep Tight, Little Bunnies ~ Dawn Apperley





Don't be intimidated by the age reading levels, ie 4 - 8.
The little sponge that is their brain will soak it all in and 19 months is plenty old enough to enjoy being read to and then ( as stated in other posts above ) at their own pace reading on their own, especially these type of books which are also tactile. Just watch the attention span and when it wanes move on to some other activity, don't force it.

An average 3 or 4 year old whose parents have made books FUN at an early age ( 12 months isn't too early ) can read and master numbers suprisingly well. Just make it FUN, often and lots of variety.

Interesting how a child's brain and skills develop in the early years. It appeared that my eldest son could read by the time he was three and a half, and he could, after a fashion.

However, he had actually memorised his favourite books, exactly, word for word, and knew when to turn the pages over. Later, his early "reading" was more like a recognition of a picture of the words as a whole.

When he was even younger, his mother had made him some "word cards" which were scraps of thin card with a word on each. These were kept in a small tin and there were approximately fifty of them. The idea of the "game" was to lay out the cards face down and turn them over for him to "read". If he was correct, the card went in the tin and as soon as he was finished, he would get his favourite bedtime drink.

I had been away for some time (military detachment) and the first time I played this game with him he was well used to playing it. I was amazed to hear him get all the words right - but then I suddenly realised he could also tell me the words without me having to turn the cards over! I eventually twigged that he had memorised the individual shapes of the hand cut cards and knew which words were on them, without having to read them! It freaked me out to experience this the first time - the little tyke knew he was being clever and thought my reaction ( :confused: :eek: ) was hilarious.

Eventually, I could just point at a card and he would fall over giggling as he "read" me the word and I would giggle too!

He did alright; he graduated from university last year and now works in finance.

To my shame I can't remember the title of my first 'favorite' book. Might have been 'Ginger', something like that. Started 'Gingers bedroom was a kennel, in the garden by the wall' and I can still quote large sections of it, some 55 years later.

The way I was taught to read was sitting on my father's knee while he read the newspaper out loud, pointing to the words as he read them. The paper in question was the Mirror which used a nice, basic, 200 word vocabulary, and I learnt to know the basic words by their 'shape'. One problem with this method of teaching reading was I didn't actually learn the alphabet until I was 12 - didn't need it.

I have known three year olds that can say their alphabet backwards -- as well as forwards. I'm not sure that this isn't going to confuse them, but perhaps it just makes the imagery more solid.

As I've said before, I don't have any imagery of words, I have to hear them in my mind's ear, so I find it difficult to imagine just what goes on in a child's mind.

My two local g-kids, are biased towards the written word. Where I would have been taking the lawnmower to pieces at their age, they ask how things are spelled. Sad that, I needed someone to play with in my shed.

For a series of 'learning' books, I'd say the Magic Key series, Biff chip and kipper books from the Oxford Reading Tree. You can get them off amazon, stage 1 one books just have pictures then they slowly get harder from stage to stage. If he gets familiar with the characters it may entice him to read more stories with them in and help his reading.
(Failing that, I hear War & Peace is a good book. :E)

At the risk of advertising, we taught all four of ours to read from the age of two using the Ladybird series, complete with the 'Flash Cards'. We humans don't read alphabetically or phonetically, we read by recognising entire words. Actually, that's too simplistic, we actually recognise entire phrases. Speed reading training can hone this skill to enable us to read at nine hundred words a minute or more with full understanding - faster than speech! :ooh:

We would always read the girls a bedtime story from the series - the all time favourite was 'Three Billy Goats Gruff' complete with all the sound effects. 'The Magic Porridge Pot' would be second with 'The Enormous Turnip' taking the bronze. The Ladybirds are brilliant at instilling a life-long love of books. The girls still get massive pleasure from reading and their own home libraries are if anything, even more extensive than my own.

I loved Dr Seuss and Barbar when I was small. Just as good now, reading them to the next generation.

Edited to add Thomas the Tank Engine!

We took Blacksheep's route and used the Ladybird books and flash cards.

We read them a story each night from the age of about 5 months, as soon as they could sit up, until their 10th birthday, and started on the Ladybird books at about 18 months - never any pressure, it was just part of the bedtime ritual, we all loved it. We ended reading them Lord of the Rings cover to cover over about 3 months - an ideal book for this as the chapters are short.

Apart from that we encouraged them to read anything they wanted, comics, quiz books, Dr Seuss, anything....

We also started times tables up to 10x from about 3 years. Again no pressure, just chanting.

So.... they could both read and were absolutely perfect on the times tables before they went to school. I'm sure this made things a lot easier, and they both say it was one of the best things we did for them and they are both now avid readers, and can work out how much 10 things at 20p each is without a calculator.

Of course, you only get one chance with your kids, and who knows, they might have taken after me and been geniuses anyway, but I'm sure it did no harm.

They now have two honours degrees, one masters degree, a teaching diploma and an ATPL between them so far, with another ATPL in the pipeline.

I think the thing is to do it with absolutely no pressure and have reading material available in the house, let them see you reading.

It could be the best thing you do for them.

Cereal boxes.

Cereal boxes are good. I'm dying for the next episode of Weetabix to hit the shelves.

I am an English (ESL) teacher and have taught students from 3 to 50...some with zero English, not even the alphabet. I also have a 3 year old daughter and for both, I use the Dr. Seuss series of books. They have great pictures, and introduce vocabulary in a structured manner that leads to an increase in speaking, and eventually, reading ability.
As previously posted, just read to the tike on a regular basis. Make it fun and make up voices and stories of your own around the characters as well. Ask him questions about what he thinks the characters are doing. This will kick start his story telling ability. You will be pleasantly surprised at what he comes up with!
Enjoy it! It's great fun and probably the most rewarding thing you will ever do!
:)
P.S. Without making assumptions, don't force anything! Just introduce your child to reading and show him that it's fun. This will lead your kid to a life long enjoyment of reading. Also, the flash cards for the alphabet, and later words and/or phrases, are a very good adjunct to reading stories to them.

We find that sproglette - now nearly 2 1/2 - likes the Dr Seuss books to be read to her more than any others. However, she prefers the illustrations in other books.

Others have mentioned the routine of the bedtime story and I can only concur.

To people who do not like reading, I can only say, 'You haven't found the right books yet'.

This applies also to children.

This is nuts! At least there's no tampering with Ladybird books....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/11/19/nbooks119.xml

Foxy

I used to be in publishing in the UK, there was not so much of a PC attitude then. Nowadays all of the small, and not-so-small publishers have amalgamated (been taken over by) a few larger groups. It seems that the independently minded publishers have left the industry as well.

There must be a way to encourage youngsters to "do as I say, not as I do..."?! :}

As a child, I had sufficient pocket-money to acquire every single Enid Blyton novel. I think I was about 10 years old when I wrote to Enid Blyton c/o the publishers to ask to be included in the adventures of the Famous Five, they seemed so real to me. Much later on, I realised that the author had passed on by this time, and it was much too late to ask for such things... :{

Suitable reading material for youngsters today might include Jim Corbett (The Man-Eating Leopard Of Rudraprayag) or Alfred Hitchcock (The Birds). As a 10 year old (once I'd outgrown Enid Blyton) I distinctly remember being literally scared shitless numerous times with my pop scratching the door to my bedroom (it had a glass partition too) - he'd invariably passed on the books to me to read...?! :uhoh: As a grownup, I now realise that I've much less to fear from man-eaters or eye-peckin' crows than from my fellow men. Which has resulted in my enduring respect for wildlife to this day. :ok:

'Three Billy Goats Gruff' complete with all the sound effects.

Ah, yes! My three sons were all happily scared in turn by that troll! He had a terrible voice... :}

I built a bridge over the stream at the bottom of the garden and the children used to re-enact the Billy Goats Gruff story whenever they crossed the bridge on the way to school.

My chicklets all like Dr Suess too - it may be rhyme and riddle, but just the whole sitting down with Mum or Dad and having fun was worth worlds to them.

I used flashcards of a sort - when they were old enough to speak and learn things, I put labels on everything in the house ie "stove", "bath", "book", "cat" (tho for some reason that one didn't stay affixed ;) ) and whenever I pottered around the house with them in tow, I'd point to the sign and we'd decide what it was.

I don't know if has any "educational merit" but they loved it and it seemed to work. :ok:

First and foremost, make it fun!! :D

KC

I taught my children phonetics for every letter. The second child was a proficient reader by the age of three. Her sister was reading books to her and pointing to the words, and this together with the phonetics was enough. My first reading book started with A N C B H D sounds back in early fifties. I think this is better than the look and say method, as it helps you to tackle words you havent seen before.

We did the name labels on items around the house and son was reading properly on his own by age four.
The controversy about teaching the letters is that we use different names for the solo letters than how they sound so at some stage the child has to transfer from phonics to letter-names.
Incidentally we moved to Denmark when son was 4years and 8months and he was able to read the word Bibliotek when he started the nursery class (much to the amazement of the teaching staff - especially as they don't begin formal teaching until age 7 years!).
For the three years that we spent in Denmark our (foreign) children were chosen to lead the class in singing as they could read the words that the Danish (and Vietnamese) children had to learn parrot-fashion.

Been reading to the little fella every night before bed since he was three months old. He's now seven months old so still a long way to go. I'm away for a couple of months now so mum's taken over that role.
Dr Seuss books are incredible. He had a wild and vivid imagination, and the rhythm of the words is almost poetic. They don't make them like that any more. :bored:

Stallie! You're a daddy! I had no idea. Very belated congratulations to both of you. :D:D:D:D:D

Ah, yes! My three sons were all happily scared in turn by that troll! He had a terrible voice... We lived in a ground floor flat and they were playing about long after lights out. Out into the garden, tap on the window and using patented Wee Willy Winky voice "Are all the children in their beds? Its past half past eight!" Squeals of delight and the thunder of tiny feet from within and they're all back under the covers. Stories are so much more fun when you make them real.

I have a 4 and a 6 year old boy. The older was able to read at about the Dr. Seuss level when he went into kindergarten. We had no grand plan to turn him into an early reader. But he had an interest in the alphabet, and along the way I introduced the concept of sounds that go with the letters. Of course that's hard, letters make all different sounds and some different letters make the same sounds. They all pick it up in time. There was no pressure on him to read, he went at his own pace. My kids watch almost no TV. We have read to them every night since they were babies. I agree that if you make it fun, you are 80% of the way there. The other 80% is up to them.

My 4-year old is on the autistic spectrum. Before we realized this we thought he might be an earlier reader than his big brother. But what I think was going on was that he had a great memory and an obsession with letters. This obsession has waxed and waned. On this latest time around he is starting to express an interest in the sounds that letters make. I am confident he will be a reader. I don't know how long it will take. I don't really care.

I am immensely proud of my 6-year old and the fact that he can read like an 8-year old. I am also immensely proud of my 4-year old and the huge strides he's made in general over the last 18 months. I also believe that early reading is like early soloing - you may solo in 8 hours, you may solo in three times that. Way down the road it is unlikely to matter, and it certaintly doesn't change the pilot that you were born to be.

-- IFMU

it certaintly doesn't change the pilot that you were born to be.Our eldest is on the autistic spectrum too, and had an avid interest in words. She was reading "The Magic Porridge Pot" at the age of three. In other areas she was behind and is overall, of average intelligence. She managed five GCSE's and a City & Guilds in Computer Applications. But despite being visually impaired, she remains an avid reader, getting through at least three library books a week. (The local library staff are somewhat bemused by the young lady with the white stick who takes out three books every week and spends hours browsing their shelves) Reading remains her greatest pleasure; I'm ever so glad we encouraged her from her earliest days.

Your post blacksheep reminded me of something my daughter told me recently. As a child she was absolutely terrified of Wee Willie Winkie. It never occurred to me that she would think he was a real person!!!!

Wee Willie Winkie
runs through the town;
upstairs and downstairs
in his night gown.

Knocking at the windows
crying at the gate
"Are all the children in their beds?
Its half past eight!"

Tell her its OK now. He's been Sectioned. :)

My 26 month old daughter loves the Hairy Maclary series and we've just started Dr Seuss too. I'm an ex-teacher and have done some research into children's books - not all rhyming books are created equal. Hairy Maclary and Dr Suess books follow a specific pattern which seems to engage children (and I like them too!)

We've read to her every night since she could sit up and in spite of not having "formally" taught her to read, she already recognises "B,E,H,J,K,M,N,O,P,Q,S,W and Z". If she sees another letter, she recognises that it's a letter and usually says "alphabet". She knows her numbers to 10, too although she gets 1 and 7 mixed up sometimes.

It's helpful to have one of those "alphabet" books that has one letter on each page with pictures of words beginning with the letter. She often chooses those type of books and reads them to me.

As for TV, even though all the experts say no TV for toddlers - she learned the alphabet from Sesame St (a DVD called "alphabet jungle") before she was 2. She literally watched the thing 3 times and could then sing the "A,B,C" song.

So lots of reading and at your child's age stick to "story" books rather than pre-readers like "Dick and Jane", "Pam and Sam" etc (depending which part of the world you come from)! And (I guess it's the teacher in me) but I always point out "incidental" words on signs, out shopping etc. Little bodies BIG brains - toddler development just amazes me!

The no TV nazis don't recognise the usefulness of good quality childrens TV. Cbeebies is great, Leo actually learns things from them. Something else children like is music. Lots and lots of it. Leo loves to run around to his childrens cd, but he also likes to sing and will listen to whatever Mummy and Daddy are listening too.

Toddlers are amazing at how much and quickly they learn.

Toddlers are amazing at how much and quickly they learn. Its impossible to overstimulate the brain of a toddler, and yes they do love music. I had a young family staying with me over the weekend. While I was having a sing song with them, I was flabbergasted to see the youngest intently watching my left hand and fairly accurately matching the fingering on his knee! :ooh: His Mum is a singer and dancer by profession, so music is in the blood, but still!

Books, reading TV music it doesn't matter what you feed them with as long as its good quality and you only do it while they want to. They're kids and they need to have fun.

Leave it long enough and they'll teach themselves to read! Our lad did a year at school in the UK, and learnt some basic stuff, but when we came to NL we discovered that doing English reading at home while he was doing Dutch reading at school was confusing him, so we stopped the English bit. He is now at a good level of reading in Dutch, but also appears to have taught himself to read English - whenever he sees anything written in English he reads it out to us, and mostly gets it right, even when it would be easy to confuse the English pronunciation with Dutch.

It seems to have given him an enthusiasm for reading that may not have been there otherwise.

We have read him a bedtime story pretty much from day 1, which I believe also helps - concur with those who like Dr Seuss. We have about 20 of his books!