Postby stayathomemuminsw11 » Mon Jun 18, 2012 3:30 pm
Hi,
I have a 3 yr old girl, and pre-motherhood I was a nursery school teacher, so I know a little about this!
Firstly, at this age, any 'teaching' should be done in an informal, fun way. Indeed, the entire Foundation Stage Curriculum which ends at the end of the Reception is based on 'learning through play'. So even in the first year of formal 'school' children are taught through play.
Secondly, if a child at this age is pushed too much, especially if they are not even interested, they will not enjoy learning, and be more likely to rebel against it. Some children are naturally curious about letters/sounds/writing etc at 3, some are not.
My own daughter knows all her letter sounds, can write her name (and a few other letters), recognise a few words written down, and her nursery told me today they are doing word building of 3 letter words with her, as she is keen to read, HOWEVER, she has friends (boys and girls) of the same age who are nowhere near this yet. This is not meant to be boastful, as all children develop differently, and children have individual strengths, likes and interests-and I would never push her at this age.
She has friends who, for example, are much more advanced in other areas, for example with numbers, or drawing, or whatever.
By all means introduce letters/sounds/writing, but do it in a fun way! My daughter enjoys 'writing' lists for the supermarket, 'writing' letters to her friends etc. You can play games like I spy to encourage linking sounds to words. Remember to always teach phonics (sounds) rather than names of letters first, and lower case first too.
Also, with the writing, in order to write correctly, children need to develop their motor skills-and fun ways to do this which are easier than a pen and paper, and will ultimately help in the long run, are things like:
'Writing' in sand, they can use their finger to draw big circles, lines etc, this is good pre-writing practice
Using play-doh/clay/children's scissors etc, all these things are important
There is absolutely NO point in sitting a child down (especially one who is not interested!) and 'making' them 'write letters' for example. Firstly, it is much more important that they know what letters and sounds represent, so for example, there is no real benefit in children learning to write by simply copying what adults have written...
So, if they wanted, say, to write 'Mummy', it would actually be much better if they wrote 'm, u, m, e, e' of their own accord (i.e. were sounding out the sounds they hear in the word and translating that to paper) than copied the word 'Mummy' with no concept of what those letters represent... hope this makes sense...
Do fun things like have a lower case alphabet poster, if you see letters out and about you can point them out, occasional use of flash cards are ok but I don't use them regularly, etc.
Hope that is helpful! Telling the time comes much later than 3! 3 yr olds have some concept of time (after lunch, tomorrow, at the weekend etc) but actually telling the time is not for this age group! Again, it does no harm to have a clock, point out numbers, say 'when the big hand gets to 12 and the little hand to 3 that means it's 3 o'clock and X is coming to play' but much like writing it should be done informally and through play.
Hope this helps!
