My DS is 3. His sister tested and attends a school for gifted so we were more aware this time around to watch for early signs. He is like her in that he started talking early and we always get comments on how well he speaks for his age. He could clearly sing his ABC's by 2. But what is so different is that he doesn't really KNOW his letters yet like she did by 3. He has no interest. Instead he constantly asks me what words say. He points to words and asks me to tell him what it is and is WAY more interested in books than she was.
Is there a way to encourage more letter recognition or should I focus more on it with reading the words?

have you tried the Letter Factory from Leap Frog? Both of my boys learned the letters and sounds from this video in about a week, early on. My 4 year old also learned to write from this video when he was 2/3.

I would keep answering his questions about what the words are, and throw in some alphabet books occasionally. I think there's a group of GT kids start out as whole word readers (not sounding them out). And then they somehow know how to read, without any real instruction except you reading to them. It's like they figure out the reading code without going through all the steps. (This was our experience with our son.) Our son did know his letters early on, though. We did have alphabet books around, and I'm sure we had to read Dr. Seuss's A to Z many hunreds of times.

DS also had some LeapFrog magnetic letter thing on the fridge, where you'd pop in the letter and it would have some annoying little song about the sound the letter made. He seemed to like that.

He's funny because it's almost as if he just isn't interested. He has known how to spell his name since 2 and the letters in his name. Then he'll almost play games with you if you ask him what a letter is. Like, i'll show him C and he'll say 'G' laugh and THEN say C. He definitely knows some better than others, but he just seems more interested in words. His sister will point to a word and sound it out to him (she loves being the teacher) so he loves that and wants to just do the words. I'll try those other games you suggested, but he may just do it on HIS own time I guess. lol. Maybe I'll have his sister play letter games with him!

After reading this, there's a chance he might just be playing you... When my DS was about that age, he wouldn't answer questions if he already knew the answer. He would joke and give you a fake answer. If he had some activity book, and he already knew the answer or thought it was too easy, he would make up some new answer or do it his own way to make things more interesting.

DS4 liked Fridge Phonics by Leapfrog, same thing that St paulis kid liked. He also really liked the next fridge phonics game which is the "word whammer", that one says the letters as they put them in but they can also make short words.

And then the free phonics website www.starfall.com has great letter teaching songs/animations.

DS recently learned the names of the keys on the piano and the only way I could figure out if he really knew them was to be silly and say, "now this one is a X, right?" and he would correct me as he can't bear anyone within a mile of him to be wrong. If your DS is like that it's a easy way to see if they know something or not.

Polly

Does he recognize the sounds? Kids who don't learn whole word (many gifted do) learn phonetically. If you asked my youngest what a letter was he would respond with the sound/sounds not the name. You might try reading the word phonetically and see if it sticks any better or if he has more interest. I have two who learned by sight and two so far who have learned phonetically. It might have something to do with what type of learner they are, auditory or visual, I'm not sure. My DS3 really likes the IEW Reading PAL program here http://www.excellenceinwriting.com/catalog/primary-k-2-pal-reading it has a farm theme (great for boys) and also uses file folder games (like parking cars) that are great at that age.

This is also what I thought. He likely does already know the letter names (when he learned the ABC song), and likely many of their sounds.

If I were in your situation, (as you describe it), I would drop the letter recognition and go to the next level. He sounds like the "class clown" when he's bored with what he already knows.

Try him out on, "PH", "CH", "ST", etc.

We have enjoyed the DVD's by Rock 'N Learn.

Something I have done for our son since he was very little is to always have something available that is at least two years beyond his perceived level. He's surprised us many times.

Hi justamomNC

My DS It turns out was a whole word reader. Snce he was my first (and only) I didn't really recognize that he was learning differently or that perhaps I was doing something different. But he HATED sounding things out once he started to read, still does. But before that I didn't do anything remotely letter related - except for Starfall it's an awesome website that starts with the letters and sounds and then progresses to letter families and ultimately to reading. To my inexpert opinion, he is either already past what you are thinking and so is playing, or is resisting the instruction. If he is ahead, anything more advanced but still play would likely appeal, but if not ready, the new format of things like starfall or the leapfrog letter fridge thing might interest him.

And isn't the second one supposed to be totally different from the first, if we knew what to expect, parenting would be so easy!!!

DeHe

You've got some great advice here! I also am a fan of the Leap Frog movies and toys. I think it's "Let's Go to School" that has a song showing letters and saying the sounds with them. My kids (2 and 3) love it!

My daughter received leapfrog's Fridge Phonics when she was 21 months old. At first we put all 26 (capital) letters up, but it seemed overwhelming for her to have so many. Then we put away all but A,B,C, and D, and let her know that she could earn new letters by demonstrating that she knew the ones she already had. (I'd quiz her on 3 or 4 of the ones she was having the most difficulty with, and if she got them all right she got another letter.)

I'm not sure of the timeline, but by her 2nd birthday she had earned all of her letters, and we bought her the Fisher Price Fun-2-Learn Color Flash laptop. She has learned all of her lower case letters from playing with that. It also has a focus on phonics, not just identification. I think that's a product she can definitely grow into, too. When she is able to use the mouse better, there's a game like pong, some mazes, and some counting activities.

I started her on starfall last night, and she asked for it again this morning. She almost cried when I had to turn it off to bring her to daycare on my way to work. I promised her we would play more when I got home. I learned about that site on this forum, so I'm thankful for the suggestion.

There are some i-pad apps that she's enjoyed as well. There was one she liked that would display several letters on the screen simultaneously, and ask the child to find a certain one. I think that was a good review for her.

We skipped the letter factory, but we have the Talking Words Factory, which is a leapfrog video for teaching phonics and building words out of letters... she'd rather watch Toy Story or Tangled though. For those types of entertainment-only videos, I started putting the subtitles on for her, and now she asks for that. Some children's videos don't have subtitles though.

This sounds an awful lot like my son. Could recognize and write his name very early, knew all the letters, and then wanted very little to do with letters or reading on his own until Kindergarten (he still wanted us to read to him all the time).

Now, he is a pretty mathy kid, but he is also very strong verbally. However, his interests have historically been much more focused toward math and science). We just kept reading to him (his preschool was not academic, much more social focus) a lot. I had some flashcard type things he wasn't interested in, so we never did them.

Lo and behold, within about a month of starting kindergarten he started reading (he could read a few basic things before that, cat, dog, etc. but not much, or not much that he let on), and he went from not reading to reading Magic Tree House type books in about two weeks, and just kept accelerating from there. The entire reading thing just popped - either he decided he was interested, or more likely, hit the right developmental spot for him, who knows?

He is very clearly a whole word reader - he still has a hard time with sounding out, and spelling is definitely not his strong suit (I was the exact same way, I don't remember learning to read, I just started to do it) - and it cracks us up when he can't connect a word he knows verbally with a word he is reading - can lead to some very funny questions ("Mom, can we take a trip to Yozmight some time?", "Where??", "You know, Yozmight, where Half Dome is", "Oh, you mean Yosemite. . .").

I have a DD6 who is an equally strong reader, but she sounds out everything, the complete opposite. Her spelling is amazing - it has been so interesting to watch the difference between their reading development, it is completely different, yet they are both equally strong readers. She started reading substantially earlier, but didn't have the same "pop," her progress has been much more steady.

Hard to know, but maybe your DS just has other things he would rather occupy his time with right now (and he sounds like a fun guy).

Cat

Hi Cat
OMG, we have those same conversations!!! Early on with magic treehouse, he was referring to a scorer, or scorerer which is how I kept hearing it. I even asked him to spell it from memory and he did pretty well,and I was able to figure out he meant sorcerer. He gets so annoyed, sometimes that he treats us like we are either hard of hearing or from another country, getting either louder or slower . . . I SAID . . . LOL on the other hand it's teaching great definitional skills as I often have to ask him to use it in a sentence!

DeHe

OMG this is me! I think DS1 might be a bit like that too. To this day I can read a book, and then realsie though I have read and enjoyed it, I don't know how to pronounce a main characters name!

I was astonished to learn, as an adult that there were "sight words". I thought all words were sight words! And then as we painstakingly taught my eldest to read I learned all these phonetic rules that I had never had any idea of - which really explained a lot!