Reading Reform Foundation

My second child seems v keen to learn to read. Over the last 3 months my oldest child, who is in reception, has successfully taught her the single letter phonics sounds from his own knowledge learned at school and in response to her pestering. Using fridge magnet lowercase letters it appears she can successfully construct and sound out simple words using letters she knows. She can sound out v simple 3 letter words and work out what a word says, even with no picture. My husband and I have done little to actively teach other than respond to requests and questions. She is now 2 years 11 months and seems keen to learn more. If I am to help her learn I obviously need to teach myself first and I have started reading about phonics on sites like this. Is there any reason I should be wary of teaching her so young? She starts nursery school this Sept, but won't be in reception until Sept 2011, and will be one of the very youngest in her year.

My eldest had no interest at this age, though they all love books and we read to them daily, so this is new territory for me. I have bought a few of the Jelly and Bean books, which seem lovely. I don't want to push my daughter, but equally it's hard not to respond to her requests and keenness to learn.

Any tips?

You could leave it all to your 5 year old who seems to be doing a good job!
Seriously, however ,as long as you encourage 'sounding out' as opposed to whole word memorisation you won't go wrong.
If you want to know remind yourself what sound various letter groups represent, you could look at an alphabetic code chart, such as the one on the main page of the RRF website.

Have a look here, Rooster. Those programmes marked with a blue and green X are, in my judgement, most suitable for parents to use with the under 5's. I especially recommend Debbie's Early Years starter pack and the Jolly Phonics resources:

http://www.dyslexics.org.uk/resources_a ... her_10.htm