My brother could identify all his letters at 18 months - and he turned out to be a certified genius. Went to Harvard at 16 and medical school at Yale. He is an oncologist now with two little girls who seem bright but are not geniuses by any measure so far.

Nope. Not until age 4. And he’s in kindergarten now and he’s reading at near a second grade level so he’s perfectly fine. No need to push.

Yes. When he turned 2, we would throw the alphabet letters on the floor, and he could recognize all of them, upside down or wrong side up.

It was one of his areas of hyperfocus, and we realized later he had ADHD and Asperger's tendencies.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, but it didn't MEAN anything. Still doesn't.

+1

Yes, my DS knew all the letters by age 2 but he didn’t really learn to read until between age 5 and 6.

My 3YO can only recognize a couple of letters. He can recite the ABCs, but it's meaningless without letter recognition.

Anonymous wrote:Yes, but it didn't MEAN anything. Still doesn't.

+1

Anonymous wrote:My daughter could. My sons could not. It doesn't really matter much. They need to know letters and sounds at the beginning of kindergarten.

Same here: yes to my daughter. My son still can't at almost 3 and I could care less. I'm a preschool teacher and I know that early letter identification or lack thereof doesn't really mean anything.

My son could name all of the letters by 18 months. And all of the numbers too. But he couldn't say much else other than the usual baby words such as mama, up, ball, dog, etc. He ended up with an autism diagnosis.

Yes. Both could. One dc at 18 months whom I explicitly taught for some first time mom reason, lol. The younger one around 22 months. That one just watched that letter factory video a few times. That video will teach any toddler!

It didn’t mean much at all. I have personally known a few toddlers who learned their abcs at 2 and then forgot them or went on to learn to read with their kindergarten class.

My older child was tested by a psychologist and has a very high iq. I think at age two it was more telling that this child would listen to a book like the hobbit and fully comprehend it. I’m not even exaggerating.

My daughter could. My sons could not. It doesn't really matter much. They need to know letters and sounds at the beginning of kindergarten.

Yes, but it didn't MEAN anything. Still doesn't.

I would not make any effort to "teach" him. Just expose him to lots of books and words. Get a magnetic set for the fridge etc. and make his name etc. No big deal at 2.

No. My 30 month old can't name his letters but I read a thread here yesterday about The Letter Factory DVD and how that teaches the alphabet. I ordered it. I'll let you know how it works. DS loves his 30 minutes of screen-time every day and, if he likes the DVD, at least he will be learning more than his usual one episode of Mickey Mouse.

It just clicked for my 25 month old. We got a Melissa and Doug alphabet puzzle and she plays with it every day and will see a letter in a book, then go run and grab the matching puzzle piece. She will call some by the letter name, some by the matching picture. So M is interchangeably "emm" and "mommy." I don't think the memorization is really useful for later reading, so I focus more on the sounds and matching words that start with the letter, than sight identification.

Let you kid take the lead, it is truly normal for a 2-2.5 year old not to be interested yet. FWIW, mine loves shapes and couldn't care less about counting or colors.

My kid couldn't tell a X from and A. I doubt he knows one letter. What is the best way to teach him? He likes to be read to but it hasn't spurred an interest in knowing letters.