DS could say the alphabet and count to 20 around 19 months. At almost 2.5 he can recognize some numbers and letters individually, but cannot count objects.

Shrug. It's something cute to write in their baby book, no one here is claiming our early counters are child geniuses. Calm down pps.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are there so many posts like this? Are parents worried about their children's achievement? Maybe I'm misreading this, but it seems like a lot of DCUM parents are concerned about their child doing things "on time." Every kid is different! He or she will be fine!

I am the OP. My child was a preemie and does a NICU follow-along clinic. At the clinic, this is something that is watched. I was surprised by the age range they suggested for these "skills" and wanted to see how the general DCUM population stacked up. It confirmedu suspicion that this crowd reports a much earlier time frame.

Careful, OP. This crowd is often highly-driven & overachieving (& therefore somewhat out-of-whack). I would credit the opinions of medical professionals regarding appropriate development 1000x over the posts here.

Anonymous wrote:Why are there so many posts like this? Are parents worried about their children's achievement? Maybe I'm misreading this, but it seems like a lot of DCUM parents are concerned about their child doing things "on time." Every kid is different! He or she will be fine!

+1

This is absolutely NOT an indicator of future success.

Anonymous wrote:Why are there so many posts like this? Are parents worried about their children's achievement? Maybe I'm misreading this, but it seems like a lot of DCUM parents are concerned about their child doing things "on time." Every kid is different! He or she will be fine!

I am the OP. My child was a preemie and does a NICU follow-along clinic. At the clinic, this is something that is watched. I was surprised by the age range they suggested for these "skills" and wanted to see how the general DCUM population stacked up. It confirmedu suspicion that this crowd reports a much earlier time frame.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kids don't even understand what letters mean when they are young toddlers. This is just shape recognition, and is not necessary for learning to read at an appropriate age. Don't stress yourself out. Your kindergarten teacher wants them to know these by the start of that school year, when most kids are 5 or 5.5. You have plenty of time. Personally, I think getting your child into rote learning early on interferes with creative thinking, but some people seem to think it is a sign of intelligence and push it on their young toddlers. Whatever floats your parental boat.

you really like to underestimate kids. Mine understood letters easily and read by 3.5.

I have to agree. I'm a frequent "snowflake" basher, but my daughter turned three last month and she can understand simple sentences. I wouldn't say she can read since she doesn't know how to apply phonics, but if you write "There are cookies in the drawer" on a sheet of paper, she goes running to the kitchen searching all of the drawers. I agree, however, that rote learning isn't indicative of advanced intelligence, but if you use it to your advantage I think it'll help with learning.

To answer OP's question, mine could say her ABCs and count to ten before 18 months.

This sounds unusual to me for a child who just turned 3. For those of you whose kids learned to read at 3 or recognize words beyond names, this is definitely not the norm. This, to me, is like if someone handed me a sentence that said in Romanian "There is $100,000,000 just for you in a suitcase parked in that truck in front of your house."

I don't recall when my DD could do these things. Do you remember when your children could identify at least 3 different bird calls, name which instruments were being played when listening to jazz or classical music, or nurtured her first seed to plant-hood? Let's face it, fellow parents-- being able to recite ABCs and count to 10 are the lamest skills ever because every single adult has them. I'd much rather hear what unique forms of knowledge your kids acquired early because they were curious and you nurtured their interests. The ABC/count to 10 thing is a perennial question, and a baffling one, unless someone has developmental concerns, in which case this is definitely NOT the crowd to address.

Why are there so many posts like this? Are parents worried about their children's achievement? Maybe I'm misreading this, but it seems like a lot of DCUM parents are concerned about their child doing things "on time." Every kid is different! He or she will be fine!

My 22 month old can "sing" the abc song but nothing is recognizable....and she counts like this : "1, 2, 2, 5, 3, 2, 5, 2, 5..." We have fun. I'm not forcing her to memorize at a early age but for her age she is a great talker. My son at this age wasn't really even stringing words together and now is on track/a little ahead for 4.5. I have very few expectations before age 2.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whatever. My kid did it at 6. He had delays but now he is an honor roll student. 6 is late but 2 is hardly the norm.

2 is the norm. Some kids are earlier. Some later. It all works out in the end.

Not the poster you quoted, but no, 2 really isn't the norm. It might be the norm in 2013 in DC because people are trying to actively teach babies the alphabet and numbers. But in the world in general, 2 is very young for this.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kids don't even understand what letters mean when they are young toddlers. This is just shape recognition, and is not necessary for learning to read at an appropriate age. Don't stress yourself out. Your kindergarten teacher wants them to know these by the start of that school year, when most kids are 5 or 5.5. You have plenty of time. Personally, I think getting your child into rote learning early on interferes with creative thinking, but some people seem to think it is a sign of intelligence and push it on their young toddlers. Whatever floats your parental boat.

you really like to underestimate kids. Mine understood letters easily and read by 3.5.

I have to agree. I'm a frequent "snowflake" basher, but my daughter turned three last month and she can understand simple sentences. I wouldn't say she can read since she doesn't know how to apply phonics, but if you write "There are cookies in the drawer" on a sheet of paper, she goes running to the kitchen searching all of the drawers. I agree, however, that rote learning isn't indicative of advanced intelligence, but if you use it to your advantage I think it'll help with learning.

To answer OP's question, mine could say her ABCs and count to ten before 18 months.

Don't remember.

Anonymous wrote:Whatever. My kid did it at 6. He had delays but now he is an honor roll student. 6 is late but 2 is hardly the norm.

2 is the norm. Some kids are earlier. Some later. It all works out in the end.

Anonymous wrote:
DD is nearly 3.5 and can sound out each letter (I have not taught her the names of letters or the alphabet song); write nearly all of them (except the M, N and W) if presented with an example; and recognize a handful of sight words: I, am, the, a, ball, etc. She can write her 5-letter name unaided.

She can count to 10, but gets the teens jumbled up, and is starting to add with her fingers.

She is going to Montessori preschool in a week, where all of this will be reinforced and built on.

Note that my older son could not do any of this at that age, and is now reading and doing maths WAY beyond his grade level. Sometimes it just clicks later.

You don't know much about Montessori, do you?!

Anonymous wrote:Depended on the kid.

For example our oldest had an early interest. We didn't push it. He recognized all letters (uppercase and lowercase) by 2. He could sing the ABCs, but could not sequence the alphabet until after 3 (that's developmental).

The same with rote counting. He could rote count, but the 1:1 correspondence was not always there. It caught up eventually (I don't remember what age).

I wouldn't expect most kids to be able to recognize all the letters, sequence them, count, etc until 4ish.

For the past few months my son could rote count, but when counting items, it was 1, 2, 2. Anything more than 1 was 2. Just yesterday I saw a little lightbulb turn on and he counted 3 fans. (I had 3 fans set up blowing oven smoke from the living area.). He will be 3 at the end of December.

Depended on the kid.

For example our oldest had an early interest. We didn't push it. He recognized all letters (uppercase and lowercase) by 2. He could sing the ABCs, but could not sequence the alphabet until after 3 (that's developmental).

The same with rote counting. He could rote count, but the 1:1 correspondence was not always there. It caught up eventually (I don't remember what age).

I wouldn't expect most kids to be able to recognize all the letters, sequence them, count, etc until 4ish.

18 months for alphabet song and counting to 10. Would say she was singing the song more from memory more than understanding the connection to actual letters at that age. However, she understood the concept of counting and grouping items by 2. Now she is 2 1/2 and is starting to understand the connection between the spoken alphabet and written letters and recognizing what the written form of numbers look like.