Brekkon Reads

I have never been a proponent of the classroom setting for young children, especially before kindergarten.  I do believe there are wonderful(much better) ways for children to learn at a very early age through play which is neither my concept or a new one.  Tukker has been reading books since he turned three and Brekkon just read his first word only weeks ago around 2 1/2.  It was totally unplanned, it just happened and I was so excited I had to get it on video.  Both boys learned their sounds and letters in the bath tub with foam letters.  When they where young 26 letters were way too over whelming, so I usually had about 5- 10.  I paired a word to each letter that was familiar to them but also had the primary sound that the letter makes.  M, D, B, and T were the favorites(Mommy, Daddy, Tukker and Brekkon) I would use animals for most of the other letters or things that where in books that were favorites, F was for feet (from the Foot Book).  They learned the sound and letter at the same time from word association.  The boys would laugh hysterically as we asked them to stick the M for Mommy on their head, or even stick one to ours and let them tell us what it was. Thus the game "Letterhead" was born.  Now that they know their letters and sounds we challenge them to give us words that start with the letter on their head or even build them on their own.  There is much better success when Tukker builds the words he wants to build....and I am just fine with that too!