Abc teaching for kids
5 Ways to Teach the Alphabet
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Teaching the alphabet is foundational for reading and writing. Around the age of 2, children begin showing interest in learning alphabet letters. While some kids learn letters very quickly, others need more repetition and time to learn letters. Today I’m going to share with you some of my favorite ways to teach the alphabet to little ones.
Here’s what a preschooler should know before kindergarten:
- Recite/sing the alphabet
- Identify uppercase letters
- Identify lowercase letters
- Match uppercase letters to lowercase letters
- Identify the sounds each letter makes
- Traces letters
- Write some alphabet letters
Here are my five favorite ways to teach the alphabet to children.
1. Read Alphabet Books
Read all sorts of alphabet books to your children, even starting as babies. The repetition will really help your child learn the alphabet at a young age. When my oldest was born, I was surprised at how many alphabet books we had been given as gifts. We loved reading all of them because they were different from each other. I found that around 18 months both my kids really started enjoyed reading alphabet books. Here are a few of our alphabet books:
Here are some of our favorite alphabet books.
The Three Bears ABCChicka Chicka Boom Boom (Board Book)Eating the AlphabetThe Farm Alphabet BookG is for GoatHarold’s ABC (Purple Crayon Book)I Stink! (Kate and Jim Mcmullan)Bad KittyThe Letters Are Lost!AlphaOops!: The Day Z Went FirstZ Is for Moose (Booklist Editor’s Choice. Books for Youth (Awards))Q Is for Duck: An Alphabet Guessing GameABC T-RexWork: An Occupational ABC
2. Sandpaper Letters
Using sandpaper letters is a great way to introduce letters to children. My favorite ones are Didax Sandpaper Tracing Letters or School Supply Tactile Letters Kit.
This is a perfect pre-writing activity because children use their finger to trace the sandpaper letters. I love that the cards tell the child where to start and which direction to go.
Sandpaper letters are part of the Montessori approach to learning how to read. These letters provide a tactile and visual way to help children learn the alphabet. In the Montessori method, you teach letters to a child in the 3-period lesson.
1st period is introducing the letter (“this is” period). Show your child the letters. Have them trace the sandpaper letters. The best way to teach children alphabet letters is by telling them their phonetic sound. So each time they trace the letter, say the phonetic sound.
2nd period is association (“show me” stage). Ask your child to follow simple directions with the letters. For example, please pick up the /m/ and set it by the window. Continue to do this with each letter several times to reinforce this.
If it is too difficult, return to the first period.
3rd period is recall (“what is this?” period). Only go to this period when they’ve mastered the other two periods. Put a letter in front of the child and say “Can you trace this and tell me what it is?” Continue with the other letters in the same way.
When you use these sandpaper letters, you are teaching them 3 things: the shape of letters, the feel of its shape and how its written, and how you pronounce its sound.
3. Alphabet Puzzles
I think teaching letters with alphabet puzzles are an amazing tool for teaching the alphabet. This is my favorite puzzle, from Melissa and Doug. It’s a beautiful wooden puzzle with neat pictures. This is a great way to practice vocabulary and verbal skills, too.
4. Sensory Activities
While some kids learn letters very quickly, others need more repetition and time to learn letters. I’ve always said that children learn best when they have many multisensory experiences with letters.
I love to incorporate sensory play into learning alphabet letters. When children have meaningful activities with repeated exposure, they start to pick up on letter names. One way is this alphabet ice excavation activity.
You could also make a colorful sensory bin!
Or practice writing letters in the sand, like this sensory writing tray.
5. Alphabet Printables
I have quite a few alphabet printables on my blog, but here is a set that is easy and fun for preschoolers. You will need Do a Dot Markers or dot stickers to fill in the circles.
I love pulling printables out for a quick and easy activity. I’m always advocating for hands-on learning, but sometimes it’s nice to do a few paper activities. Using Do a Dot markers or dot stickers is great for hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills.
If you’d like to download this printable, just click the button below.
5 Easy ways to teach the alphabet to preschoolers | Daycare Blog
Teaching children the alphabet is foundational to learning how to read.
Before children can put together sounds or draw together lines that make words, they need to know what they are. If you’ve never taught the alphabet before, the concept may sound abstract: how do you teach something that comes so naturally to you? Teaching letters can be really fun and simple. In this article, we’ll give you easy ways to teach the alphabet to preschoolers.
1) Sing alphabet songs
Obviously, we all know the English-language, “A-B-C-D, E-F-G,” song. That’s a great place to start. However, there are more alphabet songs, which can add variety to your tunes, and help kids learn the alphabet in different ways.
This article lists a whole bunch of alphabet songs to try. And, if you saw our article on YouTube channels for toddlers and preschoolers, you can find letter-related songs there too. The visuals in videos can show objects that start with each letter, and sometimes the songs also pronounce sounds too.
One important note brought up by this early childhood educator, is that kids should go from singing the song, to being able to say and point out the letters without a tune.
So don’t stop at singing!
2) Play letter matching games
Letter matching games are easy to set up. You can have a poster board with the alphabet printed on it in large letters. Have separate letter magnets or paper letters cut out at the same size as the print letters. Ask the preschoolers to match their cut outs to the letters on the chart. Where does “A” go? Place the letter “A” cut out on top of the printed “A” on the poster board. Get them to practice doing this with all the other letters.
As the early childhood educator mentioned above noted, you can also have an alphabet ‘arc,’ where one end of a half-circle shows the letter “A”, and the other end the letter “Z”. In between you can have other letters in the alphabet shown, but not all of them. Ask the preschoolers to put down their block letters in the right sequence, using the pre-filled in letters as clues.
3) Open a new ‘alphabet box’ each week
You may have seen us post on Facebook that a certain week is brought to you by a letter we’re covering.
It may be “C,” and you’ll see photos of us painting the letter C at daycare, or learning about animals that start with the letter “C.” Weekly letter themes are common in preschools.
You can take your weekly letter curriculum a step further by creating a box that children can open to discover objects that relate to that letter.
For example, on the week covering the letter “A,” your preschoolers can open (or even unlock) a box that contains an apple, a toy airplane, a toy alligator, an acorn, an arrow (a safe one!), and so on. In fact, don’t tell the children right away what letter the box of ‘treasures’ represents. Ask them if they can guess the letter they’ll cover that week by observing the objects in the box alone. This can be a fun and whimsical way to have your children get excited about the week ahead, and work together to come up with an answer.
3) Use interdisciplinary learning with each letter, to strengthen letter associations
Since repeating a letter over and over again can get boring, you can mix it up a little by bringing in related lessons.
You can start with a week’s letter as your core subject. Then, throughout the day, teach interdisciplinary subjects that still relate.
For example, if you are on the letter “R,” you can learn about the colour “red” too, since it starts with “R.” Ask the children, ‘what things are red?’ If you are on the letter “A,” you can learn about apples. We’ve done this before, where we teach children about the types of apples there are, as well as explain that seeds are inside an apple, and so on.
This blogger lists a whole bunch of crafts you can you incorporate into your letter learning. For example, you can make holes with a hole punch for the letter “H.” This can then lead into learning about the circle shape. You get the idea…
4) If you use flashcards to teach the alphabet, use logical ones
Flashcards are a great memorization tool, and the alphabet is all about memorizing. However, this teacher warns that sometimes, pre-made flashcards can get really confusing. If you are teaching the letter “D” and there is an image of something that simply uses the sound of “D” somewhere in the word, but doesn’t start with “D”… well you can quickly see how even adults would be confused by that.
Remember, at this stage, you’re not teaching phonetics or complex vocabulary and pronunciation. First, children need to recognize and know the alphabet. Use the simplest flash cards, with the simplest pictures of the objects and animals that preschoolers can recognize.
That said, sometimes you want to use lowercase and uppercase letters in your flashcards…and yes, that can be confusing for the very young learners, especially when the upper and lowercase look so different, but are called the same thing. But if you’re using a set of magnets, for example, you can just use their uppercase versions, that’s ok (they may only come in that form). For very early learners, you can start really basic. Just don’t forget to start showing them the lowercase and uppercase letters together at some point in their alphabet learning journey.
5) Eat foods shaped like letters to help preschoolers learn their alphabet
Speaking of interdisciplinary alphabet learning, why not do a baking session with the kids at preschool? They can use letter-shaped cookie cutters to make a fun and yummy snack.
Meanwhile, there is a host of lessons you can teach with the baking activity. Chemistry, cooking, nutrition…the list goes on.
If you want the easy route, try commercially-sold letter-shaped biscuits. IKEA has a version of these. Ask your toddler or preschooler to name the alphabet letter they’re about to eat. Eating it can be the reward for getting it right!
And of course, there is alphabet soup, or noodles shaped like letters. You can make mealtime fun, and educational, with these edible alphabet manipulatives.
So there you have it, 5 easy ways to teach the alphabet to preschoolers. They may even be fun for you, too! It is super cute to hear little ones pronounce letters, and guess what object goes with each letter. When your preschoolers are learning the alphabet, be sure to take every teachable opportunity you can to encourage them to recognize letters in the world around them. If you’re on a field trip, ask the children if they can spot their letter-of-the-week on a street or building sign.
If you’re reading a book, see if they can spot the letters you’re reading to them. Keep pushing letter recognition throughout the day, so the lessons can really sink into their memory.
See more on our blog:
- How to teach digraphs to preschool children (6 ways)
- What is the best way to teach word recognition to early childhood readers?
- Why is literacy crucial in the early years? How can parents and preschools help with reading skills?
- How to teach toddlers and preschoolers to count, and learn their numbers
- Ideas for teaching shapes in preschool and daycare
ABC online for kids. We learn the Russian alphabet.
| Speaking alphabet - for children Home Teaching letters | ||
| nine0015 | ||
| nine0013 | ||
| Read simple syllables Linking a letter to a syllable. Reading words and sentences by syllables Teaching numbers | ||
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First words
Hello dear parents.
Your child is growing up, and you have set yourself the task to teach him the knowledge of letters and teach him to read words . Most likely you already have both alphabet and cubes with letters from which you can add words. You may have already had unsuccessful attempts teach your baby the alphabet . The child, on the other hand, either confused the letters, or generally refused activities that were uninteresting to him. Especially for your children, this speaking alphabet was created, which will definitely interest the child and it will be easy and natural for him to learn letters with the help of familiar images.
Your children probably already know the computer well and will be happy to learn Russian letters of the alphabet on their own in a playful way with the pronunciation of letters and words by the cartoon heroine "Masha and the Bear" . You just need to click on any letter of the alphabet and your child will plunge into the world of letters and words . To reinforce knowledge, an easy-to-remember rhyme is specially selected, which Masha pronounces with expression and a short cartoon about a letter. The talking alphabet for kids was created with the support of a child psychologist and is designed to memorize letters, numbers and associated associations.
We are glad to inform you that we have abandoned Flash and switched to modern HTML5. Thus, the online alphabet is now fully functional on all modern devices, cross-platform and cross-browser. nine0005 Just have your child click on the pictures and listen to Masha explain the meaning of .
Learn letters from a tablet, iPad, laptop, computer...
And one more thing. If you opened the site from a tablet or iPad and the mobile version loaded, turn your device to landscape position and refresh the page. The full version of the site will load.
Huge request to share the site in social networks. By doing this, you will help us a lot!
Don't forget to turn on the sound! nine0006
Note to parents
:
Why learn letters before school
Why do you absolutely need to teach your child at least the alphabet, if the first grade program includes learning from scratch?
Probably works parental instinct.
- You are sure that your classmates will already be able to read, and you do not want to see your child among the lagging behind. Maybe you yourself read before school and it was easier for you to comprehend science with some knowledge received from your parents.
nine0007 - Perhaps you want to distinguish your baby from the "gray crowd" of the same age, and proudly demonstrate the child's knowledge to friends and acquaintances.
- Perhaps the baby himself showed interest in learning letters and he has enough perseverance to devote 10 - 15 minutes a day to learning (Very good, if so!)
From four to five years, depending on the characteristics, the baby can already analyze objects and their purpose. He is interested in properties and possibly "strange drawings" written on them. If your baby asks, pointing to the words, what is it? Everything! Your child has "grown up" and you can gently, not intrusively start learning attempts. nine0007 But if the child still cannot concentrate on the task, refuses to repeat, is restless and gets tired quickly, then it is better to wait a while.
And another important point! Is it possible to harm the baby with activities? Yes, if the parent does not take into account the individual abilities of the child and overloads his intellect with too much information.
Instead of remembering, a “porridge” is formed in the child’s head, which the child’s brain cannot process. Therefore, you do not need to overload the baby. nine0108
Letter Y. Self-study of the Russian alphabet.
| Speaking alphabet - for children Home Teaching letters | ||
| nine0015 | ||
| Read simple syllables Linking a letter to a syllable. Reading words and sentences by syllables Teaching numbers | ||
First words | YOG | IODINE |
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| YO-GURT | |
Yogurt is tasty and healthy
Children love to eat yogurt
Eat yogurt and yogis
So as not to suddenly get sick
Cartoon about the letters Y, L, Y, Y
Note to parents
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Learning to read.
Common Myths : Myth #1 - The average child can master the alphabet and learn to read before the age of six.
Some of the children with whom their parents took care read by syllables as early as 4 or 5 years old, and some learn to read only when they go to school. What is the secret? nine0007 Each child has his own pace of development of intelligence. So, in addition to the work of the brain, each baby's visual acuity normalizes at different times (after all, the child is farsighted at birth). This usually occurs at 3 - 4 years, but sometimes up to 6 - 7 years. This does not show any developmental deviations at all, and if your baby cannot remember the letters in any way, then it is not yet time to comprehend reading.
Myth №2 - The success of reading depends on the length of study.
If you want to start teaching a child from 2-3 years old, this process will probably drag on for years, and if you start training at 5-6 years old, you can expect success in months.
