Learn sounds of letters
5 Fun And Easy Tips
Letter sounds are one of the very first things your child will encounter when they begin to explore reading.
By recognizing the phonetic sounds that alphabetic letters make, your child will take their first big step toward associating words with their individual sounds, an essential tool for, when the time is right, sounding out words.
Most new readers start from the same place — by learning their letters! And no matter where your child is on their reading journey, working with them on their letter sounds is a great way to help strengthen their fundamental skills.
Here are five fun and effective tips for working on letter sounds with your child.
5 Fun And Easy Ways To Teach Letter Sounds
1) Touch And Feel Letters
Humans are tactile creatures, and we depend on touch to tell us a lot about the world around us. This is especially true of kids when they’re learning!
Although most traditional reading curriculums focus on auditory and visual cues for letters and their sounds, touch can be helpful, too. We have five senses, after all, so we might as well take advantage of them!
As opposed to relying solely on how a letter looks when it’s written (and flat), adding in a physical sensory element can help your child build a stronger connection to the letter sound they’re trying to learn.
Doing this engages an extra part of their brain while they learn. Not only will they know what the letter looks and sounds like but also what it “feels” like. Associating the “feel” of a letter with its pronunciation may help them gain a better understanding of letter sounds more quickly.
There are plenty of options for exploring reading through your child’s sense of touch. The best part? Your child will get to do one of their favorite things — make a mess! Letting them get messy with letters provides a great incentive to learn.
If you’d like to try this tactile learning style, you can get started by grabbing a few blank pieces of paper. Using a thick, dark marker, write out the letters you want your child to work on.
Then, you can simply grab whatever you have around the house that is malleable enough to form into letters. PlayDoh or kinetic sand are both great options.
We recommend saying the associated letter sound as your child looks at and forms the written letter with the PlayDoh or kinetic sand. You can also encourage them to shape their material over the outlined letter on the page if they need some extra guidance.
Feel free to also brainstorm words with them that share the letter sound they’re practicing. This could help them make even more connections to the letter and its sound!
If you don’t mind a little extra clean up, shaving cream can also be a great option! Simply spread out the shaving cream on a flat surface. Trace out the letter for them in the shaving cream, then ask them to do the same while you repeat the letter sound.
2) Connect Letter Sounds To Familiar Symbols
Letters and their sounds might be unfamiliar to your child. By making a connection between letter sounds and items or symbols your child might already be familiar with, you can help bridge the gap between what they don’t know yet and what they do!
Utilizing things that your child already knows and loves may encourage them to get more engaged with learning their letter sounds.
Familiar ideas will also make them feel more confident and comfortable while learning.
For example, if you want to start with the letter “T,” consider printing out pictures of things that start with “T” that your child loves, such as trucks and tigers. Let your child choose which pictures to use, and then help them create their very own alphabet book with those images!
Working with your child to construct their personal letter-sound alphabet — a mixture of the specific picture you want them to learn to associate with a particular letter sound — is an easy and fun craft project that will pay off in the long run.
The more personalized you can make the learning process the more fun your young learner will have!
Familiarity can also help your child beyond simply learning the letter sound: it helps them build confidence! The more your child feels like they understand and know what they’re reading, the more likely they’ll be to develop an enthusiasm for learning.
3) Repetition, Repetition, Repetition
This technique focuses on repetition, which is great for getting your child familiar with their letter sounds.
By consistently repeating the same letter sounds to them, you can help your child more easily pick up on them.
A great idea might be to focus on introducing your child to one letter sound at a time. You could make a “letter of the week” jar for your child. Place an empty jar on your counter labeled with the letter sound for the week.
Every time your child points out a word they’ve heard that starts with the letter sound of the week, they earn a “ticket” or “point” in the letter sound jar (you could also use stickers on a poster if you don’t have a jar handy).
Challenge your child to gain three or four points (or more!) during the day. You’ll want the jar to be somewhere your child sees it often — maybe in the kitchen so you can prompt your learner to think of a word while you’re making dinner or washing dishes!
They don’t have to rely on only the things they hear or see in real life, especially when it comes to those trickier letter sounds (like x, q, or z). Consider using some of your daily reading time to flip through magazines or books and point out the letter sound whenever you come across it.
Emphasizing repetition this way really gives your child the chance to focus intensely on a single letter and explore the primary sound it represents!
Giving them ample amounts of time, practice, and exposure to one sound at a time may help them with their learning longevity.
4) Digital Letters In The 21st Century
Technology is a huge new factor in modern-day learning. Not only do children learn how to read and write texts, but now they also have to learn how to use a keyboard at a very young age.
While too much media time can be bad for your child, there are ways to be mindful about media consumption and incorporate media into their letter-sound learning. Especially for busy families, media can be a really useful asset to add to your parenting tool belt.
If you’re looking for a safe, personalized, and reliable place for your child to work on their reading and letter-sound skills, our online learning center has tons of playful games and exercises!
Your child can also use a simple keyboard to engage their letter-sound skills.
For this activity, you can call out the sound of a letter and ask your child to hit or point to the letter it matches on a keyboard.
This exercise is easy and versatile, as you can use any keyboard you have around — on your phone, your computer, or a device designed for kids. And your child will probably love pretending to be a grown-up just like you!
5) Bingo
Classics are classics for a reason. And Bingo is a time-tested, kid-approved game!
If you’d like to take a shot at this activity, draw or print out a Bingo sheet that has pictures of things your child is familiar with (remember tip #2!). We recommend sticking to things they see daily, like apples (for the “a” letter sound), bikes (for the “b” letter sound), and so on.
To play, call out a letter sound and instruct your child to mark off the picture that begins with the same sound. If your child has siblings or neighborhood friends, consider inviting them to play along (it makes for a great virtual game, too).
The first to make it to bingo wins!
Making Letter Sounds Fun And Functional
We hope these tips were helpful and gave you some creative ideas for how to get your child engaged with letter sounds (while having a blast along the way!).
We always want to leave you with a reminder that on the journey toward helping your child become a confident, enthusiastic reader, it may take some time to discover what learning strategies are the perfect fit for them. That’s OK!
If you ever need a little extra help or want to switch up your child’s learning routine, our learning center is always open and full of engaging and effective exercises for your emerging reader!
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Letter Sounds Games for Kids Online
Learning Letter Sounds Games OnlineChildren who have learned to read and spell fluently have a strong foundation for their literacy journey.
You can catch an avid reader or speller early on if you focus on how they pick up letter sounds.
Letter sounds are usually introduced in preschool. Your child will continue to build on them as he or she grows. Learning can be difficult, tedious, and boring, but you can put the fun into it by using online letter sound games for kids that will keep your child engaged for hours. In time, your child will be familiar with phonetic sounds and great at recalling concepts.
Learning letter sounds games online include letter sound A games, letter sound B games, letter sound C games, all the way upto letter sound Z games. With these games, your little one can practice all the letter sounds from A to Z.
Other ELA games you can explore are: reading games, writing games, phonics games, sight words games, letter tracing games, etc.
How do we introduce letter sounds to kids?Teaching letter sounds can be tricky. Children often get confused and can sometimes take a long time to learn this concept.
This can be avoided if a strong letter and sound relationship is created at the beginning. This is the most critical step in helping children learn quickly and easily. Here are some things you can do to bring about a better letter-sound understanding:
Pick the familiar sounds first.
While teaching letter sounds, always encourage visual connections with the letter, both big and small.
Use music and songs to teach sounds.
Online letter sound games for kids can be used to teach letter sounds with ease and fun.
How can we make letter sounds fun for kids?Interactive letter sound games make learning and practicing letter sounds fun and engaging. They use lovely characters, exciting backdrops, brilliant audios and bright visuals to make practicing letter sounds an enjoyable process.
How can games help in better understanding of letter sounds?Children need a lot of exposure to sounds and words to become comfortable with them and games on letter sounds help kids achieve that exposure smoothly.
They help kids to learn the sound of the alphabet and also be able to associate it with different words that contain the sound.
Interactive letter sound games for kids provide a holistic learning environment for children. Sounds require an auditory learning process. These games include fun visuals, rhymes and even songs that help kids build the necessary skills needed to practice letter sounds.
2. How to teach letter sounds?Letter sounds games online help teach the concept of letter sounds beautifully. They don’t go too fast or introduce new letters until your child is ready. The more practice and comfort your child achieves, the clearer the concept becomes. These games allow children to read and form associations quickly and effortlessly.
3. How can I help my child understand letter sounds?Online letter sound games help kids to trace the letters, identify their sounds distinctively and practice words starting and ending with that letter.
They polish their ELA skills and help them to master the language arts at their own pace.
Educate your child using letter sound games and help introduce your child to the world of phonetics. Keep the enthusiastic learner in your child alive by using the best online games available on various apps and websites.
5. What are the best fun letter sound activities for kids?Some letter sound activities for kids are:
Reading recall: Pick any one sound for the day. Start with common vowel sounds like ‘s’, ‘r’, or ‘t’. Say the sound out loud, and get your child to say it too. Read out sentences where the letter is recurring. Ask your child to clap, growl, or jump each time they hear the sound. This is a great attention-building and recognition activity.
No more sound: This is a fun activity that can be practiced when your child has learned a few sounds.
Draw a series of pictures on a board and give your child a duster. Now call out a sound, and ask your child to erase all the words that begin with the sound. This may take some practice, but it’s a great way to build a connection between letter sounds and words.
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Learning letters and sounds with children
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Before teaching a child to read, parents are advised to first teach the child to recognize and distinguish sounds. Some children understand the difference between letters and sounds after the first explanation, while others do not. And then the mother has to connect her imagination and all her pedagogical abilities in order to first understand herself, and then explain to the child why to distinguish between sounds and letters and how to do it.
It is necessary to understand the following pattern: there are many more sounds than letters, sounds are more important than letters, letters in themselves do not mean anything, and all qualities, for example: sonority, softness, etc.
, are related to sounds. One letter can represent several sounds. Therefore, we begin to learn to speak and read precisely with sounds.
Tell a kid a story:
“People lived in ancient times. They already knew how to speak and therefore loved to tell each other fairy tales and sing songs. But everything they told was quickly forgotten, because people did not know how to write. Fairy tales and songs were so interesting that a person wanted to remember them for a long time. And then people came up with special letter icons. The letters denoted the sounds that people uttered when telling a fairy tale. So the ancient man began to write down his fairy tales with the help of letters. Therefore, letters-icons now live in books, but they are always silent until you want to read them aloud. And as soon as you want to read a letter, sound will immediately appear. Sound and letter are the closest friends and cannot live without each other. A letter without a sound is silent, and a sound without a letter immediately disappears.
There will be 33 houses in the city, because there are 33 letters in the alphabet. A river will flow through the city, which will divide it into three parts. One coast is called "Vowers", the second - "Consonants", and empty houses are built on the third coast. However, houses will be built in the city not only on the shore, but also on the river. Floating houses are special. They can be painted in two colors, and empty houses in one gray color.
Houses in the city are divided into three types: with two tenants, with one and empty houses.
On the bank of vowels there will be 6 single houses: a, i, o, u, s, e.
Houses were built on the bank of consonants, where 2 sounds live at once - hard and soft: b-b, v-v, g-g, d-d, z-z, k-k, l-l, m-m, n -n, p-p, r-r, s-s, t-t, f-f, x-x, and single houses: f, c, w, d, h, u. In total, 21 houses were built on the bank of the consonants.
Suitcase houses will live on the river, there are only 4 of them. Two sounds Y-E live in the house E, sounds Y-O live in the house YO, in the house Yu - Y-U, in the house I - Y-A.
These houses were built on the river because vowels and consonants coexist in them.
There are empty houses on the third bank: b sign and b sign. Nobody lives in these houses. Therefore, these letters do not have sounds. They are only for writing.
Play with the drawn map.
Discuss with your child in the following sequence: the letter B is the house of two friends: a large and hard sound B and a small and soft sound b. Compare how the letter B sounds, for example, in the words Bom and Bim. (In the word Bom we hear a hard sound B, in the word Bim - a soft sound b).
When examining a book, ask: “Where is the letter M in the word BEAR? And what sounds live in the house-letter M?" The child must remember the map or directly examine it with you at this moment and show with a finger that sounds live in this house: big and hard M and small and soft m.
When studying consonants, call them by the sound they denote, i.e. not "me" or "em", but "m". Otherwise, later it will be very difficult for the child to learn how to combine letters into syllables and words.
The ratio of sounds and letters is a rather abstract thing for kids. And it will be easier for them to understand it if they are guided by the picture and create images in their imagination.
The Razumeikin website will help your child learn letters in the "Letters and Reading" section and get acquainted with the characteristics of sounds in the "Preparing for Literacy" section - educational videos and interactive tasks will turn learning to read into an exciting game!
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Online classes on the Razumeikin website:
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develop attention, memory, thinking, speech - namely, this is the basis for successful schooling;
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help to learn letters and numbers, learn to read, count, solve examples and problems, get acquainted with the basics of the world around;
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provide quality preparation of the child for school;
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allow primary school students to master and consolidate the most important and complex topics of the school curriculum;
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broaden the horizons of children and in an accessible form introduce them to the basics of various sciences (biology, geography, physics, chemistry).
Learning vowels tasks for preschoolers 5-6 years old in a playful way
Learning to read begins with the study of letters and sounds. The kid learns them separately, and then begins to put them into syllables, and later into words. So that acquaintance with letters does not turn out to be too difficult for the baby, you need to organize it correctly. Let's find out how to quickly learn vowel sounds with your child.
How to start learning vowels
Many parents begin to teach their children the alphabet, looking at all the letters in a row, in alphabetical order. This is not the correct method. It is better to divide the letters into vowels and consonants and learn each group separately. This approach will greatly facilitate the child's task.
Start with vowels. First, explain to your child the difference between vowels and consonants. Vowels are sounds that are pronounced by the voice. They are sonorous, from which you can sing, stretch your voice.
To demonstrate to your child the difference between vowels and consonants, give him a mirror and ask him to pronounce different sounds. Let him see how the position of the mouth changes during the pronunciation of vowels and consonants. When pronouncing vowels, the mouth is freely open, the tongue lies and does not move, and the air freely leaves the throat. The pronunciation of consonants involves lips, tongue, teeth.
When the child learns to distinguish between these two groups of sounds, you can move on to a more detailed study of vowels.
Method of studying vowels
There are ten vowels in the Russian alphabet - A, O, U, Y, I, Y, E, Y, Y, E. ) cards with their image.
Letters A, O, U, Y, E write in one color, for example, red. And the letters I, Yo, Yu, I, E - in a different color, for example, blue. This is necessary so that the child learns to distinguish between "hard" and "soft" vowels.
Arrange the cards in pairs: A-Z, O-Yo, Y-Y, Y-I, E-E and show the child.
Explain that paired sounds are similar to each other, only A, O, U, S, E are pronounced firmly and with a wide open mouth, and I, E, Yu, I, E have a soft sound and when they are pronounced, the lips stretch or fold into tubule.
Have the child practice making sounds in pairs by observing their facial expressions in a mirror.
Letter games
Children learn best through play. So turn the boring memorization of sounds into a fun game.
- Shuffle the cards and place them face up on the table. The task of the kid is to fold the cards with red and blue letters (A-Z, O-Yo, etc.) in pairs.
- Shuffle the cards like playing cards. Pull out one, show the child and ask what kind of letter is written on it. If he answered correctly, the card goes to him, if incorrectly, it is returned to you. To make it easier for the baby, first show the letters in pairs (A, then Z, etc.), and then at random.
- Draw or give a task a child to draw a house with ten windows - five in two rows.
Write the letters A, O, U, Y, E in each box of the first row, and then ask the child to write in the boxes of the second row a pair for each letter. Then erase the letters and enter in the first row of boxes I, Yo, Yu, I, E and ask the baby to enter their pair in the second row. Then erase all the letters again and invite the child to enter all the pairs in both rows of boxes. - name words beginning with vowels, and ask your child to name this sound (watermelon, donkey, snail, spinning top, apple, Christmas tree, blackberry, needle, exam). Then the child must come up with words that begin with each vowel sound. Invite him to name a word that starts with Y. After unsuccessful attempts to do this, explain that in Russian this letter never occurs at the beginning of a word. Name the words in which Y is in the middle (fish, lynx, skis) or at the end (teeth, mushrooms, mountains).
- Find pictures of objects with three letters in the name , one of which is the vowel (cat, onion, cheese, crayfish, beetle, etc.
). Ask the child to name the object shown in the picture, determine what vowel sound is in this word and where it is located (at the beginning, middle or end of the word). - Take a pencil and write any vowel in the air. The kid must guess what exactly you wrote.
Magnetic letters will be a good help in learning. They are bright, multi-colored, they can be attached to any metal surfaces. The kid will be happy to play with them.
Play these games every day to be effective. If the child does not want to play at the moment, do not force him. Postpone exercise for the evening. Don't do it for too long so your baby doesn't get bored. Let him look forward to the next time.
When the baby learns the vowels well, you can move on to studying consonants, composing syllables, and then to full reading. If you do not have time to teach your child to read before entering school, do not worry. First graders begin to learn to read from the first days of September.
