Letter recognition for preschool

Maximize Your Preschooler's Alphabet Recognition with These Expert Tips

Letter recognition is a crucial skill for toddlers and preschoolers to learn, and it serves as the foundation of reading and writing. This post explores the typical developmental curve for alphabet recognition and provides fun, age-appropriate, low-cost ways for your child to master this skill.

What is Letter Recognition?

Letter recognition is generally accepted as the ability to identify letters, both uppercase and lowercase. Being able to name a specific letter when surrounded by other letters is also an accepted definition. In this article, we share expert tips on how toddlers and preschoolers can learn to recognize the alphabet.

Toddler Letter Recognition 

If your child is 2 to 3 years old, he or she may sing the alphabet song — but can’t yet identify letters. About 20 percent of children can recognize a few letters by age 3, often the letter that starts his or her own first name as well as other letters contained within the name. You may also notice that some of your child’s scribbles are starting to look like letters, especially the first letter of his or her name.

To help your child gain competency, encourage the singing of the alphabet song and look through books together that share information about letters. Consider providing your child with magnetic letters and other play materials that encourage learning of the alphabet. PBS.org provides more information about child development in this arena, while Teaching2and3YearOlds.com provides suggestions for fun ways to encourage toddlers to learn the alphabet.

Preschoolers Letter Recognition Tips

By the time children are older (4 years old and up), 60 percent know more than half of the uppercase letters and five to 10 lowercase ones. About 30 percent can recognize all letters, both upper and lower. Preschoolers often notice letters in their environment and understand that letters are related to sounds, which is an insight known as the “alphabetic principle. ” They also recognize that numbers and letters are distinctively different in purpose, while letters that are similar in shape (p/q and b/d) are still often confusing. You can find more developmental information at PBS.org.

HandsOnAsWeGrow.com provides 50 alphabet activities for your preschooler to enjoy, including Squirt the Letter. In this game, parents write random letters on the chalkboard. Also, have on hand alphabet blocks and ask your child to match what he or she sees on the chalkboard with what appears on a block. When your child makes a good match, then he or she can squirt the chalkboard with water in a spray bottle to make the letter disappear.

Another recommended game is Trash Can Alphabet Review. You simply take scraps of paper and write a letter on each one, using a marker (or you could use crayons or whatever else you have on hand). Point to a letter and ask your child to identify it; when the correct answer is given, your youngster can crumple up the paper and toss it into the waste can. Once the game is over, you can smooth out the scraps and play again when desired. You can also check out the other 48 suggestions given in the article.

Alphabet Recognition Worksheets

One of the great things about the internet is finding free activities for your children. One of the things you can do is search for free, downloadable alphabet recognition worksheets. They're made up of different games, or sometimes coloring sheets that will help your child learn the alphabet. Megaworkbook has a lot of great suggestions to pick from.

Easy Outdoor Activities for Alphabet Recognition

When the weather is nice, it’s only natural to want your children to play outside. On those days, here is a simple game from ICanTeachMyChild.com that can help to teach your pre-K children the alphabet. Take sidewalk chalk and create a pathway of letters on your sidewalk or driveway. Let your child ride his or her bike over this path, singing the alphabet song as he or she rides over each letter. Do the same thing as your child walks along the path (skips, jumps, or whatever else works).

And, here’s a game you can play outdoors (or move indoors). Take masking tape and create letters. Then, let your child actively play with the letters. This writer’s child loves to take toy cars and use the masking tape as letter-shaped roads — and you can casually work the name of the letter into the conversation as your child is playing on it.

14 Letter Recognition Activities for Preschoolers

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Helping preschoolers to gain letter recognition skills does not need to feel like “work.”

The best way to teach letter recognition is through play, in a fun, stress-free, and positive manner. 

Here’s a brief intro to letter recognition, followed by 14 letter identifying activities.

What Letter Recognition Means

Learning letter recognition skills involves several different hands-on components.  

Children need to distinguish the shapes of letters from each other (visually recognize them) and be able to point to and state the letter names, as well as the sounds made by each letter.

In addition, they must learn to form letters and write them. 

These skills do not all need to be accomplished during the preschool years and in fact, preschoolers are not yet developmentally ready to learn to read and write. 

By simply exposing children in a fun way, you will begin the process of laying down foundational pre-reading and writing skills.

When Should a Child Recognize Letters of the Alphabet?

Although you can read about average ages when kids gain alphabet skills, those often vary widely. 

Just as children learn to walk and talk at different ages, the same is true for recognizing letters of the alphabet. 

They each learn at their own pace, depending on many factors. 

How to Build Skills to Prepare Children for Letter Recognition

Through fun play activities, parents can help their children gain various developmental skills that prepare preschoolers for letter identification.  

Those types of skills include visual perception, memory and auditory perception.

What this means is that learning the letters does not in fact start with exposure to the actual letters, but rather to play activities that develop these skills.

Visual Perception

Visual perception refers to a child’s brain making sense of what their eyes are seeing, such as details and shapes (shape recognition). 

These skills also include visual-motor and eye-hand coordination. 

Helpful kinds of activities include:

• Those that exercise the large muscles (such as throwing/catching).
• Small motor activities (like lacing).
• Visual perception (such as building puzzles).
• Limiting screen time, which has limitations related to visual perception skills.

Memory

Memory development relates to storing and using information in the brain. 

Stress-free activities to enhance these skills include:

• Simple card games
• Memory card games (get your own by downloading the FREE set of printables at the end of the post)
• Talking about fun memories
• Story visualization
• Reading and talking about books
• Visual memory games, like picture bingo
• Auditory memory games 

Auditory Perception

Auditory perception includes the brain’s ability to distinguish sounds and words, which is important for learning the sounds of letters.  

These are the kind of activities that can support this skill:

• Listening to music
• Distinguishing animal sounds
• Clapping out copied rhythm patterns 

[source]

How to Teach Letter Recognition to Children

Even before children show an interest in print, these kinds of activities are meaningful and fun and will set the stage for letter recognition:

• Reading to them
• Sharing poems and nursery rhymes
• Talking to them
• Telling stories
• Singing songs to or with them

Keep it fresh, keep it new, and be willing to return to their favourite activities when asked. 

As your children show a growing interest in print, make it available to them whenever possible.

Instead of keeping that book to yourself as you read to them, show children the words, running your fingers over them as you read. Let kids turn the pages of books. 

Have books available in the home to which kids have constant access.  

So many things around the house contain words, like packages, lists, letters, emails, screens, magazines, and greeting cards. 

Point and touch as you read, showing children that you are using words daily, expressing how much can be learned through their use. 

Write in front of your kids for all different purposes, at least sometimes spelling aloud. 

Make drawing and writing tools and surfaces available to children at all times, indoors and out. 

Don’t just offer the traditional papers and crayons – include:

• Drawing with sticks in the sand
• Writing on clay or playdough
• Drawing on shower and bath walls with soap 

Should I Teach the Letters in a Specific Order?

Instead of teaching letters in any special, prescribed order, focus on those that are used most often and in order of importance for your children. 

They typically want to know about the letters:

• In their names.
• In “MOM” and “DAD”.
• In a pet’s name.
• In environmental print (like on STOP or WALK signs).
• In outstanding words from a favourite storybook.

Think about and pay attention to those letters and words that appear to be interesting to your kids, using them as the foundation to build upon.

Then, when children are ready to formally learn the letters, teach them using sets of letters that make the most combinations of words, as explained in this article on teaching letters.

Is it Better to Teach Upper or Lowercase Letters First?

For preschoolers, the field of occupational therapy makes a good case for beginning with capitals in handwriting letter formation. 

They are formed from larger lines and curves that avoid retracing and changing directions, while still teaching top to bottom strokes. 

If children try to form letters for which their visual-motor skills are not prepared, they sometimes build poor habits that can be difficult to break later on.  

Of course, your children may be familiar with lowercase letters, seeing them in many print formats, and gradually learning to identify them. 

When their motor skills are ready, they typically make an easy switch to including them along with uppercase when they write. 

 [source] 

Letter Recognition Activities and Games for Preschoolers

Here are some fun ways to teach letter recognition through play. 

1. Point Out Environmental Print

Print is all around us. 

Point out, talk about and stress the sounds of words on signs (such as favourite restaurants and traffic/street signs), cereal or other product boxes/labels, and familiar logos. 

2. Share Rhyming Books

Read favourite rhyming books to your children, accentuating the rhyme and rhythm. 

Afterwards, play an oral game of stating some rhyming words from the story and adding a new rhyming word of your own. 

Challenge your kids to come up with more words that rhyme. Either real or pretend “words” are okay, as it is the rhyming factor that counts. 

3. Letter Hunt

Point out and talk about the letters in your child’s name, making them clearly visible in print.

Show them how you find one of those same letters in a magazine or newspaper and cut it out as a rather square piece (not necessarily trying to cut out close to the letter’s edges). 

Challenge them to find other letters from their name in print and cut those out, as well. 

After all the letters have been found, they can arrange them in the correct order for their name. 

These may be kept in a small bag for future use or glued onto a coloured sheet of paper to post on the fridge or in your child’s room. 

Instead of cutting, another option is to use different colours of highlighters to mark various letters found in print. 

4. Play with Plastic/Wooden Letters

Letters may be sorted and put into piles in different ways: 

• Those with curves
• Letters with straight lines
• Those from a child’s name or other important words
• Letters they can name
• Those for which they can say the sounds

Letters with magnets may be used on the fridge or on a magnet board for sorting purposes.

5. Bake Letters

Use bread or pretzel dough to form letters with your children, then bake them to be eaten later.

While you work, talk about the letter names, sounds, and easy words (like their names) that may be formed. 

Special baking tins and cookie cutters may be purchased to bake letters. You can also bake oblong cakes and cut them into large letter shapes, as well.

6. Form Letters with Familiar Materials

Offer kids various types and colours of pasta to form letters on flat backgrounds, either to glue into place or to leave loose and rearrange into different letters. 

Other materials to explore might include:

• Dry breakfast cereals
• Buttons or pennies
• Cotton balls
• Dried beans
• Mini-marshmallows
• Toothpicks
• Rice
• Yarn

7. Form Letters with Unusual Materials

Using a tabletop or oblong baking pan with low sides, spread shaving cream or pudding for children to trace letters into with their fingers.  

The same may be done with sand (or moved outside), to trace in with fingers or safe “sticks,” like pencils, dowels, or rulers. 

8. Go on a Scavenger Hunt

Have children choose a letter card or cutout. Talk about how the letter looks and sounds. 

Depending on children’s level of development, challenge them to find things around the house that have that letter printed on them or objects that begin with that letter’s sound. 

9. Fish for Letters

Magnetic letter fishing games may be purchased or made with paper, magnets, paper clips, dowels, and string. 

Name or pick a letter, focusing on how it looks and/or sounds. Kids then “fish” for the matching letters from the “pond.” 

They can also just fish for a random letter and then name it once it is “caught.” 

You can also use a version of this game later on, when children are learning to match upper and lowercase letters.

10. Play Musical Chairs with Letters

Add paper plates with letters or letters cut from cardboard right onto the chairs or onto the floor beneath.  

Children walk around the circle and find a place to sit when the music stops. They each then name the letter on their chair or floor directly beneath.

11. Find Letters on a Keyboard

Make use of an old computer keyboard or typewriter. Get kids to name the letters as they touch the keys. 

They can also find them to press as you say the names, sounds, or hold up cards, one letter at a time. 

12. Spray or Write Letters Outdoors

Offer spray bottles with water for children to spray letters on driveways, sidewalks, or even the side of your house. 

Another option is to use sidewalk chalk to write letters on the driveway, patio, or basketball court. 

13. Form Letters with Bendable Materials

Get your children to bend pipe cleaners, chenille stems, or products like Wikki Stix (string covered in wax) to form letters. 

Children often like to make multiple letters and form words, as well.

14. Find the Hidden Letters

“Bury” plastic or wooden letters in a sand table or sand box. Ask children to name the letters as they are discovered. 

Other materials may be used as alternates in sand tables or large trays, such as coloured rice, pasta, dried beans, or birdseed. 

All of these ideas for teaching letter recognition can help to strengthen a child’s early literacy skills.

Pay attention to where they stand in their development and keep raising the bar just a bit higher, while still returning to those games and activities in which they feel a high measure of success. 

This is the key to learning.

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Learning to distinguish letters: do not miss the important!

How well your child learns letters affects their ability to read and perform in elementary school. In the study of letters, it is very important to be consistent and systematically engage with the child, since at first the learned letters are forgotten very quickly, like any abstract symbols.

Learning block letters . This is the first and most difficult step. The child is still confused in letters, distinguishes them poorly and remembers with difficulty. Teachers recommend working with cards on which the letter is shown next to the subject for this letter. Such a hint will allow the child to independently remember the letter. Associative cards at first can be left in all prominent places until the recognition of letters is brought to automatism. In the learning process, you can use magnet letters, lay out letters from any materials (flowers, figures from Kinder Surprise, counting sticks, lids from baby food cans and much more) and make wishes to each other. This will not only help the child remember the letters, but also prepare the preschooler for the fact that the same letters can look different. Play games - invite the child to cross out all the letters A, (B, C ..) in a small passage from the newspaper; guess the letters written on its back or on the handle; choose the correct version of the letter from two letters, one of which is written in a mirror; write a familiar letter with a stick in the sand or with chalk on the pavement. nine0003

It is important to teach your child to distinguish between large and small letters. There is a simple rule "abeyoruf" - in a direct printed font, seven lowercase letters differ from capital letters not only in size, but also in shape: A, B, E, E, R, U, F. The last three tails go under the line. Therefore, you just need to show how small a, b, e, e are written and pay attention to the tails of the letters p, y, f.

Getting to know capital letters . After the child has learned the names and visually memorized printed letters, we begin to introduce him to capital letters. It is necessary to show both large and small letters at once. It will be great if a preschooler learns to recognize capital letters, correlate printed and written text. This also applies to uppercase numbers. Well, he will learn to write capital letters already at school. nine0003

Learning to recognize letters in different fonts. The spelling of letters in different fonts is diverse and can vary significantly - the letters have a different slope, they can look like handwritten ones, for example, T is like M, they can be voluminous or hollow. Therefore, even a well-read child sometimes cannot read shop signs, book titles. Print out a sample letter page in two or three fonts, show it to your child, and keep it permanently. He has difficulties - call the letter and check with him on the "cheat sheet". Show your child flyers with interesting fonts, browse magazines and newspapers with him. nine0003

Learn to Read Games for children to learn to read

Learning to read is a difficult task for young children. At times, learning to read seems completely impossible, especially if the child has dyslexia due to phonemic hearing impairment and neurological problems.

Learn more about diagnosing dyslexia in a child in an article on the eKidz.eu blog. Fortunately, teachers and parents can successfully prevent reading difficulties in their children and enjoy it too! To do this, starting from preschool age, play games with words and images that develop visual and auditory perception, hand-eye coordination and spatial orientation, memory and attention of children. Educational games are easily integrated with other games that children have already played and will help foster a love of learning from childhood. nine0003

Let's learn some auditory and visual games!

Games for the development of verbal perception

Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and reproduce sounds, to understand that spoken words and syllables consist of a sequence of speech sounds (Yopp, 1992). Phonemic hearing begins to develop immediately after birth, and already at an early age the child already understands the acoustic characteristics of sounds. However, in case of underdevelopment of speech, pronunciation disorders and difficulties in reading and writing in the future may occur. nine0003

So, here are a few games for the development of auditory perception and attention, recommended for children from 3 years old: "Guess the Sound" For example, put a blindfold on your child while you make sounds like snapping your fingers, clapping your hands, or tapping on the table.