Practice letters preschool
LOTS of Preschool Alphabet Printable Worksheets & Activities
Teaching children their alpahbet letters is a very important first step to reading and writing! Here at preschool play and learn we have a HUGE collection of abc preschool printables to allow pre-k, toddler, and kinderagrten age children practice in a variety of ways. Preschoolplayandlearn website has alphabet printables for all seasons including: alphabet worksheets, cute alphabet puzzles, plus alphabet matching, free letter tracing, cute letter recognition activities, and alphabet mats to complete with playdough / cereal / goldfish. Simply print the free pages in the pdf files to make learning FUN with over 1000 choices!
Alphabet Printables
for PRESCHOOLERS
Make learning the preschool alphabet fun with these clever alphabet activities for preschoolers and free printable preschool alphabet worksheets! We have TONS of free alphabet printables to make learning ABCs fun for pre k children including:
Whether you are a parent, homeschooler, or classroom teacher – you will love these alphabet activities for preschoolers that get excited about learning while providing lots of practice learning their ABCs. You can use these with a letter of the week curriculum as a supplement to any home preschool, literacy centers, or as extra practice / summer learning. Either way, children will be excited to practice and show off what they’ve worked on.
Letter Matching
Work on matching upper and lowercase letters!
Fun activities to help kids practice identifying the sound letters make starting with phonemic awareness and beginning sounds.
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Work on fine motor skills while learning your letters from A to Z with these cute ABC crafts! From free printable cut and paste crafts to hand art and more!
Most pre-k kids learn best with hands-on activities! So we’ve come up with lots of fun alphabet activity ideas where kids will “do”. Using our free alphabet printables, preschoolesr will usepopsicle sticks, playdough, cereal, or clever sensory materials to form letters. We also have lots of cute upper and lowercase letter puzzles to work on letter matching plus lots more ways for kids to learn their ABCs.
Plus we have lots of reading reading readiness activities that help preschool children start to learn that each letter makes a sound. These beginning sound activities are simple, fun, and effective for teaching kids about initial sounds. Use free printable alpahbet puzzles, magnetic letter matching, make a flower with a beginning sound activity, or print a gamebaord in our colorful and fun letter sounds game – plus so much more!
Help kids practice visual discrimination as they distinguishing letters with these fun letter recognition activities like find the letter pages.
Fun activities to help kids practice identifying the sound letters make starting with phonemic awareness and beginning sounds. Plus lots of practice tracing capital and lower case letters and strengthening fine motor skills coloring, tracing, and using dot markers.
We have both NO PREP alphabet worksheets and reusable Write & Wipe printables to help children practice forming their letters. Also in this section of alphabet tracing are alphabet mats to practice forming letters with Duplo, playdough, candy, stickers, manipulatives, and more.
Alphabet
Tracing
Preschooler need to not only learn their alphabet letters from A to Z, but the corresponding upper and lower case letters, letter sounds, and more. We have so many preschool printables to make learning your letters EASY and FUN!
10 Hands-On Ways for Preschoolers to Practice the Alphabet
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One of the main goals of preschool literacy instruction is to teach young children the alphabet. For some children, this comes very easily and naturally but for many others, it takes a lot of time, energy, and practice.
It is tempting to think that sit-down practice with paper and pencil is the best way for our preschoolers to practice. Don’t do it! There are so many better ways… ways that incorporate movement, sensory experiences, fine motor skills, shapes, and more.
Go ahead… Ditch the worksheets! Here are 10 hands-on ways to teach the alphabet without a pencil and paper worksheet.
1. Craft Sticks
Supplies:
- Letter cut-outs, felt letters, or magnetic letters (for models)
- Basket of craft sticks
Children choose a letter and then arrange the craft sticks to make the shape of it.
2. Snap Cubes
Supplies:
- Print these cube letter templates.
- Snap cube blocks (like these math link cubes)
Children use the cube letter templates as a guide while they build the letter out of cubes.
3. Sand Writing Trays
Supplies:
- Alphabet coins or other small letter tiles. (We made these coins by painting and gluing these wood circle pieces from Hobby Lobby. These letter tiles are another option.)
- Small, shallow tray or plate filled with sand. We like to use colored play sand, but you can use any type of sand, salt, or flour.
- Paint brush
Children choose a letter coin. They use the paint brush to draw the letter in the sand tray. When they are finished, they gently shake the tray or pat the sand to smooth it out.
4. Fine Motor Dots
Supplies:
- Print these Fine Motor Dot Alphabet pages in upper case or lower case.
- Cup of small pom-poms, bingo markers, glass beads, or similar round manipulative.
- Tweezers, tongs, or a spoon.
Children use their fine motor skills to transfer the manipulatives onto the dots to create each letter. Encourage the students to say the name of the letter, make its sound, and name the picture that begins with that letter.
5. Geoboards
Supplies:
- Geoboards (We like this set of 6 because it’s a quick and easy literacy center for our preschoolers.)
- Rubber Bands
- Print these 1/2 page Geoboard templates. (Both upper case and lower case letters are included.)
Using the templates as a guide, students stretch rubber bands around the pegs of the geoboard to create each letter.
6. Salt Trays and Pebbles
Supplies:
- Small, shallow tray filled with a thin layer of salt. (These pink trays were from the Target dollar spot.)
- Glass or plastic pebbles
- Cards with letter stickers (or just the written letters would be fine too! Don’t overthink it.
)
Children choose a letter card. They trace the letter in the salt with their fingers, then place the pebbles onto the shape of the letter.
7. Alphabet Clip Cards
Supplies:
- Print these Alphabet Clip Cards. There are 5 sets — pick the one that is best for your students.
- Clothespins (We like the tiny version, but any clothespins will work.)
Children identify the letter on the card, then clip the clothespin to the matching letter. (Add a small sticker on the back where the clothespin should be. Children can turn the cards over and self-check.)
8. Write & Wipe Binders
Supplies:
- Print these Write & Wipe Alphabet pages.
- Insert each page into a plastic page protector.
- Assemble the pages into a binder. Add a pencil pouch with a dry erase marker, and a round make-up remover cloth.
Students can practice writing the letters and re-writing them with this dry erase binder.
Click HERE to see more pictures.
9. Button Letters
Supplies:
- Magnetic letters
- Plastic buttons
Young learners can choose a magnetic letter, then use the buttons to make the letter to match.
10. Sand Prints
Supplies:
- Play sand or kinetic sand
- Magnetic letter shapes or other thick letters.
- Craft stick, pencil, or paint brush
Press the letter shape into the sand to make an imprint. Use a writing tool (craft stick, pencil, or paint brush) to trace the letter into the sand.
Not only are these options more developmentally appropriate for our youngest learners, they are more attractive and fun for them too. Experiment with creative ways to give your children the alphabet practice that they need, while also meeting their attention spans, sensory needs, and interest levels. Have fun learning letters!
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Filed Under: Alphabet Activities, Literacy
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How easy it is to teach a child 4-6 years old to read - the best methods and exercises
How to understand that it's time
To the question "When is it time for a child to be able to read?" there is no ready-made answer, but we want to immediately warn against two misconceptions:
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“It is not necessary to teach a child to read at home, they will teach you at school anyway.” Yes, they will. But remember: the first year at school is the most intense in all 11 years of study. For some 4-5 months in the 1st grade, the child goes through the alphabet "from" and "to", learns to read, write, and the rest of the time he studies the basics of the Russian language.
Therefore, it will be great if he has a reading skill before school. This will reduce the burden on the child. -
"There is no time to waste - the sooner the baby begins to read, the better." All children are different and develop at their own pace. Therefore, you should not impose teaching reading to a preschooler as soon as he is 4-5 years old, if the student himself does not yet show interest in this activity. Instead, you can begin to develop an interest in reading through bright and engaging books. A good option would also be games that involve letters.
The indicator to be guided by is not the age of the preschooler, but his speech skills.
It's time to learn to read if...
If the speech development of a preschooler proceeds without gross violations. Let's figure out what criteria will help you find out if a child is ready to learn to read:
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Understanding addressed speech.
The kid must understand sentences, phrases, individual words that others around him turn to. -
Vocabulary. The more words a child knows, the better he will understand what he read. It will also help him communicate with adults and other children.
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Grammar. The ability to correctly build sentences, select and change words is important for children who are learning to read.
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Pronunciation. For learning to be effective, the child must know how to pronounce words without gross errors.
Remember: at preschool age, a child may have minor mistakes in grammar and pronunciation - this is normal. Over time, these violations will be corrected, and they should not be considered an obstacle to reading. But if the baby is not yet very confident in speaking, do not rush him to read - this will not help develop speech, but only demotivate.
Practicing child psychologist Ekaterina Murashova
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How to make learning to read easier for preschoolers
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Praise more and never scold
It's hard for us adults to imagine how difficult it really is for a baby to learn from scratch such a complex skill as reading. After all, being able to read means being able to correlate a sound with a letter or a combination of letters, connect sounds, understand the meanings of the words read and the meaning behind the text.
If parents take the child's progress for granted and express dissatisfaction when the child does not understand something, this will not push the future student to development, but will only complicate the process. Therefore, it is important to praise for small victories: I learned the letter that was passed last time - great, I coped without my father's help with the word as much as two syllables - clever.
Do not take failures as a consequence of the negligence of the little student. When a child does not understand the first time, this is an occasion to look for another explanation or give more time to practice. If you feel tired and irritated, you should stop the activity and return to it in a good mood.
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Exercise little but regularly
Do not expect perseverance and a desire to spend hours figuring out unfamiliar letters from your baby. It is difficult for preschoolers to keep their attention in a lesson for more than 25 minutes, and even such small classes should be interrupted with physical education minutes and games so that the child does not get bored. This is exactly how Skysmart prepares for school: 25-minute classes with breaks for outdoor games.
But regular practice is important - much more important than the duration of the session.
And it doesn’t have to be just lessons: you can look for familiar letters on signs during a walk, on a door plate in a children’s clinic, on a package of your favorite corn flakes. -
Read books aloud
In a series of studies conducted by Dr. Victoria Purcell-Gates among five-year-olds who could not yet read, those children to whom their parents regularly read aloud for two years expressed their thoughts in more literary language, built longer phrases and used more complex syntax.
In addition, reading aloud with adults contributed to the expansion of the children's vocabulary, as parents explained the meanings of new words that children did not encounter in everyday life.
Expert Opinion
According to neuroscientist Marianne Wolfe, book evenings with parents help develop a love of reading because the child establishes a connection between reading aloud and feelings of love and warmth.
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Discuss read
The role of communication in teaching literacy cannot be overestimated. At first, it is important to ask if the future student is interested, if he is tired, what was remembered from the lesson. When a preschooler learns to read coherent texts, be sure to ask questions about their content.
It's great if the child reads on his own and without the prompting of the parents, but even in this case, do not deprive him of the opportunity to discuss what he has read with you. For example, you can ask:
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Which of the characters do you like?
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Do you think this character is like you? Would you like to be like her?
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What would you do if you were a hero?
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Why did the described event happen? How are these two events related?
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How did what you read make you feel?
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What do you remember most from what you read?
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What do you think the author wanted to teach? Why did he write this? Do you agree with the author?
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Go from simple to complex
From the correspondence between sounds and letters to syllables, from short words to longer and more complex words. It would seem that this is obvious, but no: sometimes parents are so happy with the success of the child at first that they push him to study more complex topics than he is ready to accept. Of course, the program should adapt to the future student, but you should not skip steps, even if the child is making progress.
There are methods that offer to teach a child to read by memorizing whole words.
Alas, experiments show that such techniques generally work worse. For example, a group of scientists from the United States came up with an artificial alphabet and offered subjects to learn it, and then read the words written using this alphabet. At the same time, some subjects were immediately explained the principles of correspondence between sounds and letters, while others had to derive reading rules on their own based on whole words. It turned out that the first group copes with reading new, previously unfamiliar words better than the second. Therefore, we advise you to choose those teaching methods that involve clear instructions about the relationship between sound and letter - and this is especially important for those children who have difficulty reading. Below we have compiled a few of these techniques that you can use to teach your preschooler at home.
It is important to select questions individually, based on the age of the child.
With younger children, discuss everything together, ask simple questions, direct their attention to some facts. The complexity of the questions should increase in proportion to the age of the child. The older he is, the more difficult the tasks should be, and the questions can already affect the "reflection" of their feelings and experiences.
Methods of teaching preschoolers to read
Warehouse reading
The way to teach a child to read through warehouses was actually used in Rus', but for modern parents this technique is associated with the name of the philologist Nikolai Alexandrovich Zaitsev.
Zaitsev suggests not focusing on the study of individual letters, as it can be difficult for students to understand how letters can merge into syllables and words. Teaching a child to read by syllables is also not always easy: one syllable can be quite long ( shine, ruble ), and the boundaries of syllables are not obvious ( Lun-tik or Lu-ntik ?). Therefore, in Zaitsev's methodology, a warehouse is used as the main unit.
Warehouse can be a combination of a consonant and a vowel (pa-pa, ma-ma), a single consonant or vowel (de- d , i-s -li, A -le-sha), as well as a combination of a consonant with a hard or soft sign (ma- l -chi-k, po- d -yem).
In order for a preschooler to understand the differences between the recording of voiced and soft, vowel and consonant sounds, different types of warehouses have their own cube size, color and content, thanks to which the cubes sound when they are shaken.
Cubes affect several channels of perception at once, and warehouses should not just be pronounced, but sung - this way, according to the author of the methodology, learning is more interesting and effective.
One of the advantages of the technique is that children willingly play with blocks themselves, and the process of learning to read becomes active and mobile.
Syllabic reading
This technique, according to some sources, was developed by the Romans. Later, Nadezhda Sergeevna Zhukova, a Soviet and Russian speech therapist, created a primer based on it. In it, she built her own system in which sounds and letters are sequentially introduced into speech.
Due to the fact that the concept of a syllable is introduced at an early stage, it is faster and easier to teach a child to read syllables together. By the way, as in Zaitsev's technique, it is proposed to sing syllables, and not just pronounce them.
Based on the syllabic method, Zhukova developed a set of teaching aids - copybooks, copybooks and a book for reading. Benefits will help teach children to read correctly 6 and 7 years old at home.
Both techniques for teaching preschoolers to read are used in the Skysmart Ready for School course. The course consists of two stages: first, children get acquainted with letters and warehouses, which allows them to quickly start reading simple words, and then they learn what a syllable is. Gradually, we introduce more complex syllabic constructions, move on to reading phrases and sentences.
Sound analytical-synthetic teaching method
This method originated in the USSR and is still considered the main one in Russian schools and kindergartens. It was developed by the Soviet teacher and Russian language methodologist Voskresenskaya Alexandra Ilyinichna.
Same as N.S. Zhukova, Voskresenskaya proposed her own order in which children should learn letters and sounds.
The principle of this sequence was that the child first learned the letters that can be combined into simple syllables, and then moved forward in the level of complexity. As a result, children learn syllables in this order:
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Two-letter syllables (including one consonant): am, ma, ra, etc. and simple words from them: ra-ma, ma-sha, Pa-sha, etc.
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Three-letter syllables with a central vowel: poppy, lat, etc.
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Combination of the first two stages into words: sa-lat, earth-la, etc.
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Words of three syllables and six letters: az-bu-ka, ve-se-lo, etc.
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Words of two syllables and six letters: question-ros, tea-nick, etc.
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Words with a combination of vowels at the beginning and at the end of the word: chair, March, etc.
In this way, children simultaneously prepare for more complex syllables at each stage and reinforce what they have learned earlier.
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Exercises for learning to read
Learning to read, as a rule, takes place in several stages. First, the child listens to the sound, visually remembers the letters. Different games will help with this, where you need to look for letters, invent words, etc. When this stage is over, you can move on to syllables and games to work them out. And only after that it will be possible to proceed to words, and then to sentences and texts.
Letter memory exercises
The first step is to teach your child to recognize letters. To do this, you can use pictures with hidden letters. We use such exercises in the preparation for school lessons in Skysmart.
Ask your child to identify what letter a word begins with, or name as many words as possible that begin with a certain letter.
Next, we train to distinguish correctly written letters from incorrect ones. This is also important for learning to write: preschoolers often mirror letters or distort individual elements.
Exercises for vowels and consonants
To learn how to distinguish between vowels and consonants, tasks will help you determine the sound with which a word begins.
It will also help to remember the difference between vowels and consonants and search for an extra letter.
Word building exercises
When the child can read short words, ask him to form a word from the letters on his own.
Composing words from syllables is convenient if you have cubes at hand, but you can also try on paper.
Another good exercise is to fill in the missing letter in a word. Children perform such tasks in the lessons in the Skysmart online school.
For more colorful and fun reading activities, check out the Skysmart Ready for School course. Attentive teachers will help the child learn to read, count and express themselves through creativity. Classes are held online at a convenient time for the child and parents. Try it for free with an introductory lesson!
5 easy and quick ways to learn the alphabet with a child aged 3-6 — Somersault
Before you learn the alphabet with your child, it is important to understand what you are not going to do. Namely, learning to read. This is a more complex skill, so it is worth putting it off until the time when the child gets acquainted with all the letters and will confidently recognize them and write on their own. Until then, put off the alphabet and reading by syllables.
In this article, we have put together the basic principles to quickly learn the Russian alphabet with a 3-6 year old child in a playful way. For all games with letters, you can use plasticine, paints and any improvised means or magnetic letters TUMBLING - they will easily attract the attention of the child.
Contents:
- Learning the Alphabet Easily: Basic Principles
- 5 ways to learn the alphabet with your child
- From alphabet to reading
How to Learn the Alphabet Easily: Basic Principles
Each child can find an easy way to learn the alphabet that suits him or her, but there are basic principles that are important for all children. If you do not follow them, study will turn into drill and the child is unlikely to ever love to read. Here are a few such principles on how to properly learn the alphabet for a child.
- Learn sounds first, not letters .
At the first stage of learning, it does not matter how the letters in the alphabet are called correctly. Now only sounds are important for the child - "d", and not the letter "De". The names of the letters will only confuse the child, who first needs to learn to recognize the shape of the letters and their sound. - Not learning the alphabet in the correct order . Until a child goes to school, it is of no use to him to know how the letters are arranged in the alphabet. This information will only distract him from what is really important: how the letters look and sound. The sequence of the alphabet can be learned later or even at school, where this knowledge will be tested by the teacher.
- Do not turn learning into a lesson . Learning from call to call is difficult even for children at school, let alone a baby. Therefore, all learning should take place in a playful way and not for long: 5-7 minutes a day to get acquainted with the letters will be enough.
Gradually, this time can be increased, especially if the child likes the proposed games with letters. - Use material objects . At the age of 3-6 years, the child learns the world by touch and taste. It is difficult for him to work with abstract letters spoken aloud. Therefore, it is better to stock up on plasticine and paints and create letters that are more understandable to the child and can be touched. Such a game for children will allow the child to learn the letters of the alphabet and he will recognize them in different forms regardless of what they are made of.
- First vowels, then consonants . Vowel sounds are easier to pronounce, so it's worth starting with them.
The main thing is not to force anyone. If you see that the child is inquisitive, enjoys exploring the world and is ready to learn, you can move on to learning letters and the alphabet. So the child will be happy to learn the alphabet in a playful way and gradually learn to read.
So that the game is not abstract, you can use the magnetic letters TUMBLING.
5 ways to learn the alphabet with your child
1. Use an interesting topic to study
Use your child's interest to spur his motivation to learn. For example, if your kid is crazy about cars, let them be the topic in which you learn the alphabet. Use any words related to cars:
"A" - bus
"B" - trunk
"C" - driver, etc.
You can show cars and their parts, draw or sculpt from plasticine. It is important that the child's focus shifts from learning to doing what they love. Additionally, the method will help expand vocabulary and knowledge about the world.
2. Cross out a letter of the alphabet in the list
Fill in a small square with arbitrary letters. The task is to cross out only the letter that you are studying. This will help the child focus on one letter and not get distracted by the ones he doesn't remember or don't know.
3. Take the letters of the alphabet out of the pouch
The soft-touch magnetic letters are perfect for this method. Put the letters in a bag and give the child the task, without looking, to pull out only the letter that you thought of. Let there not be too many letters in the bag, otherwise the child will get confused. 6-7 pieces will be enough. To start, use letters that are very different in shape, such as "O" and "M". Gradually, the complexity can be increased and searched among similar letters, for example, "K" and "X". Don't forget to praise and encourage your child. You can alternate the learning process with desktops.
4. Recognize letters of the alphabet by ear
You pronounce a word, and if it contains a hidden letter, the child claps his hands.
With this game for kids, you can learn individual letters or the entire alphabet. For example, you name a word, and the child inserts its first letter into the insert frame.
To stimulate your child's interest, you can use only words from his favorite topic, for example, the names of animals.
5. Guess words beginning with the first letter
You choose one letter and think of a word that starts with that letter. For example, the letter "Z":
- What is this animal with big ears and loves carrots?
- Hare!
This game form is again suitable for learning individual letters or the entire alphabet. If you learn only one letter, the child gets used to quickly recognizing it in different words. And if you give words with different letters, the child as a whole learns to understand with which letter they begin. With the study of the account and the English language will also help TUMBLING.
From the alphabet to reading
When a child learns the Russian alphabet, confidently recognizes all the letters in different words and can draw or mold them on his own, it is worth moving on to reading. Because you need to learn the alphabet just so that the child can read.
