Teaching preschoolers letters

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

How to teach the alphabet to preschoolers

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Are you wondering how to teach the alphabet to preschoolers? Or just looking for ideas? You’ll find hundreds of ideas for playful learning at The Measured Mom®.

My oldest had a fascination for letters before she could talk. Even though she didn’t even call me Mommy until she was over two, she knew all her letters and added the sounds as soon as she could talk. Her younger brother picked them up just as quickly.

But it doesn’t work that way for everyone — and when my third little one was pushing three and still knew only a handful of letters, I knew I had to try a different tactic.

In fact, my decision to start a letter of the week study at our house and keep myself accountable was the very reason I began this blog. I’d like to share some simple ways to teach the alphabet to preschoolers – and direct you to a giant set of resources that will keep it fun!

How to teach the alphabet to preschoolers

1. Read, read, and read. Read nursery rhymes, rhyming books, picture books and chapter books. Just READ.

2. Notice print in the world around you. Call attention to exit signs, the toothpaste tube, and the Cheerios box.

3. Begin letter learning by helping your child learn the letters of his name. Before I start a more organized approach to teaching the alphabet to my preschoolers, they learn to recognize the letters of their name.

4. Teach the alphabet letter by letter. Not every early childhood teacher uses the Letter of the Week approach; many children learn their alphabet without it (my oldest two did). But I’ve found that Letter of the Week has been a helpful structure for me when designing learning activities at home. Even if you use more of a theme or unit approach to teaching preschoolers, you’ll find a huge variety of learning activities in my alphabet archives.

And when you purchase my Letter of the Week curriculum, you’ll have all the activities organized in an easy to follow format!

If you take one week per letter, you’ll have time to:

read books for each letter
do fine motor activities
learn simple rhymes and songs
create some fun crafts and art projects
make math connections
have some sensory fun

And more! It’s all in the ebook!

4. Keep bringing it back to the whole alphabet. If we’re doing a lot of meaningful activities, we will keep coming back to the whole alphabet.

5. Be flexible. You may find that after a few months of letter of the week, your child suddenly recognizes every letter. Awesome! Don’t feel tied to this series. Pick and choose what (if any) activities you’d like to continue with. Even if you don’t continue Letter of the Week, your child will still benefit from listening to the many wonderful books I recommend in my alphabet book lists. You might also enjoy choosing some crafts and process art activities to do each week. And math activities certainly don’t need to be tied to a particular letter!

6. Keep it fun. Remember that kids this age learn best through play. They don’t need fancy flash cards or loads of worksheets. They need a variety of activities to stimulate their brains and to reach them the way that they learn best.

You know your children better than anyone. Choose the activities that your child needs — the ones that your child will love. I’ll provide a big set of ideas for each letter — not so you’ll do every one, but so that you have a lot to choose from when you pick what works best for your kids.

You can find crafts, books, math connections and more by clicking on these links:

CHECK OUT OUR LETTER OF THE WEEK CURRICULUM!

Letter of the Week Curriculum

$29.00

You’ll love this flexible, step-by-step guide to teaching the alphabet to preschoolers. It’s a combination of hands-on lessons, interactive printables, and mini-books … and you and your learners are sure to love it!

Buy Now

Free Alphabet Printables

Join our email list and get this free sample of alphabet activities from our membership site! Students will practice identifying and forming letters, matching upper to lowercase, and identifying beginning sounds.

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Filed Under: Alphabet Tagged With: Pre-K, preschool

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How to teach a child letters

How to teach a child the alphabet as early as possible? How to get a child interested in learning? What teaching aids are better: primers, alphabet, cards with letters, games? What if the child does not want to learn letters? And many other questions about teaching a child the letters of the Russian alphabet were told by the teacher of the children's development center.

ContentsExpand

When is the best time to start learning the alphabet
Aids in learning the alphabet
Methods
Method of memorizing letters from images
Bakhtina's interesting technique
Basic recommendations for the study of letters according to the classical method
Learning letters with pleasure

Parents are looking for newfangled methods, trying to figure out how to teach their child letters successfully and quickly, however, this does not always lead to the expected effect. In order for the process of teaching children the alphabet to go smoothly, you need to take into account the following points related to their psychology and physiology - the age at which it is better to start learning and the characteristics of children's thinking. nine0003

When is the best time to start learning the alphabet? Therefore, at the age of 1-2 years, it makes no sense to engage in a targeted study of the alphabet, in the form in which it is necessary for further learning to read. Moreover, by trying to force the baby to remember the letters by force, you risk causing him a negative reaction to the process of learning the alphabet, thereby turning him away from further studies. nine0003

Remember that it is impossible to force children to learn the alphabet, it is desirable to interest them in this, then they will react favorably to the lessons.

It is also important to understand that there are no clear age limits within which a child should start learning the alphabet. For some children, this will go away “with a bang” already at the age of 2 years, for others, even at 3 years old, memorizing the alphabet will be difficult.

You can start learning letters if the child:

easily concentrates during developmental activities;
has a good visual memory;
loves to have books read to him, loves to look at them on his own.

Start learning letters with your child, for starters, exclusively in a playful way.

Aids in learning the alphabet

Of course, the primer and the alphabet will be the main assistants in this difficult but interesting business. Let's take a look at how these benefits differ.

Primer is a study guide that not only depicts letters, but also outlines methods for teaching reading, but also contains recommendations for parents on how to better learn the alphabet and conduct classes.
Alphabet is a series of manuals representing the letters of the alphabet in any variant. These can be cubes with images of letters, cards, lotto, stickers, various kinds of puzzles, sets of letters on magnets.
Standing apart in this series are the poetic alphabets - when a letter, its sound or image is played out in poetic form. The most pleasant for the perception of young children are the poetry collections of S.Ya. Marshak and A. A. Usachev. nine0008

Methods

There are several popular methods on how to learn the letters of the Russian alphabet correctly, each of them has its own advantages and disadvantages. Let's look at them in more detail.

The method of memorizing letters by images

The essence of the method: One of the popular methods that many parents prefer is learning the alphabet as follows: the child is asked to learn and remember a letter, fixing its perception with an image of an object that begins with this letter. nine0003

Example: "A" in most cases suggests a watermelon drawn next to it, "D" - a house, "R" - a fish, and so on. This is not entirely correct, and here's why.

Minuses: Parents often complain that as a result, the child remembers not the pronunciation of a single letter, but the entire visual chain - that is, "A" for him is a watermelon. And in the future, when asked to show "A", the child points to a watermelon, and when you ask him what letter it is, he answers - "watermelon". nine0003

Advice: Therefore, professional teachers recommend using such alphabets or cards only at the initial stage - at the age of 2-3 years, in order to interest children in learning the alphabet itself.

Bakhtina's interesting method

Recently, the method of E. Bakhtina, a teacher and author of the primer of the same name, has become very popular in teaching children the alphabet and reading.

Essence of the method: E. Bakhtina suggests learning the alphabet in the following way: assign to each letter its specific image, the association that the baby will have when he sees it. So, for example, “A” may be associated in a child with the sound that small children make when they still can’t speak anything. nine0003

E. Bakhtina suggests using the fact that the outlines of many letters can be supported by an analogy with images of objects already familiar to the baby.

Example: Hippopotamus with a big belly, very similar to the image "B", "U" is very reminiscent of a snail carrying a house on its back, and "E" and "Yo" differ from each other in that "E" The "eyes" are closed and they are not visible, while those of "Yo" are open.

Disadvantages: It must be said that the study of letters by this method requires a sufficiently developed associative thinking, and this is not necessarily characteristic of every child. nine0003

Pros: E. Bakhtina is popular, as the process of learning the alphabet is set out in it clearly and consistently, which allows it to be used not only by professional teachers, but also by parents on their own.

Download Elena Bakhtina's primer

Basic recommendations for learning letters using the classical method

In order to better understand how to teach a child letters, you can use the following recommendations:

Make cards depicting all the letters of the alphabet, preferably not nothing more was depicted than the letter itself, while it should be bright and colorful, on a light background. Attach cards as you study above the child's work table, or on the wall of his playroom, thus training his visual memory. nine0008
It will be easier to learn the simplest vowels "А", "О", "У", "И" at the initial stage, so start learning with them. Pronounce them correctly, as if "singing". In the future, this will greatly help when you teach your child to compose syllables.
It is necessary to teach the child to pronounce not the name of the letter - "EM", "ES", "JE", but its pronunciation, the sound "MMMM", "SS", "LJ".
Start studying consonants with "B", "P", "M", "N", "T", "G", "K". It is better to learn the pinching consonants "Ч", "Ш", "Ш" last, especially if their pronunciation causes difficulties for the baby. nine0008
Don't hurry! If your child has trouble remembering certain letters, take a break. Come back to them after a while.
We study letters not only when you study at home, but also on the street, while walking. Invite the young student to recognize already familiar letters on signs, in store names.

Learn more about these and other recommendations in a separate article at the link.

Learning letters with pleasure

Teaching young children should be fun, in a friendly and relaxed environment. Try to diversify the study of the alphabet by reading poetic alphabets, guessing riddles, memorizing rhymes and tongue twisters. nine0003

Do not rush to teach your child to write, first you need to successfully memorize all the letters, be able to call them quickly and without difficulty, and only after that you can start teaching the child to write letters. For a full and effective teaching of writing, you will need special aids - copybooks with letters.

Teacher, specialist of the children's development center
Elena Druzhinina

Educational cartoon - "Luntik teaches letters":

Learning the alphabet: methods, exercises and games for children

The alphabet is the foundation of reading. Therefore, before you start reading and writing, teach your children the letters.

Children can start learning to read as early as preschool age. Parents and teachers need to teach their child how to pronounce sounds correctly in their native language. These are important prerequisites for learning letters and learning to read successfully. The educational process of preschool children is based on visual, acoustic and tactile exercises. The use of various channels of perception in the educational process increases its effectiveness and stimulates long-term memorization of letters. nine0003

Learning the alphabet: introducing the child to the alphabet.

To master reading, a child must learn and recognize not only the graphic form of letters, but also be able to compare them with their corresponding sounds. This means that the child must be able to write letters and pronounce them. When the child learns to correctly pronounce all the sounds in his native language and distinguish letters by visual form, go directly to reading. As a rule, at the age of 5-6 years, most children no longer experience difficulties in this. nine0003

See also: Reading and bilingualism. Bilingualism in children

From the age of 5 to 6, children begin to understand that there is a lot of information encoded in language using letters. Thus, they are interested in learning to read by then, as they are naturally curious.

Of course, babies can learn and memorize individual letters quite early. However, their interest, mostly spontaneous, is directed to individual words and letters. Here it is important to gently motivate the child by encouraging him to learn through games and a comfortable environment. However, too much pressure can lead to stress, causing little ones to lose any motivation to learn letters. nine0003

Alphabet learning games

The first rule of learning the alphabet: learn the letters one by one!

Don't forget, each letter is made up of visually similar elements. If you try to teach a child several letters at a time, he may become confused. Learn the letters one by one. One lesson - one letter.

The second rule of learning the alphabet: take your time!

Give your child enough time for each letter. Plan 1-2 lessons for each new letter. Organize the lesson in a form that is interesting for the child with the help of games. nine0003

Tactile method: from studying letters to reading

The child sees something abstract in a letter. Chains of associations will help in learning letters. Associating each letter with something specific or familiar helps the child fix it in his memory.

1. Make a letter out of plasticine

Memorize what a letter looks like and develop fine motor skills.

We will need: plasticine (should be elastic), modeling board and a disposable plastic knife. nine0003

Together with your child, roll out 8 approximately identical sausages from plasticine. 2 - divide in half, 2 - divide into 3 parts. From the remaining 4, make rings by blinding their edges and cut 2 of them in half, creating semicircles. Thus, you should get a set of elements to compose any letters of the alphabet. Show the child a couple of examples and ask them to repeat, collecting previously passed letters.

2. Magic wands

Let's memorize letters, learn how to make letters from sticks, learn how to transform letters. nine0003

We need: a set of counting sticks. If not, you can replace with matches or toothpicks.

The easiest way is to lay out letters from sticks according to a pattern or without a pattern (according to the idea). When the child learns to lay out all the letters, you can complicate the task by laying out objects familiar to the child from them, and then ask them to change them, for example, make a figure resembling a door out of sticks, and then ask the child to remove 2 sticks to make the letter P.

3. Tactile letters

Memorize letters and develop fine motor skills

We will need: sandpaper, velvet paper, scissors.

Cut out letters from sandpaper or velvet paper. The child will have to close his eyes to identify the letter by touch.

4. Draw a letter on the semolina

Memorize letters, develop fine motor skills

We will need: bright dish tray, semolina

Pour sand or semolina in a thin layer on the tray. Set an example for your child, show how to write letters on the croup with a finger or a stick. Ask him to write next to the letter, the same as you wrote, to write a letter more or less than yours, to add an unfinished letter, or to erase the extra detail of the "wrong" letter. Children will like this game, just shake the tray a little, and the mistake or inaccuracy made disappears! nine0003

5. Mirror letter

Memorize letters and train attention

We will need: cardboard, pencil and scissors

Prepare identical cards cards, 2 pieces for each letter. Write 1 letter on each card. Write the letters in mirror image and correctly. Lay out cards with the same letter in front of the child and offer to choose the correct one.

6. Memory test game

Train memory

We will need: scissors, cardboard and a pencil

The game "Memory Test" will challenge even older children. Write each capital letter on one card and lowercase letter on the other card. Turn over all the cards and place them on the table. Ask your child to match uppercase and lowercase letters. You can complicate and add a dictionary element. Have the children match the letter of the alphabet with the picture that starts with that letter.

7. Bean bag

Memory training

We will need: a bag of beans or other loose material, a tablecloth or a large sheet of paper.

If you want to warm up a bit while you study the letters, play a game of Beanbag. Write the alphabet randomly on a large piece of paper. Give the children a bean bag and ask them to put it on paper. The child must name a word that begins with the letter on which the bag fell. If a student is stuck, help him.

Ask the child to check the chosen letter with letters from the alphabet. Be sure to ask the name of the letter. The exercise will help children learn to distinguish visually similar letters and avoid mistakes when writing them in the future. nine0003

Drawing, coloring, cutting letters out of paper and gluing them together develop fine motor skills in children.