Literacy & ABCsAll Ages18 Comments
To continue on our quest to reading, we’re continuing on reviewing (for Henry) and learning letters (for George) right now. They have to know them before reading, right?
Be sure to check out what Jillian of A Mom with a Lesson Plan is sharing about Reading Rewards today for our summer reading program!
The very first step is to recognize letters. But, I can even put this into three categories:
- Simply introducing letters to the child. Maybe telling them what one is here and there. But that’s it. Just having the letters available is the first step.
- Matching letters. Maybe they don’t know what the letter is yet, but they can see that they’re different and match up one letter to the same one in another place.
- Knowing their letters. I think this is the advanced step for recognizing letters and it comes in stages. I’ve noticed that my kids usually find a few letters that they recognize right off the bat, but the others come along later, sometimes much later.
The beginning of learning their letters…
For the beginning stages of learning letters, I’m focusing entirely on numbers 1 and 2 with George. Number 3 will come in time and we’ll get to that when we do. Right now… We’re making sure letters are available to him and we use them in many of our activities, whether we’re really learning them or not. They’re there. He often asks me what it is, and this is my time to share with him and teach him. Otherwise I don’t try to push the letters. Its just time to show him that there are letters and that each letter is different.
We’ve done this in several of our learning activities already, but we’ll be doing more all summer long. I’ve collected some of the activities we’ve done along with a few others I’ve found that I want to try out to help George learn his letters.
20 letter learning activities for kids just beginning to learn their letters.
The very beginning. Focusing on introducing letters and matching up letters.
Squirt the Letter
Letter Learning Mat Game
Building with Letter Blocks
Magic Letters
Candy Letter Matching
Alphabet Letter Maze
Alphabet Ball
Letters in Fizzy Sidewalk Paint
String Scavenger Hunt with Letters
Fish for Letters Submitted by Cassie Paige
Alphabet Soup Playdough to Plato
Letter Pounding I Can Teach My Child
Letters Bean Bag Toss
Learning Letters on the Go No Time for Flash Cards
Alphabet Car Racing Toddler Approved
Alphabet Bear Game Fantastic Fun & Learning
Letter Delivery Growing Book by Book
Letter Matching Race Inspiration Laboratories
Letter Matching on Tape Tons of Fun!
50 more ways to Learn the ABCs
Learning letters, here we come!
50 Incredible Alphabet Activities for Preschoolers
A Halloween Alphabet with Skeleton Bones
Learning Letters Lineup. Squirt!
10 Active Activity Ideas to Learn the Alphabet
Find the Letter & Swat It! Active Way for Learning Letters!
Sorry to say I cringed when I read this post as all your others are amazing. As a reading specialist, with over 30 years experience, I can tell you it is not developmentally sound to teach letters prior to children learning most of their initial & ending sounds. “Just having the letters available is the first step.” is not a good idea, though most people without a background in education believe it is. The research does not support it. Doing so with children , who later, learn to read without much effort, is not a problem, but if your child does struggle, teaching letters first is deadly. Please tell your readers that good teaching is to teach sounds first!
Thank you,
Thanks for the input Ellen! I’m glad to have someone chime in that knows :)
Great list! I really like the ‘alphabet soup’ idea. Kids always love pretending to cook/eat things.
This is awesome. I have 4 daughters. My 3 yr. old is wanting to learn more and more . She is just having a blast and is enjoying everything. This is my first time homeschooling and she is picking up everything pretty fast. Thank you for all your great ideas.
Everything is awesome so far. I have a 3 yr. old daughter. She is ready to learn and she keeps wanting more. This is my first time homeschooling. So thanks for your ideas.
I like this post and what your blog is about, but are you aware of the advertisement appearing at the bottom of the page? A youtube video frame that looks like a zombie attacking a young man in a car…Just thought I’d let you know because I would want to know if an ad on my page were that awful! Sorry :(
Thank you so much for taking time and shareing this blog. Great activities for my little son.
You are very welcome Luz.
Wonderful collection of ideas! Thanks, Karen
Thank you Karen!
I always enjoy your activities, but I think the the letter pounding in particular is a stroke of sheer brilliance! I’ve used it with sight words (ie pound the peg into the sight word) since seeing your original post and the glee on my son’s face as he hammers is always hilarious.
I meant to leave this comment on I Can Teach My Child’s page – put it down to not enough coffee, Jamie! Thanks for sharing a great collection!
I’m glad you realized it. It always makes me nervous with roundups! :)
What a great list! We are going to try the squirt a letter today! Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Jodie! Hope you had fun with squirting! It was a huge hit here!
Great collection of ideas! Thank you for including our bear game.
Thanks Shaunna! Thanks for submitting it here. I love being able to find ideas from the ‘hands on moms’.