Guest Post: It's Fun to Learn the Alphabet

Guest post by Emily from Second Story Window.

I’m so excited to be guest posting at A Heart For Home and to take part in the Alphabet Craze. 

Learning the letters and sounds is a big milestone for young children. We all know that each child learns in a different way but here are some pointers to try for teaching the letters and sounds to young children.

·         :: 26 letters is a lot of letters for a young child to learn at the same time. It can be quite confusing! We recommend breaking down the alphabet into smaller groups. We also think it’s wise NOT to teach in alphabetical order.

·         :: It’s a great idea for the first group of letters you introduce to be the letters in the child’s name. If my son’s name was Brandon, we would first focus on those letters. This motivates the child to be involved in the process because what child doesn’t love anything activities that involve their own name?

·         :: Avoid teaching confusing letters (like b and d) at the same time.

·         ::  Teach one case at a time. Learn the capital first, then the lowercase (or vice versa) and then spend some time with them together. There is some argument that teaching lowercase first is best because they are much more commonly used in writing.

·         ::  It’s best if you use pictures to use the same each time for consistency.

·         :: Then move on to the sounds. It’s easier to teach the sound that g makes when a child already understand that B and b make the same sound.

·         ::  After mastering the first group, move on to the second, still revisiting the first group. It’s a good idea to mix the previously learned letters together with the new letters as you go.

·         ::  Start teaching blending of sounds into simple words. As soon as your child has learned the letters in their name, rearrange a few of them and show how those same letters can be blended into small words. Our son Brandon can learn the words “ran”, “dab”, “nod,” etc. from the letters in his own name.

Now, we’ve broken down the process but we left out the fun part: activities for learning those letters! Try some of these ideas.

·         :: Write the letters in shaving cream or sand.

·         ::  Practice writing the letters with any kind of writing utensil. Set a timer and race to see who can write the letter more times in 30 seconds, saying the name or sound each time you write it.

·         ::  Use a fly swatter (unused!) to “slap” the letter on a chart as it’s called out aloud.

·         :: Go on an alphabet hunt to find a certain letter in print.

·         ::  Play a matching game to connect lower case and upper case letters.

·         :: Do a relay race where at each point of the race the child has to identify a letter before moving on.

·         :: You can download a free printable game “Alphabet City” on our blog


    Make sure you join us tomorrow for a special giveaway from the Second Story Window Etsy shop.

I’m Emily Stephenson, half of the elementary teacher pair running Second Story Window. http://secondstorywindow.etsy.com. Our shop also has several alphabet games available, as well as other phonics games. Stop by our blog for teaching ideas and freebies. 

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