Learning letters is a complicated process for children and there are many different ways to approach this. This simple game is both fun and effective in helping your child connect the symbol (a letter!) to the sound:
Watch it:
Learning to read is a process. Enjoy the ride.
Learning alphabet lette
rs is a complicated process for children. They have to learn that squiggly lines represent a symbol and not just a random picture. Learning to match the name of the letter to the symbol is called letter recognition.
It doesn’t stop there. Children must then learn that letters represent sounds. These sounds–when put together–make a word.
But let’s take it one step at a time.
Here is a fun way to reinforce letter recognition–it’s called “Street Names.” This example is found in one of the Experience Curriculum kits.
Try it out:
- Put “tape roads” on either a table or the floor. Try to start with three roads. At the end of each road, you can either put a Letter Card such as V, U or D or you can write the letter on the masking tape and put the letter cards in the Pocket Cube.
- Next let children take some time to freely play on the road and push cars up and down the paths. This is helping them gain awareness of mapping skills as well as to get comfortable seeing the letters printed on the path. Then, you can show them one of the Letter Cards and ask them to drive their car to the same street.
You could even add more streets each day this week. Maybe for more advanced learners, you would like to reinforce some sight words. Write these words (or children’s names) on the streets. To simplify this activity, especially for children under the age of two, it might be best to work on shape or color recognition.
Have fun looking for letters on streets and around your room or community this week!
