TEACHING THE ALPHABET Appropriate Activities for Introducing the Alphabet The ability to recognize, identify, and form letters, as well as associate them with their sounds, is an essential component of literacy development. Among the pre-reading skills that are traditionally evaluated, the one that appears to be the strongest predictor of later reading success is letter identification. Children best learn alphabet letters as they engage in meaningful reading and writing activities. Classroom practices that support alphabet learning include: • Reading and writing environmental print • Reading and writing children’s names • A variety of alphabet books • Alphabet games and activities that focus on the letter names and shapes PENNSYLVANIA PRE-KINDERGARTEN EARLY LEARNING STANDARDS (EXCERPT) Standard L 1.4: Develop increasing understanding of letter knowledge L 1.4 A: Show progress in associating the names of letters with their shapes and sounds L 1.4 B: Identify at least 10 letters of the alphabet, especially those in own name L1.4 C: Increase ability to notice the beginning letters in familiar words LETTER BINGO Purchase a commercial letter Lotto or Bingo game or make one yourself using the plastic sleeves designed to display baseball cards. Encourage children to name letters as they play the game. LETTER MATCH RELAY Obtain two sets of 8-10 plastic or foam letters. Place the letters from one set on the floor or attach them to a clothesline. Put the matching set in a bucket a few feet away. Children choose a letter from the bucket and race to the other end to find its match. Then they run back and tag the next child. Teams are not necessary for this active center – just a group of 4 to 5 active preschoolers. I SPY Use an alphabet chart and game boards with upper and lower case letters. Use large wiggle eyes for playing pieces. Glue one eye to the end of a dowel for a pointer. The teachers begins by saying “I spy with my little eye, the letter Bb,” and pointing to the letter on the alphabet chart. The children cover the corresponding letter on their cards with a wiggle eye. Play continues until everyone has all their letters covered. PEAK Best Practices 1 www.peakonline.org THE CEREAL BOOK Invite children to bring in empty boxes of their favorite cereal. Cut the fronts off the boxes and bind them together into a book. Children can “read” the book by recognizing the logos and individual letters can be pointed out on the box fronts. Make another inexpensive book by cutting out familiar logos from the Sunday paper advertisement supplement and placing them in a sticky page photo album. THE LUNCH BUNCH Encourage interaction with environmental print with this reading and writing activity. Place 3-4 bags or logos from favorite local restaurants at the top of a piece of chart paper. Invite children to write their names under all they places they like to eat. Encourage letter recognition and naming. “Look, Amy. There’s your letter – A.” LETTER ROADS Use a box of mini toy cars and large foam letters. Children practice letter formation by driving the cars around the letters. LETTER RUBBINGS Children clip paper on the rubbing plates with clothespins and rub over the paper with the flat side of a crayon. The letter will "magically" appear on the paper. Rubbing plates were made by writing letters on pieces of poster board and tracing over them with hot glue. SAND BOXES Children practice writing letters in the sand boxes. Use colored sand for added interest. PEAK Best Practices 2 www.peakonline.org NAME THAT KID Encourage children to read and write letters by featuring their own names and names of their classmates. Provide a spot to send and receive mail. Include picture/name cards in the writing center. Make a class roll on a piece of poster board; highlight beginning letters and group the names accordingly. David AUTOGRAPH BOOKS Make autograph books for each child in the class. Photocopy pages of class photos as shown. Make 20 copies. Cut and bind all the pages into books. You will have 20 books each with 20 individual photos. Encourage each child to “fill up” his/her books with the autographs of classmates. This is a wonderful end-of-year activity and a great self-esteem booster. ALPHABET PIZZA Obtain a cardboard pizza box from a local restaurant. Paint sauce and a crust on an inexpensive metal pizza pan. Place the pan in the box along with a set of magnetic letters, order form, and a pencil. Children can write the orders and create name and/or letter pizzas. PAINTING A LETTER Write large letters on a sheet of paper in pencil. The children trace over them with tempera paint. PEAK Best Practices 3 www.peakonline.org SALT LETTERS Write a letter with pencil. Children trace the letter with glue, pour salt over the glue and shake off the excess. Children carefully touch a small paintbrush dipped in watercolor to the salt. The color is immediately absorbed. You can also use liquid watercolor paint with eyedroppers. ALPHA-BAND Label each rhythm instrument with a letter. An easy way to make instruments is to put rice inside a plastic egg, and hot glue it closed. Sing an alphabet song. Children shake their letter shakers only when they hear their letter called out in the song. ALPHABET PATH GAME Make these path games using stickers bought at an arts and crafts store. Create individual mats with about 10 letters on each. Each child gets a mat, a game piece, and some plastic chips to cover the letters on their mat. They roll the dice and count out the spaces to move their game piece. If their game piece lands on a letter that is on the mat, they cover that letter with a chip. Play continues until they have covered every letter. Other ways to use the path games: *Children identify the letter they land on, then find that letter somewhere in the classroom. *Children find an object in the classroom that begins with that letter's sound. LETTER CLIPS Cut a circle from poster board and write each letter of the alphabet around the circle, and write each letter on a clothespin. Children match and clip the letter clips to the letter on the circle. These can be used to match uppercase to uppercase letters, lowercase to lowercase letters, or uppercase to lowercase letters. *To teach letter sounds: Place stickers or clipart around the circle and have children match letter clips to the stickers that have the matching beginning sounds. LICENSE PLATE GAME Each child gets a turn to be the "driver". A piece of paper with a letter written on it is clipped to the driver's back. The child drives around the table, and parks in his seat. Children find the letter among their set of letter manipulatives. ABC SORTING BOX Label a craft storage box with letter stickers. Children sort letter manipulatives into the sections of the box. PEAK Best Practices 4 www.peakonline.org MEMORY GAME Place about three letter manipulatives on a tray, cover them with a cloth, and take one away. Uncover the letters and have children guess which letter is missing. Children find the letter that is missing among their own set of letter manipulatives. If the children are very interested in writing, they can write the letter that is missing on a dry erase lap board. To increase the difficulty of this game, place three letters on the tray, cover them, and ask the children to recall all three letters that were on the tray. LETTER TUMBLE Place letter manipulatives or letter tiles in a bowl. Children toss the letters onto a mat (piece of felt), then match the letters to the letters on an alphabet chart. LETTER HUNT Children choose any 10 letters from the letter manipulatives. Go through a stack of shuffled letter cards, calling out each letter to the children. As the letters are called out, children look to see if they have that letter, and if they do, the letter is put back in the letter tub. See who is first to clear all of their letters (like a Bingo game) or play until everyone has cleared all of their letters. ALPHABET SOUP Children take turns scooping up a letter from a bowl with a spoon or soup ladle. The child identifies the letter, and walk around the room searching for the letter somewhere in the classroom. STAMP OUT GAME Write about ten letters on a piece of paper for each child. Put the same ten letters in a bowl or bag, and pass it around the table. Each child has a turn to pull a letter out of the bowl/bag, and announce the letter to the group. Children find the letter on their paper and stamp it out with a rubber stamp. Activities created by Georgia State University Best Practices Project and www.prekinders.com PEAK Best Practices 5 www.peakonline.org