L is for Letter Recognition : Building Skills How Tos

The alphabet is the foundation of written communication.  Each language creates symbols that represent the sounds they use to vocalize their oral communication.  The Tamil language uses 247 letters whereas English uses only 26!  In English, we make up a wide variety of combinations and incorporate combinations and sounds from other languages as well which makes English more challenging to master.  

However, as a child learning their letters for the first time, we keep everything simple and build a strong foundation on which we can add the exceptions to their repertoire later on.  For example, C says /s/ when followed by an e or i but says /k/ when followed by an a, o or u.  We start out saying c says /k/.  Simple.   Infants usually have the same first sounds. ma/da/ba/pa.  The L, S and R sounds typically come much later.  So what do we do?  We make our earliest words the ones with simple sounds...mama, dada, baby, And we encourage them to master the sounds through meaningful repetition.  

For the infants, toddlers and early communicators in your life, making sounds for them to copy and mimicking their sounds in a back and forth banter helps them learn to produce the sounds of the letters.  This is valuable as they grow.  Children who can hear the sounds and make the sounds later find learning to recognize letters and read and write much easier.  We are building on foundational blocks so the stronger the base the better the outcome.

As they grow and are exposed to the letters that produce the sounds they are now familiar with in their native tongue, they need to learn to label the letters, produce the letters (writing), and combine them into words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs and stories. 

While this is a huge topic, I am just going to start you off with some suggestions of activities to help with auditory and visual letter recognition to help the child in your life build their literacy skills.

Game:  I spy something that starts with mmmm... llllll.....rrrrrr....etc.

What am I?  I like to eat something sweet that starts with /c/  What am I?

Categories, names of animals that start with...a (ant), b(bear), c (cat) (a clapping game too)

Which one doesn't belong?  (three toys, one starts with a different sound than the other two. Identify).

Alphabetical Order:  According to their level, line up items or pictures/flashcards and have them put them in alphabetical order.

Matching: Put out letters of the alphabet and toys and have the child match pig to p, hat to h fish to f, etc.

Upper/lower case: Use upper and lower case magnets and pair them off or print out ice creams and cones or the front/back of cars or ___, one with the capital letter and the other with the lower case letter.  Complete the pairs.

Names:  What are the letters in your name?  Practice spelling your name.

Sensory Letters:  Write the letters in sand or goop. Erase and try again.  Use your finger, a paintbrush or a stick.  You can also roll out playdough to form letters.

Sensory bottles: Add rice and small items or alphabet beads into a bottle and seal it.  When they shake it what do they find?  A Ball?  What letter does that start with?  Can you find a B as well?

Games:  Create a gameboard with the spaces denoted with letters not numbers. Play Go Fish or Snap with alphabet cards. 

Finger drawing:  When waiting around, draw a letter with your finger on their hand or back and have them guess the letter.

Crafts:  Make letters of the alphabet using items around you such as sticks in the yard or by lining up marbles or twisting pipe cleaners into the various shapes of letters. Another alphabet craft is to fill a page with a giant letter and draw or glue on pictures of things that start with that letter.

Memory:  When you flip over two matching letters, you get to keep the pair.  How many pairs can you find?

Song:  Sing the alphabet song and its variations. 

What additional ideas would you like to add to help children learn to recognize letters?

Oh!  I have another two....read! and...expose them to the alphabet ...a poster, blocks, puzzles, toys....and they will surprise you with what they absorb!

Have fun learning!