Best Practices for Teaching the Alphabet

Research says...

“Children learn it [alphabet knowledge] by doing it. They should have dry erase boards to practice spelling words and listening for sounds. They should have magnetic letters for building words” (Mesmer, 2019).

Children learning the alphabet benefit from a multimodal approach, especially younger early emerging readers, who might not be ready for paper and pencil activities. Here are some ideas for enagement.

Identify the Letter Name and Form

• A-B-C Touch and Flip Cards: Use these

LWT double-sided cards, featuring tactile letters and a puzzle, to reinforce letter form, capital and lowercase matching, and alphabet order. • Name Games: Build on the use of characters’ names in the Student Letter

Books by chanting, singing, and playing games with names. Extend with student names. Begin by discussing who in the class has the target letter in their name. Start a class letter graph, tracking which letter is represented most in class. Or create name puzzles on index cards or sentences strips for students to take apart and put together while saying the letters in their name or their friends’ names. • Letter Search: Provide newspapers, magazines, or printable text. Encourage children to search for target letters. They can highlight or circle lowercase and capital letters you choose. Or have children search around the classroom, filling out a graph to record the number of specific letters they see around them.

Identify the Letter Sound

• Sound Around Box: Use this LWT multipurpose resource to practice letter sounds by placing familiar items inside so children can identify the beginning sound of the object.

Write the Letter

• Wet, Dry, Try and Magnetic

Lowercase & Blackboard Set: Use the LWT Slate Chalkboard to write a chalk letter. Then, children wet, dry, and try the letter with chalk, sponges, and paper towel pieces. Or use the

LWT Magnetic Lowercase &

Blackboard Set to focus on letter placement and formation for lowercase letters. • Touch and Feel Letters: Put shaving cream on a cookie sheet or put paint into a well-sealed plastic sandwich bag or gallon-sized bag. Model the steps to write a letter, and have children practice the capital and lowercase formation of the letter in the shaving cream or paint. This activity develops students’ motor skills as they feel the shape of each letter. • Writing and Art Centers: Provide various fun opportunities for children to independently practice formation in centers. Children can use stencils, lined paper, varied writing utensils, the LWT Stamp and See Screen, or paint at an easel.

Be sure to provide models of the letters for children to use for their writing.

• Exemplar Words: Remind children of the exemplar pictures and words that represent each sound (e.g., B, bagel, /b/.) To reinforce and practice each sound, play “I Spy.” Say: I spy something that starts with the same sound as bagel. Ask children to look around the room to identify the word. • Picture Sort: Have children sort objects or pictures by sound. You can use the Sound Picture Cards in the Appendix on p. 191 or your own pictures.