Letter Recognition

I am starting to feel like letters are taking over our house.  We are both to blame.  E loves her "ABCs" and I've been digging out all the letter manipulatives I can find from my teaching days.  If you think about it, you don't need to know letter names to read, but it is where we start reading instruction.  Letter recognition or letter naming is important so you can start having discussions about how words are spelled and what letters make what sounds.

I made a basket of all of these items that either of us can access any time we want to do some letter recognition activities.  In fact, E just brought a letter puzzle up to me now and asked me to open it so she can work while I type this.  I like to ask her to practice with me sometimes, but other times just have the letters mixed in with her other toys so she seeks them out herself.

We practice with her letter magnets every day during calendar.  Usually I say, "Can you find the (letter)?"  

Yesterday, I made this paper with the alphabet (in order) so she can match the magents and put them back.  Yesterday we played a game where I took a magnet off while her eyes were closed and said, "Which letter is missing?"  She answered and then we switched roles.  A small change, but she loved it!

When working on letter recognition, remember that asking,

"Can you find the T?"

is different than

pointing to a T and saying, "What letter is this?"

In one case you are providing the letter name and in the other case you are asking the child to produce it.  Both are important skills, but you should vary what you are asking.

Just in the last week while working with letters I've noticed that E knows almost all of her uppercase (confusion with U and W) so we are going to move on to more uppercase and lowercase letter matching.  I also noticed that she will put the G upside down if working with manipulatives...interesting!  The more we work with letters, the more her print awareness increases.  She is pointing out "ABCs" everywhere when we are out and about.

If you are just starting letter recognition with your child, I recommend the letters in their name for more meaning.  Name puzzles with the letters cut apart are how we began with E.

Here is what she set up during breakfast today.  She asked Daddy to find some letters for her.  Then he asked her to find the Zz (notice there is no Zz) and the poor girl looked and looked but would not give up and point to an incorrect letter!