Theme: Alphabet

There are a lot of wonderful activities available on the Internet to teach your child alphabet. You can find links to a few of them here. If you have some new ideas, please send them to us and we will include it here :) Happy learning!

Teaching letters of Alphabet - a basic skill

Before you plan to teach alphabet, please make sure what is the end result you are interested in. Is it that you want your child to be able to read books or just want her to know letters of alphabet so she is ready for school.

1. Western phonic curriculum always suggest introducing Lower Case first and then Upper Case so the child can recognize them in books while reading and start showing interest in reading quickly.

2. Secondly decide on whether you want to teach the sound of the letter (like \a\ for 'a') first or the name of the letter.

Once you do this, Choose either one letter at a time or a maximum of not more than 4 to 5 letters a week and repetitively introduce them to the child through different activities everyday. Here are a few activities -

1. Play doh cutting / mark making with alphabet cutters / stamps 2. Do-a-dot printables (a lot of them are free on internet) 3. Writing the letters on a chalk board and asking her to rub the right one with eraser or spray water on it 4. Peek a boo boxes with sensory materials like rice or lentils or beans and places these letters inside and finding and naming them 5. Reading alphabet books 6. Matching activities - You can use lego, clothes pin, bottle caps, cars or any other interesting toy she likes to do matching activities 7. Play a treasure hunt with these letters that you introduce 8. Sand paper letter tracing 9. Using alphabet magnets on Fridge or easel white board 10. Freezing the letters in ice and doing excavation activities 11. If the child is good at cutting with scissors, print these letters out and make them cut them cut them out using scissors. 12. Write the letters using a marker on plastic or wooden beads and make her thread them 13. Download lacing printables, laminate them and do lacing activities for the letters.

While we were learning alphabet, I used to take my son for shopping and we used to read the boards in every shop and spot all the letters we knew. He was very interested in doing that activity. He tries to find 'a' every where - on my T shirt, notice boards, street names etc. It was practical and fun! :)

I hope you find these tips useful!