Teaching Letter Recognition

How to teach a child to recognize the Alphabet

After your child has learned to recite his or her ABC’s, the natural progression is to teach them to recognize these letters. This is not a difficult task. There are many things you can do to make this effortless and even fun.

Firstly, many people will tell you to introduce the lowercase first because the great majority of printed letters are in lowercase. After teaching my own four children and many others, I am convinced that it does not really matter and I actually prefer to teach the Capitals first. This is for precisely the same reason stated above! The vast majority of printed letters ARE in lowercase, so it is much easier for the small child to pick out the Capitals, when you give them a task such as, “show me the letter G”. Another reason is because many lowercase letters are similar in appearance. For example, g,q,p,b,d are very similar and thus difficult for a still learning child to differentiate.
Secondly, many people espouse that both cases and sounds should be taught at the same time. I say absolutely not! It is much better to teach them to recognize the letters and then teach sound. Too much information at one time is confusing and takes much longer to absorb.

Here are some games to teach letter recognition:

Buy refrigerator magnets!!! You can find both capital and lowercase, (the lowercase are more difficult to find, if you have trouble check a school supply store or the internet) Place only 2-3 on the refrigerator. Show the child the letters and say their names. After you have shown the letters and stated their names continue by moving the letters all around and asking for a particular letter. Make sure to shower lots of praise on the child for every correct letter he or she gives you. When incorrect, simply state the correct name for the letter and place back on the fridge. Add new letters only when the child knows the old letters perfectly. Do not remove the old letters, just simply add to them.

The same method above can be done with foam letters in the bathtub! This is a great place to learn! The child is nice and relaxed! Who wouldn’t like to “do school” with bubbles all around? ;)

Try having your child point out letters while you are waiting in line at the grocery store, the bank, wherever! Letters are everwhere! Look on signs, magazines, t-shirts, ball-caps…

Once your child has learned all of the capital letters, it will be time to teach the lowercase. I do this by calling the capitals the “mama letters” and the lowercase, the “baby letters”. I begin the same way I did when they were first learning. No more than three at a time. I point out that most of the babies look like their mother, however not all do (i.e. Gg) We play games like match the mama to her baby. You can use index cards, foam letters or refrigerator magnets, or letter tiles. (you can find those at Walmart) When playing the matching game I lay them out on the floor and make sure not to use more than 6 letters at a time.
It is at this stage that I begin saying the sounds of the letters, however until they firmly have a grasp on visual recognition, I do not stress this concept.

=) Amy