Learn how to teach the alphabet from an ELA. Use eight bite-sized skills to make letter knowledge so easy and fun that it sticks!
(You can find all the activities and printables shown in this post in my
All-in-One Alphabet Activities Resource Kit.)
Alphabet knowledge is foundational for future reading and writing. When you want to learn how to teach the alphabet, consider two things:
- Alphabet skills or knowledge— what we need to teach the child about the letters of the alphabet for future reading and writing success
- The mode of teaching, or how you’ll teach, so that what they learn sticks.
What is Alphabet Knowledge?
When you teach the alphabet, teach your child these four things:
- Letter recognition (knowing the face)
- Letter name (knowing the name)
- Letter sound (knowing its job or the alphabetic principle)
- Letter formation (knowing how to write or draw it)
But I break it down further into 8 subskills, so alphabet mastery becomes easier (and thorough!) for my kids. This way, many potential problems (such as letter reversals) are weeded out or avoided altogether.
In my All-in-One Alphabet Activities Resource Kit, the what and how of teaching alphabet letters are packed into one!
But let’s first dive into how to teach the alphabet using eight bite-sized subskills for letter mastery.
8 LETTER KNOWLEDGE SKILLS TO COVER
This pack is designed to practice the following eight alphabet skills, which will set a strong foundation for future reading and writing skills:
1. LETTER RECOGNITION:
Do you wonder how to teach your child letter recognition the right way?
The most effective and best way to teach a child how to recognize letters is the one that will stick with them. This means you need to try multiple modes of teaching and multiple times.
Here are some ideas:
- Read the alphabet letters around you. Sign boards, titles, badges, etc.
- Display the formal alphabet charts, posters or use flashcards
- Study the letters in their name
- Use letter symbol play mats
2. UPPER/LOWERCASE DIFFERENTIATION
Our goal is to help the child be able to know the lowercase and uppercase forms of a letter and also be able to match them together when there are different options. A lot of teachers and parents talk about teaching all capital letters first or both upper and lowercase together. For me, I choose to teach upper and lowercase letters together, and my kids do just fine.
3. ALPHABET LETTER VISUAL DISCRIMINATION
Building this skill means the child can recognize the focus letter among other similar letters and also recognize the focus letter when it is presented in different fonts and sizes.
4. FLUENCY
Once the child has learned to recognize the upper and lowercase letters, our next focus is to help them pick up pace in recognizing the focus letter among previously taught letters for future reading fluency.
Use fluency grids for building fluency in letter recognition or any other similar activities.
5. LEARNING LETTER SOUNDS
I break this skill into two areas
- Learning about the sound that a makes (only as a beginning sound). Kids listen and recognize.
- Sound articulation and mouth shape, so children self-check in a fun way as they master the letter sound. Kids make the correct mouth shape and use the correct vocal apparatus to make that sound.
NOTE: As kids learn new sounds, they can add an uh at the end. This becomes a problem when they learn to cuse sounds to read a word. E.g. M makes an mmmmm sound. Not muh! Because later the uh doesn’t go and reading m-o-m becomes muh-awh-muh!
6. LETTER FORMATION
Letter formation is how to write a letter using the correct strokes and path of placement (and later, spatial placement).
When learning to write the letter, the path of formation is key. If a child’s straight lines are growing from the ground up instead of coming down, this can become a fight against your child’s muscle memory and will be very hard to undo.
So teaching the proper path of letter formation from the very start is non-negotiable. To make it easy, I break down letter formation skill into four steps.
- Letter strokes: a child learns the basic strokes that make up a written letter in simplified steps or naturally as part of a picture drawing. E.g. How do you write the uppercase letter A? With a right slant, a left slant, and a line across. Slant slant across!
- Letter tracing (proper path of motion): the child learns the starting point and direction of the letter strokes. I use the signal light cue for this. Green lines mean go; yellow lines are next, and go slow, red is the final line, and then you stop! Be cautious of tracing sheets that don’t use black dots to indicate where to place the pencil when you start.
- Spatial placement: (writing on lines) For beginners, there are three lines with the bottom half as yellow, the child knows to keep the lower sections of an alphabet within the yellow section.
- Independent letter formation practice: Finally, there are independent practice sheets with just three lines, no yellow bar.
Be cautious of tracing sheets that don’t use black dots to indicate where to place the pencil when you start.
7. ALPHABET ORDER/ALPHABETIZING LETTERS
For me, the best order to teach the alphabet is the standard alphabetical order.
Add in the daily alphabet song and it’ll be a simple, easy, sticky learning for little minds. Also, knowing the alphabet order is a life long skill– think about being able to efficiently use dictionaries, catalogs etc.
In my alphabet worksheets, I have used simple puzzles to recognize the place our focus letter. Naturally, this skill enhances as we move to the next letters and more letters (and pieces!) are added to the puzzle.
SOME OTHER ALPHABET ORDERS FOR TEACHING LETTERS OF THE ALPHABET
Here are some other orders I have heard of, that teachers and parents may choose.
- TEACHING ALL UPPERCASE LETTERS FIRST: Teaching all capital letters first: Some people teach all uppercase letters first because their formation is easier than learning to write lowercase letters. (I think even uppercase letters have curves, humps and bumps like lowercase letters like in BCDGJ! And this one causes kids to throw rules of capitalization out the window. Have you seen a child writing every other letter in a sentence as capital?)
- ALL LOWERCASE LETTERS FIRST: Lowercase letters first: Some teach lowercase letters first because those are the most used in writing. (Same logic as above for me.)
- SATPIN ORDER: Some people choose to teach letters in an order that helps child start reading easy words within weeks. For example, if you teach the recognition and sounds of the letters SATPIN, then the child can read the words sit, pat, nap, sip etc. (provided they have been taught basic phonemic awareness and sound blending/ segmenting practice.) (I love this method. If the kids are ready, it should be the second round of alphabet learning after an initial standard alphabet bootcamp that has familiarized kids with the whole alphabet in standard order.)
- ORDER FOR LETTERS WITH SIMILAR STROKES: Teaching all letters with just straight lines together (e.g. EFHILT), all letters with curves together (e.g. CDGOPQR), all letters with diagonals together (e.g. kvwxyz). (For me, it’s same logic as for the previous one!)
Whatever alphabet order YOU choose to teach your kids, keep two things in mind:
- the current level of your learner (e.g. Are they ready for this?)
- and then, your specific goals (reading, letter formation…).
8. LETTER VOCABULARY
While the kids are at it, it’s great to build basic letter vocabulary. We use a fun letter vocabulary scavenger hunt for every letter, (a movement game!) and an alphabet mini-book craft for this.
For reinforcement, my alphabet flashcards, alphabet centers and alphabet practice sheets all use the same vocabulary.
ALPHABET REVIEW OR ASSESSMENT
My All-in-One Alphabet Activities Resource Kit includes many alphabet review activities you can use.
Here are two: Use the hands-on roll-a-die game as bonus practice or as a partner activity. It is like a game but checks on all four major alphabet knowledge skills (recognition, name, sound, and formation). The more formal review sheet can be used as an assessment.
If you’re doing one letter a week, then there are enough pages for an entire week, but you can skip or add more activities, crafts, centers, and games from the complete alphabet activities kit as needed.
Once you know how to teach the alphabet in a fun hands-on way, and the key skills to cover, your next smart move is to gather the supplies you require. If you like using resource material, then no-prep and low-prep activities and games are your best friends!
My All-in-One Alphabet Activities Kit includes 4 bundles to meet all your needs.
- Differentiated Alphabet Crafts
- Alphabet Centers
- Alphabet Posters, Flash Cards, Anchor Charts & Write the Room Games
- And Alphabet Practice Worksheets.
Now that you know how to teach the alphabet, grab all the tools you’ll need in my All-in-One Alphabet Activities Resource Kit at a HUGE discount (90% OFF) during the bundle completion flash sale!
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