A common question I get often is how to teach Letters of the Alphabet to young kids i.e. toddlers and preschoolers. I have done a video on this before but thought of writing a separate post of its own.

When it comes to early childhood education, First and utmost important thing to remember when teaching young children is to never push our kids to learn something, just because the child’s friend knows more than your child. Please remember its not a competition or a race to win. So, if we want our kids to flourish ,we need to set up literacy rich environment at our home where letters are always a focal point in a fun, hands-on and engaging way.

Literacy rich environment means having books at the reach of children, making sure the child sees the parents equally excited and deeply involved in books , making sure you take every opportunity to show and tell when you see different letters on sign boards, t-shirts, book titles etc. There is no doubt that they are mirroring the literacy love that they see modeled for them.

A few pointers to keep in mind when teaching Alphabet are as follows:

• Letter Manipulatives : Use as many letter manipulatives as you can, since these are tactile, they can actually learn the letter formation along with letter recognition and letter sounds.
• Reading Books : Focus on specific alphabet books available in market ,when reading books together. Make sure you read atleast one book when you want to teach them the alphabet.
• Activities and Crafts : Create different hands-on activities and crafts around each letter of the alphabet. These type of activities and crafts helps children remember the alphabet better.
• Letter-Sounds Relationship : Teach sounds of each letter along with letter recognition. It gets easier for the child to formally start reading when they are ready.

Hope you got a clarity in how to go about teaching alphabet to your kids at home.

Disclaimer : When teaching children about letters and sounds, make sure you(parents) get trained from a Phonics Trainer first. Because if the child learns the incorrect sounds , it is very difficult to unlearn them. Phonics is a tool to help children learn the correct sounds and the correct positioning of the tongue against the palate. Phonics lays the foundation of correct articulation and pronunciation of words and helps in correct spelling formation as well.

To know more about the Online Phonics Program, that I teach via Facebook, please check out my page http://www.facebook.com/thereadingclassroom or shoot me an email at deevyanka.trc@gmail.com