Teaching the Alphabet: What You Need to Know and How to Do It

Through your child’s development, there are different learning stages that need to be covered appropriately. Teaching the alphabet will be one of the major and most important challenges for a kid. Without it, they could have struggles learning to write and read.

As they are trying to learn letters, in due time, they will develop better communication and verbal skills. Though it seems to be hard at first, it doesn’t mean that it can’t be fun for you and your child. Here are some ways that can help you with it, and make it more amusing and easy for you and your child.

Drawing letters

Every child loves to draw and express their creativity on a piece of paper. During preschool age, they should become familiar with letters and understand how they can be used. One of the best ways to learn the Alphabet can be by using their drawing skills. To make teaching the Alphabet easier with drawing, try to use objects that are familiar to them. It can be, for example, their favorite toy, animals or food in the kitchen like fruits or vegetables.

Organize a place in your home so that the child understands that you will now play a new interesting game with them. You can do that at a table in the dining room, on the carpet in the living room or even better in their own room. Don’t complicate too much, it is essential that you and your child feel comfortable wherever you are. Prepare a large stack of paper and a lot of colorful crayons, markers and pencils. You can make a list of items for drawing so that you can stay organized. As an example, for the first day of learning, choose five fruits for drawing that start with letters that are in Alphabetical order. For example, apple starts with A, banana with B, cherries with C, dewberry with D and elderberries with E.

If you can’t find specific grocery in the fridge, you can choose their toys instead. For starting lessons, pick any item that is known to them and it will be more than enough to overcome some of the letters they find difficult to pronounce. Aside from crayons and paper, you could also add a timer that helps you to track how long they keep their focus and interest.

Walking and learning

Time that you spend with your children outside of the house can be helpful for abc learning. While walking in the park with your little ones, you can be inspired by a number of objects that can help you with letters.

Exciting trip to the Zoo can be of great help for education. While you’re observing a variety of animals, you can play a guessing game with your youngster. For example, stop at the cage with monkeys and ask your toddler what is the animal that they see. When they give you the correct answer, you can explain to them that word monkey begins with the letter M. This way they can practice Alphabet, by guessing the first letter of each animal.

Your child will brag to his friends about the new game and will even try to teach them the letters that he learned so far. Park for children is full of swings, seesaws, slides, leaves, trees and a variety of flowers. All of which contain letters that they know already or those that aren’t in their vocabulary.

Reading books

There are a lot of books that can be of great help. If the book contains a lot of pictures and colors, be sure that he will be focused on learning. You can try to read together by pointing at a picture that contains the first letter of animals, object or anything else.

Reading together can be extremely fun, especially due to the fact that your child will enjoy hearing your voice and learn a couple of letters along the way. You’ll make a connection with your child and strengthen your bond. You can introduce bedtime stories, or pick random tales that are good for morning or any other part of the day when they are active.

Start with books for children that don’t know the Alphabet already. These books are specially designed to help them associate different terms with letters. This way each time they see a book, for example, they’ll recognize the starting letter B.

Singing

Children enjoy singing just like adults. While singing songs together, you can notice how your kid is trying to follow the rhythm by hopping up and down or moving back and forth. He will instantly try to imitate you by repeating the words that he hears from a verse or any other part of the song.

Dancing and whistling are fun for everyone, so try to convert it into learning the Alphabet by making up new rhymes with every letter. You could make up songs along with your child, and add some musical instruments that they are already familiar with like a xylophone. Together you will make an amazing duet. If you think that you’re not good at singing, there are a lot of CDs with children songs that can be useful too.

After practicing your vocal skills together, you will notice how you two are getting closer and how activities that you share can improve your bond. After a while, you will notice as your child tries to sing alone while he plays with toys, with his friends outside or during bath time. As time passes by, he will improve his vocabulary as learning the Alphabet will become his favorite game.

Letter puzzles

Playing puzzles with children can be a great way to practice their verbal skills. You can get puzzle blocks that can challenge them to put letters in a correct Alphabet order  or to match pictures with animals and letters.

This game will help them learn new shapes, colors and understand how each letter really looks like and how it should be drawn correctly.

Before they place each piece in the right shape, be sure that they say the letter out loud. It will help them remember it better and stay focused on the task.

With puzzle game, they will learn how to think, how to overcome obstacles and most importantly it will allow them to build focus to find solutions for their challenges. To make the game more amusing, you can invite their friends for playtime and they will spend more time learning together and supporting each other.

Crafted letters

Make letters using fun materials. Every child learns differently, but they all love to craft things with their own hands and enjoy their creations.

Using some cardboard and scissors you can make letter shapes and ask your toddler to paint them with crayons or pencils. They can add glitter or their favorite cartoon stickers to make them more amusing and interesting.

They could craft their names with colorful letters. After they finished their design, use some thread or string to put them together like a garland.

When the project is completely finished, hang it on a wall above their bed or anywhere they can see it. It will remind them of the quality time that you spend together and it will make them proud of the completed project.

Funny meals

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It should be easy and made from healthy groceries, especially if you’re making it for children. In their age, sometimes it can be hard to time their meals because they only want to play and explore things all day.

Funny meals can be one of the ways how to teach the Alphabet. When you are preparing breakfast from fruits or vegetables, try to cut them in  letter shape. You could make the first letter of their name from bananas, apples, carrots or broccoli. Kids love pancakes. They will love them even more if you write their name with delicious topping on top. Add some sprinkles, strawberries or cherries and they will be blown away. You will notice that they’ll try to replicate the letters with fingers from the remaining topping on the plate.

With exciting looking breakfast on their plate, they will eat it in a second, and talk about it with a smile on a face. Children will be happy, excited because they learned something during the meal, and full of energy that could be spent on new challenges. You could call it a successful start of the day.

Teaching your children the Alphabet letters doesn’t have to be hard as it sounds. There are a lot ways that can help you with it and our examples should be easy and exciting for both of you. Learning and development are important for everyone, especially for our youngsters. Don’t overthink it and of course, don’t make it look too complicated. Approach them with a lot of patience, love , and understanding. At the end they will show you their gratitude, you’ll see actual result, good grades in school and a big smile. Because their happiness and proper development are most important in their period of time.