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Teaching Letter and Letter Sounds

Many Early Childhood classrooms have a "Letter of the Day" to teach phonics. There is discussion among professional on the best way to teach Alphabet and Letter sounds. Here are some ways to select a "Letter of the Day":
 

  1. Use the order of the alphabet: each day teach the next letter in the alphabet.
  2. Relate the letter of the day to the theme of the week. For example while learning about Happy Halloween, focus on the letter "H", or in learning about winter weather, focus on the letter "W".
  3. Select the letter by popularity in print. Begin with more common letters first.
  4. Consider speech development milestones in sequencing letter of the day. Begin with early development sounds like "P" and "M".  Normal Speech Development Chart
  5. Teach letters in clusters according to similarity in form to help with writing skills. For example, first begin teaching forming lines (horizontal, vertical, diagonal) and then start with letters that are made of straight lines ("I", "L", "T") 

Here are some alphabet activities from the Sharing Center:

Alphabet Scavenger Hunt

 

My Sounds Book

 

Puzzle Matching

 

 

There are numerous activities to use to teach the "Letter of the Day" and letter sounds. LessonPix offers many custom materials to target specific sounds in teaching phonics such as picture cards, game cards, bingo games, and pattern strips. The Soundfinder Search Tool in LessonPix is a great tool to locate pictures needed. Soundfinder allows the user to type in a word that contains the desired sound. For example, when looking for "F" words, type in "fish". The Soundfinder will give the IPA symbols for each sound in the word. (IPA is the International Phonemic Alphabet- symbols that represent phonemes.)   /f/ - /i/ - /sh/. The user can click on any sound or combination of sounds and look for words that contain the sound(s). The user can also request words that have the sound at the beginning, middle, and/or end of words.

Teachers can focus on auditory discrimination as they present pictures with the target phonemes in the beginning, middle, or end of words. For example, if the Letter of the Day is "D", choose pictures that contain a /d/ sound: dog, candle, spider, and bed.  The teacher may ask students to identify if they hear the /d/ sound at the beginning or end (or middle). This auditory discrimination lesson is a great foundation for early decoding and early writing skills.

After using the Soundfinder Search Tool to locate pictures with target sounds, custom materials can be created. Picture cards are great to start with looking at the beginning letter sound. The teacher may create a chart with pre-printed pictures of "D" words. Later students can sort which words start with the letter of the day (examples and non examples). Students may be able to sort picture cards into where they hear the sound: the beginning, middle or end.
 

 

 

 

 

 

Free Sample of Alphabet Cards

Here is a free sample of Vowels Dominoes.

 

#gen ed, #general education, #early childhood, #general ed, #kindergarten, #special education, #special ed, #preschool, #speech