Teaching the Alphabet to Miss M

Last year I shared some reading readiness tips that I used with my son when he was two.  Now my daughter is a month away from turning two, and she's also on a journey toward learning to read.  Sadly, I have less time to devote to teaching her, but she's still progressing nicely and knows more than 50% of the alphabet.  Here are some of the tools I've used with her that I didn't have when her big brother was two:

·      Our new favorite book: Learn with Humphrey ABC by Sally Hunter.  It's from the UK, but I'm hopeful that you all will be able to find it locally.  The illustrations are just adorable!

·      LeapFrog magnetic alphabet for the fridge (I like these because they are too big for kids to swallow!) I picked up two sets at garage sales last summer for about a dollar or two each.  They came with an attachment that says the name of the letter and it's sound, but it's annoying.  I put that part up and we just enjoy the letters.  

Here are a few suggestions of ways you can use the letters to help you teach your child:

•  You can display several letters at a time to introduce them rather than overwhelm with all 26.
• Or just have up the letters that they haven’t learned yet. We did this for a while and I encouraged big brother to teach his little sister the letters whenever they were hanging out in the kitchen.  Not sure how effective it was, but they had fun.
• Use the letter to attach something to the fridge that starts with that letter.  Right now we have Christmas photos with the letter that corresponds to the family’s last name holding the photo in place.   (That's more of an activity for big brother, but both kids get something out of it.)

·      Melissa & Doug train alphabet puzzle- very cool; it’s 10 feet long!  

·      Foam letters in the bathtub- they stick nicely to the tub sides, but do clutter up the bathroom.

·      LeapFrog laptop.  I'm sorry to say that my daughter learned most of her letters from this.  You can personalize it so the laptop will say the child’s name, sing a song with your child’s name in it, and include brief emails from family members.  (My son also has one, but at age 4 he gets bored with it faster than she does.)  It's perfect for teaching letter names and their sounds.  I got one for each of our kids as a way to keep them busy at the rehearsal for my sister's wedding.  It's a nice item to pull out when I need them to stay busy, but it is a noise making toy so I don't leave it out all of the time.

It also comes  in green and white for boys.

Besides the gadgets, books, etc...we are also singing the ABC song at various times through out the day, and taking the time to point out letters where we see them.  I was impressed a couple of months back when my daughter noticed the contrails of two jets in the sky.  She shouted out, "X!" and pointed up.  Sure enough, there was a perfect X.  My kids are often reminding me that kids are smarter than we think they are!

For my next post, I will share a road map of the kindergarten reading program I used with my son.  It' works!!  Forgive me if it takes a while to get it posted, but I promise to share the strategies so you can use them too.