Letter knowledge is making our children know and recognize that the alphabets can look different, have particular names and pronunciation. This letter knowledge at an early age is important to make children learn to read. There are various tips and tricks through which we can help our children to develop letter knowledge:
Through Play:
- Sorting and Matching Game – Use flash cards with alphabet letters in lower and capital case. Ask children to match the same letters.
- Missing-O-Missing Game – Put 5 to 10 alphabet letter flash cards on a tray and ask your child to look at the flash cards. Talk through which letters are there and then cover it with a towel to remove 1 or 2 of the letters. Now ask your child to find the “missing-o-missing” letters.
- Detective Games – Pointing at individual letters of the alphabet and asking your little detective to identify the letter and speak it out loud.
Through Drawing/Writing:
- Let’s go shopping – Ask your child to help in writing the shopping list with you. Their version of a shopping list may be just squiggles and dots, so keep your list with you to not miss any item.
- Giving them drawing books or papers to draw their own stories on it.
Through Songs/Nursery Rhymes:
- Sing along the “ABCD songs” or Alphabet songs
- If in the beginning, they are not going in the correct alphabetical order then let them make their own rap and point to letters as they rap.
Through Talk:
- Start with your child’s name. Tell them about the letters in their name and ask them to write.
- Once they start writing their names, tell them about the fact that the first letter of their name will always be a capital letter.
- Talk to them about the shapes of letters during formation such as straight, curves and diagonal lines
- Once they are slightly older, introduce them to the rules such as lower-case letters are half of the size as of capital letters.
Through Book Sharing:
a) Which books to choose?
- Books with shapes
- Books where you have to find things (like I spy)
- Alphabet books
- Books which use different font styles in the pictures and text.
b) Book Sharing Tips:
- Alphabet books do not need to be read from cover to cover. Let your child choose which letters they want to look at.
- Trace the letters with your finger or let your child trace it (make sure you trace the letter using the correct formation, orientation and encourage your child to do the same).
- Talk about the pictures in alphabet books before focusing on the letter, its name and the sound it can make.
- Show your child the first letter in their name and then look for that letter in the book.
- Show and talk about how some letters are in their capital form and others in their lower-case form. Can they find other examples of the letters?
- Choose two letters to talk about: How do they look alike? How do they look different? What shapes/line styles are they made up of?
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