Alphabet

Early Learning Teaching Your Child to Read
1

My son is 18.5 months and so far we have been doing LR, YBCR, YCCR, flashcards, and tons of book reading. I pretty much focused on the whole language approach. We have also been doing Tot School activities for a while, which he absolutely loves. Anyway, I am thinking of introducing the alphabet this fall. I plan to do themed units kind of like we did for shapes (http://memorizingthemoments.blogspot.com/p/shapes.html). However, I am also thinking about flashing the letters, probably both upper case and lower case at the same time. I am curious how everyone else handled the alphabet.

Thanks!
Kaysha

2

Hi Kaysha. These worked for my baby:

  • LeapFrog Letter Factory DVD. My baby finds this DVD entertaining. She learned each letter and the sound each letter makes pretty quickly. This did wonders with the word ‘milk’ for me and my baby. Sometimes she pronounce milk as “nilk”. This is our usual conversation:
    My baby: “nilk!” (asking for milk)
    Me: "Milk, “M as in?”
    My baby: “Mmmmm…milk!”

  • Leapfrog Fridge Magnetic Alphabet Set (uppercase) & Leapfrog Fridge Words Magnetic Word Builder (lowercase). My baby loves saying each letter and sounding it out. She can also spell a few words like cat, dog, etc. with the word builder.

  • I also showed these videos from youtube when my baby just started learning her letters:
    -The Big and Small Letters Song
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WRATosTseM&feature=relmfu
    -The ABC Song
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75p-N9YKqNo&feature=relmfu

    (Just like reading words, I point out to each letter as the video say each letter)

    -Phonics Song
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BELlZKpi1Zs

  • The Brillkids Little Reader has an Alphabet Song too! :slight_smile:
    Try looking for it under the Categories TAB of Advanced play/edit TAB. My baby absolutely loves it!

  • The alphabet puzzle on the Tozzle IPad app works for her too.

  • I also use starfall.com and readingbear.org to introduce her to reading phonetically.

  • Using ABC flashcards will help too.

Here are some videos of her learning the alphabet:
In this video, she wasn’t able to sound out the R yet correctly but a month after this video was taken she can sound it out correctly :smiley:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZmzJclycPk&list=UU2HdFD3P5ThyTDzaLMojnGg&index=6&feature=plcp

Here’s a video of her playing the alphabet puzzle (lowercase & Uppercase letters) :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ONOZo7ZJNw

By the way, I like your blog and your baby is so adorable! :slight_smile:

3

We love Starfall www.starfall.com - it’s great for phonics (DD also likes the colours and numbers pages), the alphabet pages are great
Also, the DVD Leapfrog letter factory is really good http://www.amazon.com/LeapFrog-Letter-Factory-Ginny-Westcott/dp/B001TKUXUC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337614832&sr=8-1
We are constantly singing from that, “The A says…”
And yes, lots of alphabet phonics songs are good too

4

Thank you for the great ideas! We have used Starfall, which he likes. I also have Letter Factory, but he wants nothing to do with it. Some of those You Tube videos will be perfect. I also like this cute one from Sparkabilities
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-TNvMN_wtk

I am slowly accumulating alphabet things like those Leap Frog magnets and cloth letters, but I am having trouble finding enough sets that have both upper and lower case. I think I will be ordering these stamps(http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000GKU1OO/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=memorthemomen-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B000GKU1OO) because they have both sets. I will probably make my own sand paper letters too. I just don’t feel like there is enough right brain alphabet training in this mix.

5

You can download additional files from the community library on alphabet and phonics. The animal alphabet one is really good.

I also love Preschool Prep, although it’s left brained and probably not what you’re looking for. If I had to do it all over again, I might go with the Montessori approach of introducing letter sounds and skipping letter names But they learned the letter names soooo easily with the Meet the Letters DVD, and then we quick right brain flashed the flashcards that go with it. The lift the flap book was a huge favorite around here too to help reinforce. PP uses a great nmeonics system with memorable cartoon characters that easily transition to plain black font. From there, you can graduate to Meet the phonics (Blends & Digraphs).

They didn’t have Meet the Letter Sounds when my kids learned them. http://www.preschoolprepco.com/phonics/lettersounds/ but now they make DVD’s, flashcards, and coloring books. http://www.preschoolprepco.com/phonics/

We did tons of exposure to abcs & letter sounds with my son at about 14 months old I think? only took a month. Similar with my daughter. I just downloaded these videos (no ads, there are many on youtube to pick from) and played the set about 3 times per day more or less. You can even make a CD of them and play it in the car. Shouldn’t take more than a month or two of repeated exposure if your child likes them, just plug the computer into the TV too to enlarge the screen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saF3-f0XWAY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsO__o4Ezjw&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QW7N64zsrs0 (new version) or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3S3OX6HQm4&feature=relmfu (old version)

6

Thanks for the videos, everyone! MaryofUS, my DD and I loved the video of your daughter making the letter sounds! Cute!!

I do have a question for any of you that have worked on the alphabet with your young ones. I have found that if I work on anything to do with the alphabet (letter names or phonetic sounds), my DD will stop reading words that she knows and just point to individual letters. It takes a few days of not working at all with the alphabet, and just reviewing words before she will start reading again. Is this normal? How long does it take to be able to not confuse the two? I definitely want her to learn phonics, but I love the fact that she is reading now so well! I don’t want to confuse her or stop her reading progress. Even in the LR lessons she will “correct” the computer, “Not kick, it’s a K!!” I usually tell her that kick has a K in it, but the whole word says “kick”. It is cute, but since it seems to stop her reading progress, should I just not work on the alphabet for a while?

7

Pointing to whole words she had memorised isnt actually reading- even though it looks like it is. Her focusing on the sound pics in words is actually far more beneficial in the long run for most children - and is brilliant of her! So let her do this- and also build it up and look at the whole word - I talk about this here

http://youtu.be/w8sXFKXg1b4

Think what you do here - read it aloud! (dont cheat and read it to yourself lol)
You most probably went back to looking at the sound pics in words to decode it- and even if you read this aloud really quickly and easily (so have highly functioning reading skills) then you were still doing it…but faster:-)

This gallimaufry is multitudinously gargantuan, puissantly capacious sand ineffably Junoesque and in consequence of such Protean tribulations and in such psychotic contravention of stereotypical consuetudinary hygiene, there exists the infinitesimal exiguity of a satisfactory resolution to this cataclysmic dilemma.

So dont worry about her trying to work out the alphabetic code- be proud of her! :slight_smile: Its what all good readers do …

And even if she learns the 100 high frequency words that the National Literacy Strategy promotes it might help her get through Year 1 with flying colours but she will soon begin to flag with increasingly complex reading material or more difficult spellings.

She is telling you the right way to teach her- clever thing:-) And when looking at the word ‘kick’ use her interest in sound picks to write the word showing the sound pics- so k/i/ck - and show her the Sound Pics clouds (download at www.facebook.com.readaustralia for free) so she can see that although she hears 2 ‘k’ speech sounds there are 2 different sound pics for this sound - in the word- as shown in the speech sound cloud.

Em
ps when you look at the ‘k’ speech sound cloud - these are examples - kite, cat, duck, antique, Iraq, Christmas

8

CV momma. My son is 2.5 and going through the same thing. He is starting to try to sound out sight words. His decoding abilities are pretty lack luster though, and the only way he seems to be learning CVC words are by learning them with a whole language approach still.
We continue to use phonics lightly but we went back to reinforcing whole language and started using little high frequency readers. They are tricky to find. So it is often easier for me to write them myself. All the words on the page are the same with the exception of one or 2 words. And the child builds confidence with the words they know and tries and figures out the unknown word by a picture clue or by the initial letter, and by figuring out what makes sense. It has helped tremendously.

Here is an example of a high frequency reader.

http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.com/Who_Ran_Away...RRSP_Letter_A.pdf

9

To get past that one you will need to get some magnetic letters and make lots of words. Once she “physically” knows that the letters actually make the words you should have no trouble teaching both. Put the words together slowly. Put three letter on the fridge spaced out. Discuss the sounds. Then push them together and magic they made a word :slight_smile:
Also do you show a letter and then words beginning with that letter strait away? I suggest sticking to letter sounds for now, introduce letter names gradually later, they are of no really good u in reading. Teach vowel letter names first.

10

Aboslutely- magnetic letters are a must have. Start with lower case only- other than when building name words.

Ideas about tackling this issue of introducing the alphabetic code seen here

http://youtu.be/w8sXFKXg1b4 - its not on the usual channel- we are developing a new one…

You can see - in this one- clips of pre-schoolers listening for speech sounds in words, blending, and spelling etc on it- and I talk about what to focus on.

I just wrote this on another thread and it may be useful to you. Explained better in above clip!

Initially start with 6 speech sounds- understanding that it is the speech sound you are focusing on - not the letter sound
eg s,a,t,p,i,n (the clip explains this) Spend alot of time on the listening part - and speaking part (if ready) - if you have a young child and are just starting out on this.

Even if the say the speech sound when they look at a phoneme or grapheme etc- it doesnt mean they link it to spoken words.

Create speech sound tables/ scrap books etc- and collect things that have those speech sounds in them when spoken - eg for ‘sss’ you could have 'Santa, scent, science coats, grass etc. The focus is the speech sound- not the letter sound (watch clip)

Get a ‘Speech Sound’ teddy- he only speaks in speech sounds- and you tell the child what the speech sound teddy is saying and the child has to work out the word
Your child has to tell the teddy the speech sounds in a word so he understands.

When saying things regularly use the speech sounds - as well as the whole word- again shown in the clip - with pre-schoolers (whats under the h/a/t )

Play games where you have the 6 sound pics on the wall- you say a word and they have to run to the sound pic if they hear that speech sound. So if you said psychology they would run to ‘s’ - if you said sand’ they would run to s,a and n !

Collect things with those speech sounds (and after the initial 6 you keep progressing onto more- the speech sound clouds are a great way of building these up and can be used to refer to speech sound and their corresponding sound pics when reading as well)

Ask them to hear how many speech sounds in words that are created using those speech sounds - count them on their fingers (sat - s/a/t) and then get out your white board and magnetic letters - and he or she draws that many lines- with the numbers underneath. She then listens for the speech sounds again and puts the sound pics on the right line. Then start playing with it. Suppose I take off the ‘s’ what will the new word be? eg. use nonsense words as well.
You can make lots of words using these souns pics- tan, tin, ant, sit, pin etc
Put the magnetic letters on the fridge and ask her to spell these words- I often also have number cards with a line above- so she can do the same as on white board- the numbers help with placement and segmenting.

Start introducing speech sound clouds- just have the s, a, t, p, i and n ones to start off with. Watch clip- as to how to personalise these as the child learns more.

Look at words and figure out the speech sound pics- so for example you might look at the work ‘kick’- she listens for how many speech sounds - so you know that there must be 3 sound pics. Which are they? The first sound you hear is ‘k’ so underline the 'k and the second is ‘i’ - this leads nicely on to ck being another sound pic for the ‘k’ sound. The go and look at the ‘k’ speech sound cloud- to see all of them. (see graphic attached)

Spend time looking and words and figuring out how they relate to the speech sounds. sight - how many speech sounds? 3. She can hear s - underline it- she can hear ‘t’ at the end- underline it- so igh must be another sound pic for the ‘iy’ sound. Go look at the speech sound cloud for that speech sound- there it is!

So if learning the ‘rr’ speech sound and starting off with the sound pic ‘r’ its more logical for the child when they see other versions - or are trying to spell words with that speech sound- because of the work you are doing with the ‘rrr’ speech sound cloud.

You can download all for free on www.facebook.com/readaustralia - here I think ?
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.361710097224195.82649.160717717323435&type=3

You can also find links to download free readers that are based purely on those 6 sound pics. Clip also shows these.

Hopefully a few things to be getting on with!!

Have fun with it !

Em

11

Thanks Korrale4kq, Mandabplus, and ReadingWhisperer! Magnetic letters are a great idea! We have wooden letters that we use right now, and she really enjoys them.

Korrale4kq, Thanks for the example of a high frequency reader. My daughter was able to read about half of the words. I know that she hasn’t worked on hardly any of them before, so she must be picking up the basic phonetic rules from somewhere! It is amazing the way a young child’s brain can learn so many things without being taught them!

12

My daughter learnt the alphabet at 18 months. I bought her a leapfrog toy that you put on the fridge that you make words with and says the alphabet sounds and sings the alphabet.

I also bought foam alphabet letters (biggish ones) and bought a large piece of cardboard and printed off and pasted the letters of the alphabet onto the cardboard so she learnt to match her foam letters to the letters on the alphabet mat, I would ask her what letter she was holding and she would answer me correctly.

I bought magnetic letters and numbers and printed off cvc words and written numbers (eight, nine etc) she had to match the magnetic letters to the laminated word card.

She is really clever with these letter matching things. She knows entire uppercase and lowercase letters and all of their sounds and now focusing on sight words. I also sung the alphabet song phonetically as well as the usual way and she can sing it both ways.

13

Hello, hello, hello!!! I am new here. Can I come in?? I am from Spain. I have found some interesting websites. Perhaps you have already them.
Anyway…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKTZtyoFV-A&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsPbIjENEWs ********
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Djz82FBYiug&feature=related **********songs with the sounds of the letter

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Welcome, Nuria!! Thanks for the great websites!

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Thanks for your welcome!!! I must learn a lot from this website!!!

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Thank you so much for the compliment CVMomma. I think I can’t add anymore suggestions to the awesome advice from the parents in this thread. So I will just share my baby’s experience when she just started spelling out words with Leapfrog word builder(3 letter word builder). There were times when she grabbed the last letter first and put it in the last hole. For example, when I asked her to spell bat. She’ll grab the letter t (she’ll say the letter and sound it out) and put it in the last spot. So if she did, I would ask her to start with the first letter first, then the second next, then the third. Now she knows what the first, second and third means (a good intro for Math too) aside from knowing her phonics. :slight_smile:

Hi Kaysha. Have you decided to buy the alphabet stamps? Would love to know if your son likes playing with them. I’m thinking of buying more fridge magnets or those stamps in a couple of months. Thanks!

Welcome to the forum Nuria! Yup those are good videos!