Need suggestions on teaching alaphabets to almost 3.5 year old

[nanraj]

Hi,

 

I am going to attempt teaching the alphabets (both lower and upper case) to my almost 3.5 year old twins. I would greatly appreciate recommendations on the following:

 

1. Flash cards - Is there a particular one that you like ?

2. DVD - I saw great reviews for leapfrog letter factory. However it seemed like it only teaches upper case letters. Is this true ?

3. Would you recommend alpha phonics/Phonics pathways for 3.5 year olds? I think they will definitely be over 3.5 by the time I am done with the alphabets/pre -reading etc.

 

I am also going to do some pre-reading and pre-writing work with them like tracing, mazes and Developing the early learner. Is there anything else that you think might be effective?

 

Thanks so much!

 

-Nan

Edited July 19, 2009 by nanraj

[2cents]

For reading, I used Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Lessons. They were very young (2) so I didn't do the lessons exactly like the book (it would have been too much). They learned the sounds of the letters and made flash cards that we reviewed. As we progressed through the book, they learned the blends etc. It took almost a year. I actually taught them to read before concentrating on the alphabet. They could recite the alphabet song easily but actually learned where the letters were in relation to each other in more detail as we learned them phonetically. I liked doing it that way because we killed two birds with one stone. :001_smile:

[babysparkler]

Leap Frog Letter Factory is outstanding and does teach both upper and lower case. I highly recommend it. My ds learned all of his letters and letter sounds last year at age 3 using those... and can read simple words now. We purchased the full set of DVD's and he loves them all. We will be starting with Alpha-phonics in August with him.

[mlgbug]

i was struggling to get my dd now 4 to learn her letters. after some reasearch i realized i should teach her the sounds. so we started at 4 100 easy leassons....well see how it goes! but i would focius on the sounds, thats what im going to do from now on, with our almost 2 year old as well

[ladydusk]

I like the letter factory DVDs.

The Explode the Code pre-books are good (Get Ready, Get Set, and Go for the Code)

Ordinary Parent's Guide to teaching reading teaches letters for the first 26 lessons.

Letter of the Week has fun ideas and book lists.

Make an alphabet book! Put apple seeds on the "A", Buttons on the "B" ....

[Guest ltlwheats]

I would highly recommend the Leapfrog Talking Letters Factory DVD! I got it to help my 5 year old with her letters and my 2 1/2 year old ended up learing them right with her and now he knows all the letters (upper and lower case) and the sounds they make. They love watching the videos and they can be learning while I'm doing laundry or making meals!

[FO4UR]

LeapFrog!!!

 

Reinforce by teaching basic handwriting and saying the sounds as you write. 3.5yo can usually begin learning to draw letters with sidewalk chalk, tracing in sand, with fingerpaints and playdoh, etc. (no paper and pencil yet) Many kids need this tactile experience in order for things to stick -plus you are prepping them well to begin actual writing in Kindy.

[BlsdMama]

After years of resisting Leap Frog, I admit it, I've got the DVD. You can get it through NetFlix, btw. :) The 2yo? Yes, she's learning it. The 4yo? He may be hopeless. :P

 

Refrigerator magnets. I did the templates at DLTK, copied them on cardstock, cut them out, and they are being laminated tomorrow. I don't like their number nine, but the rest are acceptable and made a great size for a bulletin board. You could pin up the letter (they have both upper and lower case) and then cut out pictures that start with A and stick them up there, or stick up all the printables she can color in a week or two while she learns it, then on to the next letter. I really NEED another bulletin board!

 

A magnadoodle can be a wonderful tool for guess this letter, once she starts to get them. There is also this little Leap Frog toy that sticks to your fridge, it's called Leap Frog Fridge Phonics. You can pick them up off Ebay for abour $15-$20 inc. shipping.

 

Honestly? It's not what gadget you use, it's just the consistency of using SOMETHING. A marker and a piece of paper will work just as well as flashcards. Anything will work as long as it's repetitive for a 3yo.

[Pamela H in Texas]

The Letter Factory video is absolutely wonderful for 3yos. It was about a month for the then 3yo I was watching to learn. He started the month he turned 3. BTW, and he still remembers now, at 6.5 though he only did it a couple months at my house at 3.

 

What I did with my daughter was to make a "folder game" of sorts.

 

I cut out buses and wrote the lower case letter on them. I cut out cars and put the upper case letters on them. I cut out stop signs that had both upper and lower case. She would then push the vehicle to the sign making the sound of the letter so like "/b/, /b/, /b/" for B. Once she had the idea down, we dropped the stopsign. Of course, you can make any pictures, but my kid liked vehicles at the time.

 

I made lots of other games like that also. I think you definitely could do the slider type things to practice the alphaphonics word families, for example. You make a baseball out of construction paper, it has "all" on it. The paper that slides through the slits before the "all" has b, c, f, h, etc on it so then the kid reads off ball, call, fall, etc. You can also make little books with the Alphaphonics sentences. And of course the Bob books are similar. Alphaphonics also suggests the McGuffey Readers but you have to be through the phonics a bit to work as even the primer goes pretty fast.

 

HTHs a little,

[jjcmehl]

:iagree: with many of the other posts!

 

 

I just recently purchased a Leap Frog magnetic alphabet set. He enjoys it and uses it mostly for letters in his name and the letters we have just begun learning from Letter of the Week (www.letteroftheweek.com) (Preparatory Program). We will be getting the DVD, as well....probably as a gift for his upcoming 3rd birthday.

 

For phonics we love Alphaphonics and plan to introduce that within the next year, as well as continue with the Letter of the Week!

 

 

Christine

respectful wife to DH

mom to 4 AP kids

 

DD 8.5 (upcoming 3rd grader)

DS 6.75 (upcoming 2nd grader)

DS 2.75 (Pre-K)

DS 6 months (catching-up to his siblings, started crawling at 5 mo.)

[StartingOver]

I have to agree on the Leap Frog Letter Factory. We also have all the other DVD's and the fridge magnets. My son got the set at 2.5 and knows all his letters, upper and lower case. The sounds of all the letters. His numbers from Math Circus. He is blending words already at age 3.1 . ( Although we do some white board work now .)

[Radish4ever]

The Letter Factory DVD taught my DD the letters and their sounds in less than a week after she'd been formally exposed for over a year through other activities with me! ;) It just made it click for her

 

We also reinforce with worksheets (my DD looooooves worksheets) from those big workbooks you can purchase at Sam's/Costco

[Chris in VA]

You can also pull in sensory and gross motor activities--

 

make letters out of playdough,

get an old Twister mat and write letters on it and jump to the letters

tape down a flannel backed table cloth and put letters on that

scatter post it notes all around the house and have her hunt for letters, saying the letter or the sound each time she finds one

write letters on a beach ball, toss and catch-- say the letter her left hand lands on

chalk on a rug or outside and roll a ball to the letter that you tell her or that she picks out of a hat

make a game this way--write letters in alpha order along the top of a piece of 3x12 posterboard (long side). Attach a clothspin with a piece of yarn threaded thru a punched hole in the side of the board. Make another posterboard piece just like it (or make one capitals and one lower case). To play, sit opposite each other and say "I have a T! (clip clothespin to the T) Do you have a T?" Go back and forth.

 

YOu can be very creative.

[LisaS]

:iagree:Love the Leapfrog Letter Factory, Talking Word Factory (blending) and the Leapfrog Fridge Phonics (Magnets). These worked with little to no effort for my girls. They were 4 at the time. We also have the Word Whammer Magnetic set. They had fun making up words or trying to spell what was asked. Good luck. Make it fun and know when to quit so they don't get overwhelmed.

[matrips]

ABC puzzles. my kids learned their alphabet very quickly just by doing the alphabet puzzles. we had one that had both upper and lower case, and the pictures underneath.

[lilbean05]

Holy smokes! Lots of Leapfrog lovers! :)

 

My 2 and almost 4 year old did not care for the Leapfrog Letter Factory DVD at all. (They do very much enjoy Leapfrog Math Circus, though, so go figure!)

 

However, they absolutely LOVE Brainy Baby ABCs. http://www.amazon.com/Brainy-Baby-Introducing-Alphabet-Years/dp/B000063UYO Both of my kids are crazy about this movie--it teaches upper and lower case letters, along with their sounds.

[Narrow Gate Academy]

We used mostly games, letter magnets, and a matching puzzle for learning the alphabet. I'll link you to a few of my blog entries.

 

Learning the alphabet out on the sidewalk

Our favorite letter magnets

The matching puzzle we made and used

Other games: I wrote letters on our drawing board, called out a letter, and had them cover the letter with a Sequence chip (quarters would work too). I wrote lowercase letters on the drawing board and gave him the animals from the Fisher Price alphabet zoo. He matched the uppercase letter on the animal to the lowercase one on the board and set the animal on top of it.

 

HTH

[skaterbabs]

We introduced Dot to the Letter Factory DVD just before her 3rd birthday; within two days she knew each letter (upper and lower case) and the sound it made. we allowed her to play basically whenever she wanted on www.starfall.com and watch episode after episode of "Between the Lions" on PBS.

 

Within a year she was reading on a first grade level and sounding out phrases like "Do Not Enter."

[NicA]

Starfall.com is a great free website for learning the letters/sounds. We are also using the ETC beginner books and The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading. She is doing really well with this combination!

[LadyAberlin]

I just got hooked on phonics prek combo pack. It covers letters number and handwriting. They were having a sale. If you are interested go to their website and check the overstock section and then use the slick50 coupon code and you can get and extra 50% of the sale price. I got $400 worth of materials for $72. That includes the shipping and sales tax. I got the combo pack metioned above, the k-1st phonics pack and the spanish one.

[Matryoshka]

ABC puzzles. my kids learned their alphabet very quickly just by doing the alphabet puzzles. we had one that had both upper and lower case, and the pictures underneath.

 

:iagree: Yep. Alphabet puzzles. I did sit down and do it with them "where does the A go? Hand me the F." We had alphabet books and sang the alphabet song, but I think the puzzles are really what did it, and in a very short period of time. It's not any harder to identify an "A" than a rock or a chair or a ball - I just looked at letters as another thing we named.

 

I did not use a DVD, Leapfrog, or a curriculum of any kind for this kind of thing till they were about 4 1/2 when I started Reading Reflex. I did start associating sounds with the letters sometimes before that when they'd ask to spell their names or other short words.

 

All 3 of my kids knew all of their letters before they were 3yo this way, and none of them are gifted or anything.

[kmacnchs]

I have some Doug & Melissa puzzles around (abcs & #s) and as my dc put them together, I say "D says "d", like d,d,doggie". When they first start, they are looking for the doggie to know where to put the piece. Before long, they are saying "d,d,doggie". Once they know their letters and sounds, I made a game to put the big letter and little letter together (kind of like a puzzle) and then you turn it over and it makes a picture (if you get it right). Once my dc got that, more or less, I moved on to OPGTR. I used the magnadoodle to write what my dc had to read because the font is pretty small in OPG.

 

A magnadoodle can be a wonderful tool for guess this letter, once she starts to get them. There is also this little Leap Frog toy that sticks to your fridge, it's called Leap Frog Fridge Phonics. You can pick them up off Ebay for abour $15-$20 inc. shipping.

 

I used the leapfrog magnets...they are great!...if your dc is musically inclined.

[PeterPan]

You don't need a ready program or anything fancy, and 3 yo's don't want to do flashcards, lol. Get this http://www.amazon.com/Alphabet-Art-Z-Fingerplays-Williamson/dp/1885593147 and have fun together!! They're at the perfect age for this. We used this book when my dd was little, doing a letter of the week, and it was SO much fun. I'm looking forward to doing it again with my new little one! :)

[Guest janainaz]

My ds4.5 has been watching Leap Frog Letter Factory and it helped him so much. I give that dvd a huge thumbs up. My other son learned his letters much earlier, it just came natural, but nothing I was doing was really seeming to work with my younger one. Now he knows all the sounds the letters make, but still needs work on being able to say what they are called (he knows the sounds an "h" makes, but won't always be able to call a letter by its name). But, it's progress - huge progress.

 

I play a lot of games with ds4.5 - ABC Bingo, computer games, big letter puzzles on the floor, workbooks, etc. I just do a lot of different activities with him. I mark buckets with whatever letters I am working on with him and we throw bean bags in them - just random activities to keep him having fun while he learns.

 

However, with my older son, I used the Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading and I LOVED it. It is a fantastic reading curriculum and very thorough. My older son was reading so well at 5.5 years old because of it. It was not overwhelming and we spent about 20 minutes every day.

 

I am not sure how it will work with my younger son, he's polar opposite from my older one, but I'm going to probably incorporate a few different things in with him. He needs more visual, but when he starts being able to read words, I'm going to try.

 

Best of luck!

[mom2denj]

My dd just turned 3 and this is what will be our main focus this year:

 

http://www.homeschoolshare.com/

 

Once you click in go to lapbooking and then click into free lapbooks. You will then click into Level 2 Pre-K/K and then click on the first option Alphabet notebook. I have printed everything out for each letter and plan to do one letter a week. We will do this in notebook style. We are going to do a lapbook for each letter and then put them all in one BIG binder, and then she can go back and look and play with all the letters. I am also incorporating ABC, 123 by Shirley Erwee. We will also be using BFIAR, Sonlight P3/4 and Kumon workboooks. She loves to "do school" with her big sister!

 

PS. My dd also loves the Leap Frog letter Factory video

Good luck!

Edited July 19, 2009 by mom2denj
needed to add something

[Lisa in the UP of MI]

We also love the Leap Frog videos. We own the Letter Factory and have checked the Talking Word Factory out of the library. The Fridge Phonics is fun too. I have yet to buy the lower case letters, but did see them once at the store.

 

My favorite pre-reading/pre-writing resource is Montessori Read and Write. The activities in this book provide an outstanding foundation for future language arts skills. There are many other activities, but the main sequence includes distinguishing all of the different sounds in a word, tracing sandpaper letters to learn the sounds and shapes, and building words (spelling) with a movable alphabet. We moved from here to All About Spelling. She got a little over halfway through level 1 and we've been taking a break since May. One day her reading just exploded so I've been just letting her read, read, read.

 

We'll be doing Handwriting Without Tears for my oldest this year and I'm going to get some of the extras for my younger kids. I think they'll enjoy the fun, hands-on ways to build the letters and it will be a good way to get them involved during dd's lessons.

[Guest]

You don't need a ready program or anything fancy, and 3 yo's don't want to do flashcards, lol. Get this http://www.amazon.com/Alphabet-Art-Z-Fingerplays-Williamson/dp/1885593147 and have fun together!! They're at the perfect age for this. We used this book when my dd was little, doing a letter of the week, and it was SO much fun. I'm looking forward to doing it again with my new little one! :)

 

:iagree:

 

This is kind of the approach that we have taken.

My favorite blogs/websites for doing letter of the week type activities are:

Brightly Beaming Resources - Letter of the Week

No Time for Flashcards

Totally Tots

 

If I had to start all over and money was not an object, I think My Father's World K looks like a really fun program.

 

We are using Spell to Write and Read, so we've gotten a lot of fun ideas from the curriculum on learning letters and re-inforcing them. My son loves making letters in sand and salt.

[NoPlaceLikeHome]

My ds watched Between the Lions from PBS everyday from 3-6 years of age. I taped them for him so he could watch 2 or more a day:) It is also available on DVD in libraries or on Discovery Education United Streaming. I also turned on the closed captioning.

 

He also loved starfall.com and all of the Leap frog videos:)

 

I think the above along with me reading tons of books to him with occasional sounding out of words to him helped him a lot. He now reads at a 7.5 grade at 7 years of age:)

[nanraj]

Chris,

 

Thanks for all the neat ideas below. I really like them. I am going to implement some of them starting this week.

 

Thanks,

Nan

 

You can also pull in sensory and gross motor activities--

 

make letters out of playdough,

get an old Twister mat and write letters on it and jump to the letters

tape down a flannel backed table cloth and put letters on that

scatter post it notes all around the house and have her hunt for letters, saying the letter or the sound each time she finds one

write letters on a beach ball, toss and catch-- say the letter her left hand lands on

chalk on a rug or outside and roll a ball to the letter that you tell her or that she picks out of a hat

make a game this way--write letters in alpha order along the top of a piece of 3x12 posterboard (long side). Attach a clothspin with a piece of yarn threaded thru a punched hole in the side of the board. Make another posterboard piece just like it (or make one capitals and one lower case). To play, sit opposite each other and say "I have a T! (clip clothespin to the T) Do you have a T?" Go back and forth.

 

YOu can be very creative.

[nanraj]

Wow, What a great response ! Thanks to everyone who took the time to answer my query. It was definitely enlightening going through all the responses. Based on the responses I got, these are the things I am going to do.

 

1. Rent Letter factory from netflix.

2. Do sandpaper letters and moveable alphabets (from montessori read and write book).

3. Letter of the week.

4. Read lots of books (I am doing this already).

5. Implement creative ways to teach them the alphabets.

6. Melissa and Doug alphabet puzzles.

 

Thanks again everyone. I really appreciate your ideas and input.

 

-Nan

[Tidbits of Learning]

The reading lesson has a dvd that teaches the letter sounds. I'm not sure of putting links in a reply, but all you have to do is go to their site and under products it is The Sounds of Letters.

As far as flashcards go Brainy Baby flashcards are great b/c it has real pictures and I have taught both my sons with them. It only took a short time.

We use sandpaper letters to learn formation of letters. We also only teach the sounds not the name of the letters first. After they really have the sounds down and you are working on writing the letters, you can teach the name. After my child knew the sounds we started flashcards and I always did it showing the letter "The A says ___ (aa) then flip to the picture and say apple. That way they are getting the name and sound.

My son is 2.5 and we have used the brainy baby flashcards for the alphabet, numbers, shapes, and colors, and we have animals too. It is low key and we don't drill. Often he will dump them out and quiz me holding a card up and wanting me to give the sound or he picks them up and says the sound and then turns it over and says the name of the picture for that letter. We did work on it a few letters at a time when I was teaching the sounds though.

He has always just had access to them and he knew most of this between 2 and 2.5 just by playing.

[Truscifi]

I didn't read through all the previous responses, so someone may have already said this...but I really liked the method used at ds's Montessori school. They cut letters out of fine sandpaper and glued them on cardstock to make flashcards that ds could run his finger over to feel the shape of the letter. Of course, they said the name of the letter and the letter sound at the same time.

[Tidbits of Learning]

I didn't read through all the previous responses, so someone may have already said this...but I really liked the method used at ds's Montessori school. They cut letters out of fine sandpaper and glued them on cardstock to make flashcards that ds could run his finger over to feel the shape of the letter. Of course, they said the name of the letter and the letter sound at the same time.

 

Yep, sandpaper letters are great! Polliwog Learning has a really good set that will stand up to the roughest of toddlers. I have pics of my 2.5 year old using sandpaper letters and a link to how to use them the Montessori way. I just don't know if I am supposed to do links yet and exactly how to put them in a reply.