Learning Letters, Phonics, Etc. - Please Help!

[Hartingirl]

WOW! Thank you!

First, I am so VERY sorry that it took so long for me to come back to this with a response. It has been a crazy couple of weeks.

I want to thank every one of you so much for sharing your ideas and what you've done that has been successful! I am continuously reminded of the wealth of information present among all of you and I am so grateful that I am able to come here for help!

I will look into Zoo Phonics! I am very interested!

Also, Unregistered, what fantastic information! I wish I knew who you were so I could PM you. I would LOVE to pick your brain about a couple of other things. If you happen to see this post anytime soon, and are free for a further chat, I would be immensely appreciative for your help!

Once again, thank you all!!!

[lovemykidstoo]

Good thread. I have mostly 2 and 3 year olds and of course all I hear from parents is if they know letters, colors etc. I also think 3 is too early to master alphabet skills. I'm going to go back and re-read to get tips.

[MarinaVanessa]

One thing to consider however is that no matter how many times we are told that letter recognition/sounds needs to wait it's an expectation in our schools for them to already be familiar with them. In our school district anyway.

In my area we have an extra "grade" that is pretty much between pre-K and Kindergarten called Transitional Kindergarten. Kids around here are expected to go to pre-K, then T-K and then Kinder even if none are required by law. Here when you enter Kinder the kid's are expected to know how to recognize and spell their names as well as the names of the letters in their names, their colors, shapes, counting to 10 by rote etc and I'm sitting here like ... what? Isn't that what Kindergarten is for? My 1st grade DS is full-blown reading right now and that's great and all but it was difficult for him. He had massive meltdowns at school because I don't think he was developmentally ready at 4 years old (in T-K) to have the rigidness of strict rules like sit still, stay in your seat, focus on your work, raise your hand before you speak etc.

So even though I do work on these things with my daycare kids I do it in a more relaxed way and play-based way because if I don't and these poor kids start school not knowing anything they're going to have a very rough time in school and will be very behind.

[Unregistered]

Good evening!

I feel like I'm at a loss. I have mostly 3 and 4 year olds and run preschool hours in the afternoon. I feel pretty good about everything, our units, etc. and I really feel like the children are learning so much.

However, I'm really stuck with regard to teaching the alphabet, letter recognition, phonics, etc. I've been researching and it seems like there are so many methods. I would love any advice with regard to 1) the order of skills I should focus on, 2) materials and/or resources. I feel like I'm lacking with materials (real objects, etc.) and I just feel overwhelmed with where to start.

I've been introducing a new letter every week, focusing on letter recognition, and then we do a craft, but my children are just not retaining the information.

Please tell me what you do. I would love a standardized system for how to do this, but I'm in my first year, and struggling with hands-on materials. I'm not a worksheet kinda gal.

Thanks SO MUCH for any advice you can provide!

Not sure if others have suggested this... I personally don’t like letter of the week. I like to start with children’s names and the names of people they love/their friends. I start with just the initial sounds/letters of the names, then when they show an interest and start to recognize a few letters I teach them all the letters in their name. Don’t forget to play lots of rhyming games and alliteration (first sounds of the word) games. And before writing they should feel good about making pre-writing sorts of lines/drawing more then scribbles, etc. My own daughter was hesitant to start writing her name even though she knew the letters and their sounds, so we made a dry erase mat with her name and made playdough letter and then traced them... then SHE asked to write it by tracing with dry erase marker. I never push early learning skills down their throats, just make it available and jump on it when they take an interest.

[LK5kids]

I'm the former pre-k, kindergarten teacher who wrote the long, long post! Couldn't log in for awhile as I'd forgotten my password and didn't get around to changing it.....anyway I just noticed an error! I typed learning to read right to left, not once but twice! Good grief!

So, yeah a mistake in typing! Of course it's left to right! Sorry!

[Trust DayCare]

Hi,

You might find any material for learning Letters, Phonics etc at education.com they charge a small amount of fee but very worth it and they offer free download too.

Or you might interested to check our activities and see what our children doing at our daycare here



Looking forward to hear any thoughts here

Best,

Trust DayCare

[flying_babyb]

Mine love the letter sounds song, We have to do it as the first thing at group!
A says AH AH AH AH
B says Bah Bah Bah Bah

this is such a popular song, the kids now sing it at free play, bathroom time, dancing time, on the playground ect!

[Abigail]

Does anyone have the order of alphabet introduced in handwriting without tears curriculum or if they even have a recommended list? Someone I know teaches her letters not specifically letter of the week but they do one worksheet that practices the formation of the letter and they do 2-4 a month October thru Mid-May. She started with TLFE and now is with HICU so it was more along the lines of straight lines moving into curvy. They practice writing their names often but I wish I just had a simple "cheat sheet" to base everything off. ha ha!

[Blackcat31]

Does anyone have the order of alphabet introduced in handwriting without tears curriculum or if they even have a recommended list? Someone I know teaches her letters not specifically letter of the week but they do one worksheet that practices the formation of the letter and they do 2-4 a month October thru Mid-May. She started with TLFE and now is with HICU so it was more along the lines of straight lines moving into curvy. They practice writing their names often but I wish I just had a simple "cheat sheet" to base everything off. ha ha!

Is this what you are looking for?

https://www.lwtears.com/files/HWT-TEACHING-ORDER-PRINT.pdf

[Abigail]

Is this what you are looking for?

https://www.lwtears.com/files/HWT-TE...RDER-PRINT.pdf

That was interesting to read. It makes sense, but then it seems to change based off whether you teach upper case vs. lower case and I want to have a method to my madness why I teach both upper and lower case at the same time just depends on the age and ability of the child. The preschool who was teaching this curriculum started with all straight lines and just now are introducing the letter C and just finished I. I'm wondering if anyone else has heard of what order works best?