As preschool kids are beginning to learn the alphabet, you can introduce word games and repetitive activities to reinforce their learning and help them learn to read and write. Through hands-on, play-based activities, they will master the alphabet and develop a strong vocabulary.
You Are The Role Model
The best place to begin teaching preschoolers is by displaying the type of activity you want to see. When children see their parents and other role models reading books, thumbing through magazines, and writing notes they accept those activities as commonplace and adopt them as their own. Try playing word search games and teaching your children how to play as well.
Dry Erase Boards
To practice writing the alphabet, a dry erase board is a great tool. Letters can be drawn along horizontal lines with practice spaces beside them on the board. You can even use a different color to make a dotted outline of the letter, effectively making the exercise a self-correcting one. Because the boards are reusable, you can invent different simple games and make them more complex as the children learn.
Pangram Games
A pangram is a sentence that contains every letter of the alphabet at least once. The game is to go through the alphabet in order, finding each letter in the sentence you are using. As an example, one of the best-known pangrams is used to test typewriters (and typists!) and looks like this:
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
As their education progresses, the game can be used in the opposite manner, with children creating their own pangrams and experimenting with language and vocabulary.
Songs and Pictures
Classic methods for learning the alphabet still apply today. The alphabet song, for example, has been in use since at least 1835. Picture books that feature individual letter helps children associate words with images and gives them the basic tools necessary for future reading.
Learning the alphabet is the doorway to learning everything they want to know about the world they live in, and children will readily practice and experiment with it if given the opportunity. As parents and educators, our task is to make those opportunities available and offer encouragement along the way.
