|
Letter Knowledge |
Letter knowledge is realizing the difference between how letters look, their names and their sounds: |
- Help identify the first letter of their name
- Introduce the letters of the alphabet
- Make children aware that letters have different sounds
|
Activities you can do together : |
- Talk about things around you; say what is alike and what is different.
- Help children recognize shapes
- Point out letters around you
|
0 - 2 years old |
Draw shapes in bright colors or cut out shapes from brightly colored paper. Show your baby the shapes and say their names. When you play with a ball with your baby, let Baby feel the ball. Say, “The ball is round.”
Talk about what is alike and what is different. For example, when you are outside you may see a bus and a van. Talk about how they are alike and how they are different. Do the same with a skirt and a dress, pants and shorts. Draw and compare a square and a circle, a square and a rectangle. |
ABC: A Child’s First Alphabet Book
by Alison Jay |
Baby Food
by Margaret Miller |
Big Fish, Little Fish
by Edward Heck |
Color Farm
by Lois Ehlert |
Eating the Alphabet: Fruits & Vegetables from A to Z by Lois Ehlert |
Let’s Play
by Michel Blake |
My Very First Book of Shapes
by Eric Carle |
Over Under
by Marthe Jocelyn |
Shapes
by Little Scholastic Series
|
Shapes All Around
by DK Publishing |
2 – 3 years old |
Letters are made of shapes. Read a book about shapes. Cut some shapes out of a colorful sheet of paper for your child. Take two more sheets of paper, one for each of you. Glue the shapes to make a design or picture. Talk about the shapes and what you each made together. |
A Big and little Alphabet
by Liz Rosenberg |
The ABC bunny
by Wanda Gág |
Black and White Rabbit’s ABC
by Alan Baker |
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
by Bill Martin |
City Signs
by Zoran Milich |
Eye Spy Shapes
by Debbie MacKinnon |
Little Cloud
by Eric Carle |
Max’s ABC
by Rosemary Wells |
Mouse Shapes
by Ellen Stoll Walsh |
The Wing on a Flea: A Book About Shapes by Ed Emberley |
3 – 5 years old |
Play a matching game. Start with five letters. Write one letter on each card, making two cards for each letter. Have your child name the letter and find a match. You can make the game easier or harder depending on what your child knows. For example:
|
All upper case letters
All lower case letters
Letters that look very different
Letters that look similar
Match the upper case letter to the lower case one
Have more or less than five letters at a time
|
All Aboard ABC
by Doug Magee and Robert Newman |
Alphabeep: A Zipping, Zooming ABC by Debora Pearson |
Alphabet Under Construction
by Denise Fleming |
Curious George’s ABC’s
by H. A. Rey |
Dr. Seuss’s ABC
by Dr. Seuss |
It Begins With an A
by Stephanie Calmenson |
Kitten’s First Full Moon
by Kevin Henkes |
Letters & Sounds
by Rosemary Wells |
Old Black Fly
by Jim Aylesworth |
The Alphabet Tree
by Leo Lionni |
| |
