Teaching Letters and Sounds to Preschoolers Is Not Just Teaching the ABC Song

I’ve been a speech-language pathologist for 25 years. When I’m doing speech remedy with kids as younger as three years outdated to right error sounds of their speech, I’m very conscious that since they aren’t but readers, they don’t have the identical understanding of sounds and letters that older kids have already got. Some preschool kids are conscious of letters and should know the alphabet track. The connection between a letter and a sound, nonetheless, just isn’t usually one thing that kids be taught till they attend pre-k or kindergarten. That is a lot later than the connection needs to be made. Letters and sounds are totally different ideas and it’s as essential to show the connection between the 2 as it’s to show the letters themselves. I train the letter identify paired with the written letter after which train the sound that the letter makes. These are all taught on the identical time to present the youngsters a full understanding of the connections and provides them good primary information to assist them be taught studying abilities extra simply.

Dad and mom will usually train their kids the basic alphabet track that’s sung to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. A track is a good way for individuals of any age to memorize info. You will need to additionally pair what the youngsters are singing to an image of the letters as they’re singing them. If there is no such thing as a concrete connection made between the letter that’s sung and heard and the letter that’s written and seen, then the youngsters are simply studying a random track. Studying the label for an image or an object is how these preschoolers have already realized the vocabulary that they know. Dad and mom have supplied labels to issues within the kid’s atmosphere. All kids ought to have an alphabet poster or chart of some type that needs to be introduced out when the ABC track is sung. They need to be taught to the touch every letter as they’re singing it. It will keep away from that single “LMNOP” cluster that they clearly suppose is one letter.

The following step for the youngsters to be taught is that each letter makes a sound. This phrase will assist them be taught that there’s a distinction between a letter and a sound that it makes. The identical chart can be utilized when educating the youngsters that every letter makes a sound. I like to make use of a track that I heard in a pre-k classroom with all of my children in speech remedy. I take the sound that they’re concentrating on and put it into the track. The track is to the tune of “sizzling cross buns” and it could go like this: “D says duh, D says duh, each letter makes a sound and D says duh.” This can be utilized with each sound. I exploit the quick vowel sounds when singing the vowels. When vowels are lengthy they are saying their very own letter identify. The youngsters will be taught the foundations for when a vowel says its personal identify after they be taught guidelines for studying at school. The quick vowels are discovered extra typically, so I consider it is smart to reveal the youngsters to this When singing vowels use quick sounds “a” (as), “e” (mattress), “i” (in), “o” (on), “u” (up). These are usually more durable for teenagers to be taught for studying and writing and any jump-start is useful. The pre-k classroom picks one letter every week to focus on after which does actions all week with that sound. Artwork actions, looking for issues that begin with that sound and so on. I recommend that oldsters do the identical factor. Because the weeks progress, you add to the size of the sound track and blend the letters up so they aren’t realized solely so as. This work on pairing sounds and letters will give your little one an important bounce on early studying abilities. We are likely to neglect that simply because a toddler can sing the alphabet track does not imply that he is aware of his letters. He merely is aware of a track if the written letter and the sound of the letter just isn’t taught on the identical time.