I found a large piece of fabric with each alphabet letter in a big box on sale at a teacher's shop. (I am going to make one with blends, etc next) Anyway, my son likes to spread the "map" out and throw beanbags at the letters and then he has to say a word that starts with that letter. (If he is really wiggly I will have him play "Simon Says"- walk two blocks to your right- and use that letter). You can also cut out big circles and put a letter on each circle (make a large ring of circles using 10-12 letters or so)- then play "Cake Walk". Start some music and the child (and you) walk around the circles. Stop the music and say a word using the letter you are standing on. Collect points- the first one to 10 gets a cupcake! Make flashcards using family photos. Put a picture on one side of the card (I make two sets so we can play Concentration too). The child turns a card over and says the name and the letter sound at the beginning (or end...) "That's Hannah, with an H." This is helpful for relatives that live far away too! Have your daughter play "school". Bring out her stuffed animals and line them up on the couch. You write each animals name on an index card in big letters. She matches the card to the animal, and tells you the beginning letter (or the third letter, or the vowel, etc). She can use these flashcards as practice too. Hope that helps! momandteacherx3
Don't look at it as an old thread. Look at as a persisting resource for others who have alphabet trouble. Besides, I just found out we do not know our alphabet. LOL Had my student fill in blanks with the l.c. and u.c. for the letters I called out randomly. We had trouble with 5. Hmmm? We can read at a second grade level, the letters can be named from cards etc. The sounds that the letters make are correctly asociated with the letters, but I suppose we had not learned the names of the letters in association with the symbols both backwards and forward. Thank goodness for stinky pop quzzes. I have found more weakness this way. -- Mean ole Mom.
This may have already been posted but I had the same problem with my son. (middle child). I got the floor puzzle, the games, did a letter a week, everything! What worked for him was LeapFrog's Letter Factory video. Watched it every day for 2 weeks and could recognize not only upper and lower case letters but also the sounds they make. (he was about 3 1/2 when he did this). The other thing I did to really reinforce it with him was on starfall.com (sorry, not allow to post URL's yet). All the materials there are free and very cool. He's now 5 and we're learning to read and he's picking it up so easily b/c he knows the sounds already.
kbabe1968 - checked out the website - WOW my 2 year old granddaughter loved it. She played for a while. She wants to hs with her brother all the time. We will be using this site often. Thanks
My daughters also watched LeapFrog's Letter Factory. That is a WONDERFUL video. Truely entertaining and educational at the same time. After they get that down, the Talking Words Factory is a good video to follow. Equally as good but starts putting letters together to make words.
My daugther has a speech delay which effects her ability to sit and learn. I heard her singing the song from the Letter Factory the other day. It is the first time she has ever sang a song correctly. Her speech delay has effected her ability to sing the correct words to songs. But by golly, she was singing "The A says ah. The A says ah. All the letters make a sound. The A says ah." I was shocked!
COOL!!!! Glad the starfall site was a hit. It's a hit in our house too. I ended up using it as curriculum to teach my daughter to read 2 years ago. I'm now using it in conjunction with our curriculum for my son. His LA book has him reading simple words, and the starfall is great PLUS it's FREE!!! I love FREE!!!
Wow great ideas. I make letter themes and have a letter chalanged child myself. But you have oodles more ideas then me TinaTx! Do you mind if I copy and paste them into Word? Couple of things, which I don't think I have seen? using laminated letters to play hopscotch with. Chalk and some concrete would be fine too. Letter Muncher Monster. I used a printout of the big green monster, with his mouth cut out and pasted onto cardboard. He can then be fed whatever letter he is hungry for.
