How to Teach the Alphabet to preschoolers

Before we jump into how to teach the alphabet, many parents and early childhood educators question When do kids learn the alphabet?

You might have seen conflicting information or opinions that teaching the alphabet at a young age isn’t developmentally appropriate.

In the title we’re making the assumption that preschoolers are ready to learn the alphabet. 

They are.

Teaching the alphabet to preschoolers sets the foundation for reading and writing and the child’s literacy. Children are naturally curious and interested in learning new things, so they are generally ready to start learning the alphabet around the age of two or three.

So, most preschoolers will show eagerness to learn the alphabet letters if it is in a way that is fun and engaging.

Additionally, most state literacy standards for early learning in Pre K include variations of

• Identify print in everyday life including numbers, letters, and letters in their own name
• Recognize that letters make sounds and grouped together make words
• Able to identify and print some uppercase and lowercase letters

This, coupled with preschoolers natural curiosity to learn, here are a few developmentally appropriate ways to do that.

Encourage Letter Recognition through Unstructured Play

Children learn and develop through play and hands-on experiences. Unstructured play promotes the child’s brain development, helping to grow new neural connections in the brain. Therefore, independent play sets the foundation for the young child’s brain development, boosting its plasticity (the brain’s ability to change with learning) and flexibility (the brain’s capacity to think about different concepts simultaneously or switch between thinking about different ideas).

Children use flexible thinking to learn to read and write. It is the skill that helps them distinguish between the letters of the alphabet and recognize the letter names.

Furthermore, experiential learning allows children to use their senses and make connections. Hands-on learning will enable kids to explore alphabet letters through play, helping them naturally develop language and literacy.

This looks like scheduling free time in your daily schedule where the child can choose activities initiated by themselves. You can create an environment that encourages this by filling your centers with open-ended props like:

• Blocks of different shapes and sizes in your block center
• Recycled cardboard, paper towel tubes and painters tape in your science center
• Sheets of blank paper with crayons or markers in your literacy center
• Literacy rich toys like magnet letters with a magnetic board

The key is child-initiated, making the play open ended with no outcome or product.

Use Tactile Letter Cards to Teach the Alphabet

This is an excellent letter recognition activity that relies on multisensory learning. Multisensory learning is based on the premises that learning is most effective when it involves the whole brain. Multisensory learning activates two or more child’s senses simultaneously, helping kids get the most from this experience.

Tactile letter cards are a perfect way to incorporate the tactile sense while learning the alphabet. Think of things you have around your house or classroom that have texture and can be glued to a sheet of paper.  Things like colored sand, glitter, rice, pom-poms, pipe cleaners, various fabrics, etc.

• Print or handwrite letter cards
• Fill the letter outline with glue and add your desired material to provide different tactile surfaces.

Show your students how to use their fingers to trace the letter’s shape and encourage them to say the sound the letter makes.

Sing Together with Movement to Teach the Alphabet Letters and Sounds

This is another form of multisensory learning where children are engaging in two or more senses. Singing, seeing and moving to learn each letter helps our active learners engage, especially those with ADHD, autism, down syndrome and other learning disabilities.

Use Manipulative Play to Teach the Alphabet

Manipulative play is a type of play in which kids use their hands and feet to explore the objects. Encourage kids to use a variety of manipulative items to shape letters.

Some of the items you can use are: arts and crafts items, building blocks and bricks, play-doh, construction sets, buttons, food items (dry pasta, grapes, cherry tomatoes), pom-poms, stickers, small rocks, seashells, coins, and crayons. Allow your students to explore these items under your supervision.

Besides learning the alphabet in a fun way, manipulative play can boost the child’s fine motor, foster hand-eye coordination, promote creativity, encourage classification and pattern recognition, and more.

Stock your environment with purposeful print and make it accessible to teach the Alphabet

• Daily “Sign-in” – draw a unique picture (or use student’s picture) and student’s name on a label with Velcro on the back.  Each day they need to find their name and stick it to an attendance board or their cubbie. Eventually you can remove the picture and just have the student’s name on the label.
• Label your centers with words and pictures
• Place letter tiles in your literacy center
• Create a classroom book with pictures of your students and their names written below their picture and place it into your reading area
• Hang your alphabet posters at eye level and encourage your students to interact with it

Read Together

Reading helps preschoolers learn the letters and get to know the sounds, words, and language, which is the foundation for early literacy skills development.

Use a range of picture books, alphabet books, nursery rhymes, etc. during your circle time and read them together. Books with colorful pictures and illustrations are the most stimulating ones for the young child’s brain. While reading, point to the letters in the book and name them. Ask preschoolers to recognize the letters of specific words like their name.

Reading books is one of their favorite circle time activities, and repeating this activity every day helps kids learn the alphabet at a young age.

The key to teaching the alphabet is to be consistent, offer multiple fun ways to engage in learning the letters, and immerse their environment with print.

These simple and fun activities can help preschoolers recognize uppercase and lowercase letters, the sounds each letter makes, trace and learn to write the letters, providing and an excellent foundation for future reading and writing.

What things are you doing in the classroom to learn the alphabet?

Some of the printables featured on this page can be found here.