[Lovenest]

My 4 year old son knows some letters, but he has been more and more interested in wanting to learn more.

We play a flash card game with numbers.
We made cards 1-20. You put them face down on the floor, then you pick one and say the number, then count the objects on it (foam stickers) and then you get to pick out whatever amount it was in food. We usually use gold fish.

So, I have been racking my brain as how I could use this game in some sort of alphabet form. He really has liked this game and it has worked. Or any other games that anyone has used before that work.
Thanks for any help!

 

[chel]

I gave my dd a mini choc chip when she would say the correct letter name as we read a book that had a picture find on each page for each letter. I don't really think it helped dd learn but it was good to limit the amount of sugar.

 

[boatbaby]

www.starfall.com

My DS learned t ID all of his letters by about 20 months by playing on starfall

It's catchy and fun and now at 25 months he is starting to say things like "S goes ssssssssss snake!" All just fun - NEVER drilling. All at his request.

That and lots of reading and fun alphabet puzzles.

 

[~*SugarMama*~]

With my DS, we just named the letters that we saw everywhere. Until he was in k (which is his only year in school) he just didn't have a real interest. We tried workbooks, games (like Boggle Jr), videos, etc but nothing sparked his interest.

With DD....she has just sponged off of whatever we did with DS. Without actually "teaching" her her letters, she has picked up an amazing amount on her own. It could be because she enjoys sitting and listening to us read where as DS needs to be on the move. Or it could be because she is the younger one and is just learning via osmosis. Or maybe she is just more "ready" than he was.

Not sure and I didn't really help answer your question. Sorry about that.

 

[embers]

I broke down and bought the Leap Frog fridge magnets. My son LOVES them, and it has helped with letters and sounds... and he just seems to really enjoy focus play with them, lining up letters and asking me to sound them out together, etc. Not a bad $20 spent - and it is not very loud and does not have stupid random sounds or lights or any of that crap.

I think that Study Dog is a bit drilling, but my son is AMAZING at the computer (Starfall is a fav), and he really likes Study Dog. You can download the game for free and check it out... just do a Google search...

Reading to him helps, because then he sits and revisits the book again and again, and starts to recognize some of the words, etc. We all love to read together.

We do colleges - cut things out of junk mail, newspaper, magizines, and intentional pictures and stuff printed off the computer. I write big capatol letters on white envelopes, and then fill them with the cut out words and pictures based on that letter, and some different fonts of the letter printed from the computer. Then, my son gets to pick one of the envelopes, and get get to work! We either grab a sheet of printer paper or a piece of cardboard, and he grabs a glue stick. Then we repeat the letter over and over again while doing our project - talking about each picture, etc. He loves arranging where each piece needs to go to make the final artistic project... Then we hang it in his room! That night, we talk about the one he just made, and look at and go over the others, too. This is a LOT of fun for both of us!

 

[sunnmama]

I never did it, but remember reading about reusing milk cartons to teach letters. Stick pieces of paper with one letter on each side (so, at any given time, there are 4 different letters on the carton). Then roll it, and have dc name the letter that comes up. Sounded like fun to me!

It seems to me that, the letters dd had difficulty remembering, she finally mastered thru learning to write them. Makes sense, because I remember things better if I write them, too!

 

[Tori Gollihugh]

We had a package of nice letter flash cards from somewhere and DD wanted to go through them over and over. I never really even tried to make it a game, she just WANTED to learn it all! When either of us started to get frustrated, we stopped. That way it was always something she asked to do (or I asked if she wanted to have "class" and we did if she did).

Often, I think, children just LOVE to learn so much that we really don't have to TRY to make it fun... it IS fun! AND, if we share our enthusiasm for education and love of their intelligence, they will want to learn and learn some more as a natural offshoot of that and a desire to please and to BE smart. Ya know?

 

[mags]

My son loves starfall. He has the leapfrog alphabet magnet toy, but didn't play much with it until recently. Ppl here recommended the leapfrog letter factor dvd and my son loves it. He has only watched it a few times, but learned a LOT about sounds and recognition from that too.

One of the very first games we did was I bought those foam letters that you can use in the bathtime and we'd kind of play with those at bathtime and this was pretty much his first exposure to letters. I think that out of everything though that the starfall and the leapfrog dvd have helped the most. He loves starfall and enjoys the dvd too. He will randomly point at letters and say the name of the letter and sound it out and he will also randomly point to certain letters of a word and tell me what they are. This is a kid who loves being read to though, so he's had a lot of exposure to books ever since he was a young baby.

 

[emiLy]

My daughter learned this really early, at the same time she learned to recognize animals. Maybe like 10-12 months? I was drawing animals on a piece of paper for her and we were saying what sound the animal makes. I ran out of animals to draw, so I started writing the noises: BAAAA

Then I realized I could just draw M and say mmmm, P and say puh, etc. That's how she learned letters (and the sounds they make). Later on she learned the names of the letters.

My daughter also really loves starfall!

 

[griffin2004]

I try to hit as many learning styles as I can with DD (3 1/2). For example, I'll print out several bold capital A's, B's, and C's on a page and she'll trace them with her finger and then a crayon. Then we'll spread out her alphabet cards (the A card has a capital A and a picture of an apple on it) and pick out the A, the B, the C. Then we start with the A card, she'll run into the kitchen and get the Leap Pad A magnet off the fridge, then she'll run back to me to "test" the magnet in the little speaker thingy to make sure we got the right letter.

I also painted the alphabet and numbers 1-10 down one of our hallways and in her bedroom at her eye level so we say those and point to them whenever we walk by.

We also use the Leap Frog Radio. I like the random feature where it calls out a letter and the child has several chances to push the correct letter button.

I have no idea if any of this is "working" but the tracing, running, testing, etc. keeps a physical learner interested. She was able to correctly choose A-G from the fridge magnets by herself, so I think some of it is sinking in.

We're just starting to find letters we know when we're out and about.

 

[blessed]

It's pretty easy to incorporate letters and words into daily life, which I find a more natural and easy way to 'teach'. Of course, this may not hold true if you're living in a community in which english is not the native written and spoken language.

I agree with tying each letter to works which have meaning for your dc. The names of friends and relatives are especially easy for them to remember when starting out (e.g. 'Look! H! H for Hannah!').

I don't like quizzing dd, and I think that you risk taking the natural fun and curiosity out of it if you push too hard about this. So although I occasionally use flashcards, I mostly exclaim over what we're seeing and rarely prompt dd to come up with answers on her own - at least at this age (2.5). But as they've become familiar to her she tends to spout out answers on her own, and then I congratulate her.

We keep water inkpens in the tub and that provides a daily mini lesson. I'll ask dd 'what word do you want to write today?' and it's often something from a book we've been reading, or the name of someone she loves. Then I just write the word on the side of the tub and leave it there while she bathes.

I think it's the constant, no pressure, light and fun exposure that makes it seem to just come naturally.

 

[julie128]

We have tons of letter (and number) books such as the Dr. Seuss alphabet book, and I would read them to my daughter, and I didn't even realize that she was actually learning the letters until she started writing them. She wasn't even 3 at the time. We also have magnet letters on the fridge, but I think that seeing the letters in context is much better. Now, we will be driving and my 2 2/4 y.o. will see a P for parking and shout out, "It's a P!" And the older one will be reading street signs.