Are you wondering how to teach the alphabet to preschoolers? Or just looking for ideas? You’ll find hundreds of ideas for playful learning at The Measured Mom®.
My oldest had a fascination for letters before she could talk. Even though she didn’t even call me Mommy until she was over two, she knew all her letters and added the sounds as soon as she could talk. Her younger brother picked them up just as quickly.
But it doesn’t work that way for everyone — and when my third little one was pushing three and still knew only a handful of letters, I knew I had to try a different tactic.
In fact, my decision to start a letter of the week study at our house and keep myself accountable was the very reason I began this blog. I’d like to share some simple ways to teach the alphabet to preschoolers – and direct you to a giant set of resources that will keep it fun!
How to teach the alphabet to preschoolers
1. Read, read, and read. Read nursery rhymes, rhyming books, picture books and chapter books. Just READ.
2. Notice print in the world around you. Call attention to exit signs, the toothpaste tube, and the Cheerios box.
3. Begin letter learning by helping your child learn the letters of his name. Before I start a more organized approach to teaching the alphabet to my preschoolers, they learn to recognize the letters of their name. For many playful ideas for name learning, visit my Early Literacy Pinterest board.
4. Teach the alphabet letter by letter. Not every early childhood teacher uses the Letter of the Week approach; many children learn their alphabet without it (my oldest two did). But I’ve found that Letter of the Week has been a helpful structure for me when designing learning activities at home. Even if you use more of a theme or unit approach to teaching preschoolers, you’ll find a huge variety of learning activities in my alphabet archives.
And when you purchase my Letter of the Week curriculum, you’ll have all the activities organized in an easy to follow format!
If you take one week per letter, you’ll have time to:
- read books for each letter
- do fine motor activities
- learn simple rhymes and songs
- create some fun crafts and art projects
- make math connections
- have some sensory fun
(And more! It’s all in the ebook! )
4. Keep bringing it back to the whole alphabet. If we’re doing a lot of meaningful activities, we will keep coming back to the whole alphabet.
5. Be flexible. You may find that after a few months of letter of the week, your child suddenly recognizes every letter. Awesome! Don’t feel tied to this series. Pick and choose what (if any) activities you’d like to continue with. Even if you don’t continue Letter of the Week, your child will still benefit from listening to the many wonderful books I recommend in my alphabet book lists. You might also enjoy choosing some crafts and process art activities to do each week. And math activities certainly don’t need to be tied to a particular letter!
6. Keep it fun. One way to keep your alphabet learning enjoyable is to include music. We love listening to Heidisongs’ alphabet songs for the car. Also remember that kids this age learn best through play. They don’t need fancy flash cards or loads of worksheets. They need a variety of activities to stimulate their brains and to reach them the way that they learn best.
You know your children better than anyone. Choose the activities that your child needs — the ones that your child will love. I’ll provide a big set of ideas for each letter — not so you’ll do every one, but so that you have a lot to choose from when you pick what works best for your kids.
You can find crafts, books, math connections and more by clicking on these links. And remember, if you’d like a set of ideas clearly laid out in ebook format, you can purchase from my shop.
Looking for more alphabet resources?
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You’ll learn
- The pros and cons of Letter of the Week
- 7 Tips for making Letter of the Week work for you
- Answers to common questions about teaching the alphabet
- What Letter of the Week should look like
- The best activities for learning letters and their sounds
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Check out our two free series for playful ideas!
Wow ee! What a busy teaching mom you are. I just found your site today and can hardly believe all the things you have for free. I was wondering if you have ideas for teaching letter sounds to a kindergarten student who is struggling with letter sounds and letter ID?
I love all the ideas that are hands on and pre-school oriented, but I need something a parent and teacher could do daily. Any ideas?
Thank you!
Hello, Denise! Wow, I’m so sorry that this comment slipped under my radar. Not a surprise though, I was actually giving birth to my baby girl the day you wrote it! I have a feeling of deja vu – like maybe I communicated to you via email. If not, please reply to this comment and I’ll see if I can direct you to some helpful resources.
I would love some suggestions on this topic as well! We are homeschooling our 6 year old this year for kindergarten and he is struggling with letter identification and sounds. Any advice would be sooo helpful and appreciated!!
Amy, if you send me an email I can talk to you more about what he struggles with and give you some suggestions! Write me at themeasuredmom@gmail.com.
Anna,
Can I email you too? I am working with three kindergartener that just can’t seem to learn the letters and letter sounds. I am in need of some new strategies to help these students.
Congratulations on your recent addition tot he family. You did answer me in a previous email and suggested a link to another site too. So no worries..
I love your website. I have a question. Have you done activities for S and R yet? I can’t seem to find them 🙁 we are starting with some sticker dot activities the kids I work with love them 🙂
Hi Jen!
I am still sharing learning activities for R and S over the next month, but due to lots of emails I finished up the dot sticker pages. You can see them all here: https://www.themeasuredmom.com/dot-sticker-pages/
I truly appreciate your helpful links/pictures/ideas/and activities!! I have been trying to find some great curriculum for my 2 and 4 year old children and I LOVE your site!! Thank you for providing the services free! God Bless!!
You’re so welcome, Dana! Thanks so much for commenting!
Thanks so much for the wonderful activities. Love your website. I’m always looking for new activities and ideas and your website never disappoints. Thank you.
Mary
Thank you so much, Mary – that’s so nice to hear. 🙂
One of the best websites for letters! Thanks!
You’re very welcome, Emily! Thanks for the comment 🙂
Hi Anna! I loved you website. Especially at a time when I’m enrolling my daughter in pre-school ur site came sooo handy!!!! Kudos to ur efforts. 🙂
Thanks so much, Aradhana! I’m so glad you’re here. 🙂
Wow! this a wonderful site. My applauds to all your work…. My son is 3 yrs 6 months… he goes to a play group. But frankly speaking we havent started anything at home. Iam worried for him and feel guilty that i havent done anything for him. Please tell me where to start.
Hello, Nishana! Don’t worry, you still have plenty of time to teach your son! My first and biggest advice is to read to your child a LOT. Does he listen to books well? Read several times a day every day, if you have time. Truthfully, I do not have time to do this for all my kids, but it was something I did when I had just one or two children. Just doing this teaches children so many things. When you are reading regularly you can start adding other things, like letter of the week activities. You can go in the order that I suggest and pick activities from each of the pages to do. I would suggest taking two weeks for each letter. You can also do a lot of play to learn the alphabet and sounds. My Alphabet Pinterest board can give you ideas. http://www.pinterest.com/themeasuredmom/alphabet-for-kids/ Does all of this help or just overwhelm you? I can help you break it down a bit if this seems like too much.
Thank you for your reply… I have just started letter of the week. I would try to read books to him. But he doesnt listen. He wants to do every thing by his own.
He doesn’t want to listen to books, Nishana? If that’s true you might try reading to him when he can’t really get away… 🙂 Like at the dinner table or when he’s taking a bath. I had to try this with one of my kids when he was much younger to get him started with listening to books.
Amazing sight! I found you through Pinterest. I am soooo glad I found you! I hope all is well with your new baby. I am looking forward to the new activities you will be listing for the rest of the alphabet. Thank you for all the free stuff & great ideas!
Hello, Holly!
Here’s a very belated thank you for your comment! Our new baby is going on six months already and doing very well. We’re thankful she’s such a content little girl! I just finished my blog calendar and plan to finish the last letter of the alphabet in mid November. Have a good week!
Hello! I found your website yesterday and I’m in LOVE:-). I thought about starting letters and numbers with my daughter this September. In October she will be 2. Is that a good age to start? If so, what should be my expectations? I’m a former elementary teacher, so teaching this age is foreign to me. Also, I see that you taught your children the alphabet out of order. I never heard of that before. Did you research that or just thought of it on your own? Just curious. Thank you for your blog! I really appreciate it!
Hi Traci! You asked about starting letters and numbers with your daughter when she turns 2. I think that every child is different, so it would depend on your daughter’s interest if she is ready. My daughter would have been at that age, but I have not yet started with my little boy who is 2 1/2. With him I have been doing short activities to help him learn the letters of his name. However, if he were my only child I would probably be doing a lot more with him! So yes, if she’s interested, I think you could start. Just be sure to do a lot of informal activities pointing out all the letters – reading alphabet books and playing games. I would guess you are already doing a lot of that. The reason I teach the alphabet out of order is only because I teach my boys to write their letters along with it, and I want to start with the easiest letters. It’s something I read on another blog, but I don’t know if it’s research based. Two is very young to start writing letters, so if you are going to skip that part for now you could do whatever order you want. Hope this helps!
Thank you for responding! Right now I read, read, read, and read. She even “reads” to herself. What kind of informal activities? Anything that you have on your site?
I should have said “playful” rather than informal. I am not good at thinking of these things on my own, which is why I pin everyone else’s! My Alphabet for Kids Pinterest is my most popular, with almost 10,000 followers. I’m sure you’ll find something age appropriate on that board: http://www.pinterest.com/themeasuredmom/alphabet-for-kids/
Last year I did your program with my pre preschoolers…this year I am using it along with some other resources to go through with the same children who are now preschoolers. I love your approach to learning and appreciate your free site very much! I do childcare in my own home and this year now have some who were 2 last year now 3 and they will be doing a pre preschool activity along with the two preschoolers. My now preschoolers are almost kindergarten ready by following your ideals and site. Thanks!
Thank you, Lou, your comment made my day! I’m so happy to hear that you’re finding things here to help your preschoolers.
First, thank you so much for sharing all of this for free! I have a son who will be 4 next week. We are beginning letter recognition, starting with his name. Forgive me if I’ve overlooked this on your site…What do you recommend in regards to teaching upper/lowercase? When my daughter was this age, she was taught all uppercase to begin with at her preschool. But, I’m finding conflicting info on this approach. Thanks in advance!
Great question, Brandie! On Saturday I’m sharing a “your questions answered” post, and since this is one I hear often, I’m going to answer it there Check back then!
I love your website! Thank you so much for all your hard work and helping us to help our own little ones! How long do you suggest spending each day teaching? My 4-year-old loves learning and participating in the activities and learning, but starts to get tired and doesn’t want to continue. Should I encourage her to keep going or just let her go at her own pace?
Very good question, Nakota! On Saturday I’m sharing a “your questions answered” post, and I’m going to answer this one there. Check back on Saturday. 🙂
I am having a hard time getting my son really interested in learning letters so i hope these help. It looks like a lot of other women have tried and liked these. I read some of the rhymes and I am sure my son will have a blast. I also cant wait to see what rhymes you come up with for J (i saw somewhere else on the site that you post as you go). 🙂
These really helped my toddler get interested in his letters. Hopefully if your little guy likes songs, these will hook him! Letter J was an easy book to write because of all the Jacks in nursery rhymes! 🙂 I’ll be sharing it in a few weeks.
Do you teach lowercase letters in the same order? I’m starting homeschool preschool with my three year old soon. Thanks for all the resources!
Jess, I haven’t actually had to use a specific order for lowercase because my kids kind of pick them up after they learn their uppercase alphabet. If you start with lowercase, you’d want to start with the ones easiest to write… like the straight line letters first (l, i, t, etc.) and then curved and straight letters like e, c, f… then finish with the real tough ones like a, b, d, p, g, s. You can probably find a great order for this online.
Activities for Letter U are missing. Please Post
Hello! In the post it says that we’ll be done with the entire set of alphabet activities by the end of November. We’ll probably start letter U in about a month. It will be great to have the whole alphabet done!
Love your website just stumbled on to it, but it is awesome! On your letters above there is no R and I am doing R this week! Or maybe you haven’t completed your letters yet? Thank You Gale
No, Gale, I’m afraid not! We’re taking the letters out of order and we’re almost done… just finishing up J, then P, U, R, and S. We should have everything done and posted by the end of November!
Thank you for sharing these wonderful resources!! You have saved me so much time in some areas of planning, especially creating games, in a new to me age in a brand new school. Thank you!!
A teacher’s life is so busy – I’m so glad I can save you some time, Nancy!
Hi Anna , thank you so much, I have seen lots of your posts about letter of the week and also use lots of Erica’s confessionofahomeschooler they are very useful, we do them with my kids and all the kids love them especially the craft we do for each letter, but I really got confused, what is the next steps, when you finished the letter what do you do? reading?blending?writing and what? would you please clarify it, in this site after the alphabet you have reading and writing, but I wish you explain step by step I have seen many sites, yes they are useful but there is no step by step path and they do not show what to do next. any idea would be great
Hi Shaya! When your child knows the alphabet really well, you can move on to things in this post from This Reading Mama. Lots of great stuff in here! http://thisreadingmama.com/learn-to-read-after-abcs/
Dear Anna,
You have selflessly given so much of your time to help so many with your educational gifts and I wanted to thank you for this.
You are one of the people I am grateful for on this Thanksgiving. I hope you and your family have a beautiful and blessed Thanksgiving together!
Peggy
Thank you, Peggy! What a kind thing to say! I am so thankful for the opportunities God has given me through this blog and for you and all my readers. Without you, this wouldn’t be any fun. 🙂 Blessings to your family as well!
Great Website! Thanks for all of the free materials!
what amazing web site.!!!!!.. thank you so much for your effort….
You’re very welcome!
Anna your site is really amazing. Please keep doing what you are doing. I’m a homeschool mom to two toddlers and here in Namibia I don’t have access to much affordable material but your site has provided much. Its such a blessing to me to be able to use all the free stuff on here. I will be using it for years to come. God bless you guys.
Thank you, Cheswa! I’m so glad you’re finding things here to help you. Lord willing, I’ll be here for many years!
YOu list the order here that you teach the letters, however I am confused because you say you follow the Reading Mama curriculum and the order she introduces letters with the sight words that you have made emergent readers for is not the same order you have listed here. So what order do you follow, or does it differ by age?
Hi, Michelle! I’m sorry for the confusion.
This Reading Mama has two curricula: Learning the Alphabet and Reading the Alphabet. Learning the Alphabet is just that. It’s similar to what we do here and focuses on letter recognition and sounds. Learning the Alphabet is a new curriculum, and I’ve just started using it along with the alphabet activities you see here. Currently I’m going through the alphabet with my 3 year old, but we are going in order. That’s because he’s not ready to write the letters, so it doesn’t really matter what order we go in. I post the week’s activities each Saturday, if you’d like to see what those look like. We’ll be sharing letter E this week.
Reading the Alphabet is a beginning reader curriculum and comes AFTER kids recognize their letters and sounds. She does focus on a letter for each lesson, but only because she has kids reading words that start with that letter. After my 3 year old is done with alphabet activities, we might start with Reading the Alphabet. Depending on his abilities, I might wait until he is closer to 4.
Does that make sense?
Hi Anna,
I love your site. We’ve been following your fine motor activities (uppercase letters) and my daughter loves it. So next I’m wondering how you teach the lowercase letters?
Thanks,
Becky
Hi Becky!
I do not have a series for that, but if you follow the general ideas I’ve shared you don’t need one. I would start with the simple straight letters (i, t, etc.), move on to lines with curves and curved letters (j, m, n, c, e etc.) and then go to circles (a, b, d, etc.). On the other hand, if your daughter doesn’t have trouble forming letters you could go in any order you wanted. You could follow the same general pattern we do: build the letter using a blank block letter, build it using spare pieces, write it in sand or another material, and use handwriting pages. Here’s a post I did for another blog about the sequence we use. http://handsonhomeschooler.com/2013/08/how-to-teach-kids-to-write-the-alphabet.html It’s also okay to skip steps if your daughter doesn’t need them!
Thank you so much! I love your site and refer to it often. You are an incredible Mom! Love your ideas.
Thank, you Dawn – for visiting and for spreading the word :)!
Hi Anna,
I am so glad I found your webpage. I have a 2 years 4 mths old son who is absorbing things really fast now. Thus, I am beginning to start teaching him alphabets. Would like to ask your opinion if I should also let him learn the sounds of the alphabets at the time time as I introduce each letter if I teach using the letter of the week approach. Also, do I begin with only capital letters first or should I start teaching him both upper and lower case at the same time?
Thank you in advance for your advice. Truly love this page!
and also, would it be recommended for me to teach him the letters of his name first or just follow A, B,C,etc?
Hello, Amalina! Definitely start with the letters of his name. After that you can go in whatever order you want, since at 2 1/2 it’s probably too early to have him start writing the letters. When he’s ready to write them, I like to start with the straight letters (E, F, H, etc.) before moving on to the harder ones (X,Z,O, etc.) and ending with the really tough ones (R,S, etc.)
I think you should definitely try to teach the sounds with the letters – he will probably pick that up. Just make it fun. “B! /b/, /b/, butterfly!” You can talk like that any time, not just when you’re officially doing letter of the week activities. Point out letters in books and repeat their sounds.
I always started with just upper with my kids, but they typically picked up lowercase pretty easily. So now with my 3 year old I am doing upper and lowercase at the same time. I would focus on the upper but also try doing the lower and see if he can remember both. OR do all upper and then add lower later. It’s really your call.
Hope this helps!
Thank you, thank you for the free alphabet picture cards. This is a great resource to use during circle time when reviewing our letters and sounds! I love your website and all the wonderful ideas you share.
I’m so glad you can use my alphabet picture cards, Heather! They’re one of my favorite printables too. 🙂
I simply love this site. Having moved from the UK where part time pre-school is free we are trying to home school between the paid session we can afford for our 3 year old twins so they don’t get behind. This site is absolutely fabulous and its wonderfully generous to share all these ideas.
I’m so glad you’re finding things to use with your children, Catherine! I’m sure that with the learning activities you do at home they’ll be right up to speed. 🙂
First, you’re awesome! I am nota SAHM and my children aren’t homeschooled, however I am very hands on mom and I believe that every moment can be a teaching moment. I just found your site today and it has already given me so much material and help. I was one of those kids who just “got it”. So teaching hasn’t been easy for me. Your site will help me tremendously. I just wanted to take a minute to say thank you. I will most definitely tell all of my friends about you!
Thank you so much, Celena, both for the very kind note and for spreading the word! I don’t homeschool either, but I love supplementing what my kids are learning at school. It’s also great to have some tricks up your sleeve when homework is tough. 🙂
I am so impressed with the collection of ideas that you have put together. I love the letter progression that you have for the uppercase letter. I no longer see that on this page, and was wondering if you could share that again with us.
Thanks.
Hi Amy! I’ve slimmed this post down a bit since I’ve put so much of the information into my ebook, but here is the progression I recommended initially:
E, F, H, I, L, T, V, W, X, K, M, N, Y, A, Z, C, O, G, Q, B, D, J, P, U, R, S.
Thanks, Anna!
I absolutely love all of your book lists, activities, and craft ideas for each Letter. I am attempting to work on preschool skills with my almost 3 year old because she loves learning, reading, and school and your website has given us so many fun ideas. Thank you thank you!
You’re very welcome, Dani, and I’m so thrilled you’re finding things here that both you and your daughter enjoy!
Am I able to order the e-book from Canada? If so, let me know how. The website is really great!
Hi Ann! Non-U.S. residents can purchase any of my products through my TPT store. Here’s the link! https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/The-Measured-Mom The nice thing about purchasing through TPT is that you can always go back to download again if you misplace the files. You just need to sign up for a free account using your email address.
I love the activites!!!! Hopefully my kids will pick it up.
I hope they enjoy them, Michelle!
Hi for the freebies for the letters P-Z activities the links either go to O or none at all.
Thanks!
Could you give the URL where you’re seeing the problem? I’m not seeing it.
I have 18 months old..plz let me know where to start with him in your blog and then whats next like could you present a step by step guide for teaching?
Hi Jas! Truly, with an 18 month old I wouldn’t do any structured alphabet learning. I would just read to him A LOT. You can browse my toddler activities Pinterest board for ideas for play-based learning. https://www.pinterest.com/themeasuredmom/toddler-activities/
I love the and curriculum. I am a former kindergarten teacher that just started in a private preschool. I had 3’s this year. I get to live back to prek in the fall. My question is can you letter order he rearranged or does each letter build on the other. We use Letter People and the letters begin with MTFNA and they build on each other in the weekly videos. I was just wondering if I could change the order of the letters and it still work well. Thanks, Stacey
Hi Stacey!
The curriculum is very flexible and does not go in a particular order. I offer a suggested sequence and encourage teachers and parents to choose the order they’d like.