Letter Recognition: Recognizing the Letters of the Alphabet. You probably put that together on your own. Once you're in the thick of practicing letter recognition, you'll correlate objects and letters and say stuff like, "A is for apple. And Anna. And Alexandra." Just me?
A kindergarten teacher recently told me that almost all of her students wrote their names at the beginning of the school year--in CAPS only. She guessed it was because their parents taught them the capital letters, and then taught them to write their name with those letters. 52 symbols is a lot for a four-year-old to master, and no parent wants their child to be the only one not writing, do they? The pressure to write and read at earlier and earlier ages is intensifying, which I fear is imposing pressure on toddlers rather than facilitating growth in their natural desire to learn.
Teach and practice letters as early and as often as you and your tot like, but make sure it's for fun! I looked no further than Pinterest to find my favorite letter-practicing ideas (but I'm linking to original sources):
"Fishing for Knowledge" (letters written on juice lids fishing game instructions)
magnet letter matching tutorial
magnet letter matching tutorial
Tag Toys motor letters
These are gorgeous but too pricey for me--any DIY ideas? (I am imagining a small peg with buttons attached to each end through chipboard carved with an Exacto knife...)
These are gorgeous but too pricey for me--any DIY ideas? (I am imagining a small peg with buttons attached to each end through chipboard carved with an Exacto knife...)
P.S. ABC books and other alphabet gift ideas
Easy DIY dry-erase magnet board (cookie sheet)
I use to be very anti teaching caps only for beginning writing, but then I found the program Handwriting without tears, and that's how they taught...capitals first. My son recognized his letters (both capital and lowercase) and was even reading, but was slower to want to write...we are just now getting through the lowercase letters, and he still (when writing) will use upper and lowercase in a word...but he's learning, and I found it was much easier to teach the uppercase first, all the curves and such of the lower case even still prove a challenge for him at 5.5yrs old. But every child is different. That's why I love homeschooling, you can use what works for your child! ;)
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