How to Teach the Alphabet to Toddlers and Preschoolers.

The following is my list on the best ways to teach the alphabet to children ages 2 to 5! I've researched letter teaching extensively, and I have been able to help teach the ABCs to children. I hope this article assists your teaching and your child's learning!

1. The beginning letter of your child's name is the first letter to teach! Then teach the beginning letters of objects that your child frequently says.

Teaching the beginning letter of your child's name makes that letter special and unique for your child. That letter is your child's own letter!

What objects does your child normally talk about? If your child talks about dinosaurs, teach letter Dd and its sound. If your child keeps mentioning trains, teach letter Tt and its sound. If your child likes milk, teach letter Mm and its sound.

As your child masters more and more letters, you can teach your child how to spell his or her name. Sing your child's name in a song to help them memorize it. PreschoolExpress.com has a list of songs you can use for your child. I am not affiliated with PreschoolExpress.com, but I used their list to help me teach several kids, including my own, how to spell their names! You can also Google search name crafts for fun ways to practice identifying the letter symbols.

2. Teach a capital letter, that letter's lowercase, and that letter's sound all at once.

When you taught your child animal names and animal sounds, did you teach all the animal names first and then the sounds, or did you teach the animal names and animal sounds together? I'd say over 99% of us taught them together. The cow says, "moooo." The duck says, "quack." Why shouldn't we teach letters like that? It would save time and confusion. Your child can associate the letter sound and the letter symbol together from the beginning. It cuts out an entire step! Teach short vowel sounds and the hard C and G sounds as they will be the most frequent sound when your child starts to read.

When you taught your child to say the word, "dog," what did you teach your child when he saw a puppy? You probably said something like, "That's a puppy. It is a baby dog." Instead of having to learn 26 symbols (capital letters), and then 26 different symbols (lowercase letters) again with the same name, why not learn them together? There will be a connection from the start. Call capital letters the Mommy letters (or daddy, etc.) and the lowercase letters the Baby letters.

Teaching capital, lowercase, and that letter's most frequent sound all at once might seem like too much for a child, but in the long run, you've built the connections from the beginning. From my experience it takes less time to teach a child all at once than to teach each one individually and then go back to make that connection. As you teach the alphabet, remember the purpose is to prepare your child to read. They need those connections to come fast and with ease.

I have heard several experts explain that we should not teach that a letter says a sound; we should teach that a letter represents a sound. In my experience toddlers are too young to understand the concept of representation. I have also taught several preschoolers who did not fully understand this concept. My suggestion is teaching in the beginning should be that a letter says the sound until you are sure your child understands the concept of representation. Then say something like, "Do you remember when you were younger and we talked about what sound letters say? Do letters really say sounds? No, but they represent sounds, and we say those sounds."

3. Review all the time!

A lot of preschool alphabet programs use a letter of the week curriculum. While I have used a letter of the week curriculum, it is not the best way to teach the alphabet... unless it reviews previously learned letters. Imagine trying to something new, and then 25 weeks went by when you didn't even think about what you learned. Would you still remember it? What if you were four years old and your brain had not developed long term memory? That's why review is so necessary. When I used a letter of the week curriculum to teach, I sought out more activities to review previously learned letters.

FYI, I have read research that a letter of the day might prove to be more helpful than the letter of the week. In my own teaching experience, I have found somewhere in the middle to be the best. Teaching a new letter every two or three days seemed to work well with my own children. Just go with your child's learning speed.

4. Use any and every resource available to teach the alphabet.

The more exposure to a letter, the better! Find letters on signs, in your mail, in a book, or in your alphabet soup or cereal. Make letters with cooked noodles, cookie dough, play dough, or slime. Write letters with washable paint on the window or a mirror, with markers on dry erase boards, or with bath markers in the bathtub. Create letters with fingers in sand, pudding, or shaving cream. Use all the worksheets you can find. Use a magnetic fishing pole and the magnetic letters to go fish. Use YouTube! And check out the resources I have created:

Spring ABC Crafts, Summer ABC Crafts, Fall ABC Crafts, and Winter ABC Crafts.

Matching Capital and Lowercase Letter Printable with initial sound pictures

I recommend the letter identification and sound resources from the following websites:

Valerie's Crafty Classroom's Bible ABC Curriculum

Sarah's Homeschooling 4 Him Printables and YouTube Channel

Anna Geiger's The Measured Mom's Alphabet Activities

Becky's This Reading Mama's Alphabet Activities

I am not affiliated with the websites above, but I have used them, and recommend their printables!

FYI, the bones in children's hands have not fully developed until around the age of seven. For that reason, I do not push handwriting on toddlers and preschoolers. I expose them to handwriting. I encourage handwriting. If it becomes difficult or a child's hand tires, I write for them or we use letter stamps or stickers.

5. Keep it stress-free.

It is my goal for my children to enjoy learning! I want to cultivate curiosity. I do this by:

6. Parent or caregiver, you are not going to mess this up. You've got it!

If you haven't been following the above advice to a T, that is okay. You aren't going to harm your child by teaching letter Z before letter D. This is simply what I have found to be the most-effective way to teach the alphabet. Any exposure is better than none. I hope this article has been food for thought. Hopefully, it will allow you to teach the alphabet with more intentionality and ease.