Teaching Letters to Young Children

Do you use the letter of the week method?  Why?

Many early childhood educators teach letters and their sounds by presenting a new letter each week, and then emphasize that letter by programming activities that begin with it. For example, when teaching the letter B, they might string “b”eads, study “b”utterflies, and eat “b”agels.  When using this method, which is informally known as the Letter of the Week method, it takes almost the complete school year to get through the alphabet.  
Teachers, caregivers and parents who advocate this method say they use it because:
  • They think everyone else uses it
  • They have read about it on sites and blogs
  • It’s really convenient to plan a curriculum around it
  • Even though the children they are teaching are at different developmental levels, they can make sure that every letter is covered, and that every child is exposed to each letter
I have never used this method.  In most (if not all) of the background reading that I have done over the last 30 years concerning teaching reading to young children I have not found this method recommended.

Some of the reasons:
Children are developmentally ready, and motivated, to learn the names and sounds of letters, at different ages and stages.  If a child is ready to learn letters, they are ready to learn lots of letters, not just one.  I have seen motivated children learn a complete alphabet and most sounds within 2 weeks!  Imagine the boredom and frustration of these children if they are presented with just one letter a week, the same letter over and over again.   Hopefully they will go ahead and learn all the letters by themselves anyway, but just imagine all that time that is being wasted in the group setting, plodding along with one letter a week. So many more exciting things could be accomplished during this wasted time.  How about the child that is not interested or ready yet?  Is learning a letter a week going to increase the interest and motivation, and hasten personal cognitive development?  At best, it will provide some busy work to fill time. At worst, it bores and frustrates.  

Current educational research indicates that children learn letters and their sounds best when they are presented in small groups of 2, 3 or 4; when many hands on games and social activities are presented at the same time to reinforce the names and sounds (this does NOT mean poking holes in paper for the letter P); and when the letters are “studied”  in context, along with other letters, and not in isolation.

This is how I have taught letters to young children in group settings, and this I what I recommend. 

  • Assess where each child is at present, and create a personal record for each child.
  • Fill the learning environment with these ideas
  • Make it fun, make it exciting, make it joyful, take your time.  This is a Lifetime of Learning we are influencing here, people!
  • Present 2 letters at first – usually letters with an easily identifiable shape and/or sound such as M, S or T.  Check through  these  suggestions for an idea to use as a first presentation, and for follow-up and coordinating activities.  Do not follow alphabetical order. Some letters are just plain harder to “get” than others.    Leave letters such as X, G and Q  until later.
  • Upper or lower case?  I always made my first presentations using upper case letters, because the shapes of the letters are stronger and to my mind more memorable.  However, some teachers like to use lower case - their rationale is that these are the letters you see mostly when looking at books.
  • Introduce the letter sound at the same time as the shape.  Make it seem integral, “part of the whole” so to speak.  For example, you could hold up a big L, and chant “This is an L, a very big L, and a very big L says l, l, l ” Say it with me – “This is an L, a very big L “ etc
  • Observe how each child is progressing, and make available letter activities that are appropriate to his/her style and speed of learning (eg. matching, hiding and finding, recognition of one letter in a group of letters, hearing the sounds in an engaging song or chant , tracing the letter shape in sand etc. Although most of the games and activities will emphasize the current letters, there should also be activities available using the whole alphabet, such as a set of magnetic letters, or an alphabet puzzle.  There will always be children who want (or need) to “work ahead”.
  • When most of the group has a strong concept of the first 2 letters, present 3 more. I usually include a vowel such as A in this second set of letters, because some children are often ready to create simple 3 letter words.  For the children who are taking their time catching on – keep providing as many motivating games and activities as they can handle. Observe and record.   These are good letters to present earlier in the learning sequence - M-S-T-A-B-P-R-N
  • Use Word Walls.  Label furniture and centers.  Put a full alphabet around the wall.  Tape up posters of the learned letters, surrounded  by pictures of objects having the letter as the initial sound.  Point to them, and say them often throughout the day. Have the children trace them with a finger as they go by.
  • Present 3 more letters – keep reviewing the learned letters with all those hands on games.  By the way, I use those ubiquitous File Folder games very sparingly, if at all.  The folders are too small, and consequently the game pieces in them need to be small.  I have found that game pieces for younger children usually need to be quite large to be interesting.  Also, File Folder activities, like many worksheets, tend to be an assessment of what has been learned already, and not an actual teaching tool. 
  • Continue presenting groups of letters until all have been introduced.  Obviously it will take longer if you are introducing letters to a group of 3 year olds, and many at that age will not be ready for formal letter introduction at all.  However, if you are working with 4’s, you may be very surprised at how quickly you will finish all 26 letters. 

OK, I can hear you saying “But if I don’t do a letter a week, what am I going to hang my curriculum on?”  Well, that’s easy.  Follow a theme curriculum.  Some teachers like planned themes; others follow a more emergent approach (studying interesting topics that come up in the course of the day or week).   Letters (and I might add shapes, colors and numbers) are taught separately from the theme, at the pace of the group and what they are ready to do. (Observe, record and assess).  Of course, exploring and learning letters can be incorporated into thematic activities whenever appropriate, but they should not dictate the theme.