Activities to Teach the Alphabet in Kindergarten

Looking for activities to teach the alphabet in kindergarten so students build the foundations of reading? YES! Keep reading for tips and ideas to support teaching letters & sounds so they actually stick! Perfect for your preschool, kindergarten, and first grade classroom. Keep reading for teaching tips and grab a Free Letter M set of activities below!

Check out these related posts:

• Teaching Letters & Sounds So They Stick
• Letter Tile Activities
• Free Alphabet Video Directory

THIS ACTIVITY GOES WELL WITH THESE SIMPLY KINDER RESOURCES:

Why Explicitly Teach Letters & Sounds:

Yes! We need to explicitly teach letters and sounds to students with meaningful activities.

A great way to introduce letters and sounds is by comparing them to animals!

For example, a dog is called a dog but what sound does it make?

Wooof

That’s right! A dog says “woof” even know it’s called a dog.

Important Note: Dogs have different versions of “woof” just like a letter sometimes makes different sounds (long, short, silent, etc)

Letters have names too but we say their sounds when reading and writing. Some letters make different sounds and we will be learning the rules of when this happens.

Make sure to send home the Alphabet Parent Letter which is part of the Parent Handouts Set Here!

Letter Order for Instruction:

There are many approaches to letter order but we recommend working with your school curriculum first and foremost. We are big on using what is required and modifying it to what you know is best practice and the reality is there is not one evidence based way to do it. We do know that ABC order is not an approach used so you do need some sort of strategy so if you’re looking for some guidance, check out The Recipe for Reading Letter Scope & Sequence – it’s amazing. It follows a detailed letter order that is great for introducing letters in kindergarten! The first letters are:

c as in cat

o as in octopus

a as in apple

d as in dog

and it continues through blends, vowels teams, and all of the sounds in a logical order. It lays out the order first thing in the book and then goes into detail for each letter to help you teach it. Highly recommend.

Note About Teaching Vowels:

Who says we have to teach vowels with the beginning sound?

Let’s look at the letter A. When we use words like apple, astronaunt, and alligator we are using words that are NOT decodable to kinders. If we are going to put print in from of students for learning shouldn’t we try to make all the words decodable to layer that in?

We have traditionally always taught initial sounds for the entire alphabet but the reality is by the time we get to some of those vowels students can isolate that middle sound – so why not use those more appropriate decodable words for kindergarten?

We’ve included two options for teaching vowels based on what you think is best for your students!

• Option 1 is to focus on the vowel middle sound in decodable CVC Kindergarten words
• Option 2 is to focus on the initial sound with words that will need to be decoded with your students

Activities to Teach the Alphabet in Kindergarten:

So what’s included for each letter? Over 60 pages of activities that students will love!

Some teacher tips for planning your lessons:

• Follow the same routine and procedures for each letter and sound. This way students can focus on learning the sound and making those important connections instead of learning new directions each time.
• Use the “We do, you do, I do” method of gradual release because students need explicit instruction and quality practice time for each skill
• Build home/school connections by providing meaningful practice at home for students (but don’t overwhelm them with lots of homework). The Alphabet Brochures in our Science of Reading Aligned Mouth Photos Resource are a great option!
• Grow student skills one step at a time by moving from letter sound to word mapping to blending and decoding! Think of the first step as the strong roots that will build literacy!

FREE PRINTABLE:

Do you want to try out the Letter M activities first? YEP! You can grab them HERE by entering your name/email so they will be sent directly to your inbox!