Fun with Letters!

Letter knowledge (the ability to recognize upper and lower case letters, know letter names, and the sounds they make) is one of the six early literacy skills children need to have in order to learn to read. It is also the most important early literacy skill used to predict a child’s success in learning to read.

Come see how learning letters can be fun! The library will be hosting Fun with Letters, a workshop for parents and children ages 2 - 5 to enjoy together on Wednesday, March 1 at 10:00 a.m. This workshop will show parents how to use the five early literacy skills - reading, writing, talking, singing, and playing - to help children learn letters and letter sounds. Register online at wclibrary.info, in person at the Centerville Children’s Desk, or by phone at 433-8091, opt. 3.

If you can’t attend the workshop, here are a few fun ways to help your child develop letter knowledge:

· Start with the letters in your child’s name. These are the most important to them. Write your child’s name where he can see it (magnetic letters on the fridge, etc). Point out the first letter of your child’s name anywhere you see it.
· Write your child’s name on heavy cardboard so he can trace it with a finger or a crayon.
· Sing the ABC song.
· Play with letters - magnetic letters on the fridge, blocks with letters on them, and foam letters in the bathtub.
· Read alphabet books.
· Hide magnetic or foam letters around the room. When your child finds a letter, ask her to name it or say the letter sound.
· Let your child scribble or practice writing a few letters.
· Play with shapes and point out shapes around you.

Guest post by Allison C. 

Outdoor Fun with Letters!

Letter awareness is knowing that the same letter can look different, that letters have names, and that letters are related to sounds. It is one of the early literacy skills that is important for children to have in order to learn to read. Did you know that the summer is an excellent time to work on this skill? There are lots of activities that you can do with your child to build this skill, and the ability to go outside and have some fun will help the process! The beginning stage of letter awareness is learning about shapes. While you are playing with toys or going on walks, point out shapes that you may see, like how a ball is a circle or a block is a square. This will eventually evolve into seeing the shapes within letters, and you can start working on the letter shapes themselves. Write out your child’s name in sidewalk chalk and have them trace it. Find objects outside, like pine cones or rocks, and talk about the first letter in the object’s name. Once your child recognizes the letter shapes, you can create fun games with letters, like this grab and pull letter load game, a pool noodle obstacle course, or a movement game! With the great weather during the summer, outside is the place to be and the place to have fun while learning!

Guest post by Sarah H. 

You'd Better Shape Up!

True or false: Allowing your children time to explore shapes can help them learn their letters.

If you think that statement is true, you’re right! Because letters are made of shapes, kids who’ve had a lot of exposure to shapes will have an easier time differentiating between the letters they see. So, get out your blocks, puzzles, balls, shape sorters, and Play Doh; your children will be learning even more than you thought!

R is for Robot: A Noisy Alphabet Book

R is for Robot: A Noisy Alphabet, by Adam F. Watkins, is not your average alphabet book. Rather than presenting an object for each letter, the letters are represented by sounds as some funny-looking, noisy robots gather together all 26 letters to form the alphabet. You and your little one will have a ball making all of the silly sounds like “ahoogah,” “kapow,” and “ratatattat.” So, if you’re looking for a good alphabet book to share, you won't go wrong with this one!

A...B...See?

Teaching letters to a child isn’t always the easiest of parental endeavors. In fact, it can be nearly impossible at times. Since kids learn differently, there’s no one, foolproof way to teach them. Hopefully, though, some of these tips will make your job a little easier:

- As you begin teaching letters, start with the first letter of your child’s name and then continue with the first letters of other meaningful words—mom, dad, your last name, siblings’ names, etc. Kids learn best when what they are learning relates to them.

-Rather than quizzing your child on letters in a book, point out different letters as you’re reading. Kids can pick up a lot through this method, and it’s far less stressful for them.

-As you go through the day, point out different letters you see (on road signs, at the store, on food labels, in books, etc.). Encourage your child to participate in finding letters, too. This is a great way to pass the time in the car.

-Feel free to skip around when reading alphabet books. They are great resources to help teach letters, but you don’t need to read them as you would a typical book. Try letting your child pick out which pages to read and discuss.

-Play a game in which you have your child think of words that start with a certain letter. Start with words that begin with the first sound in your child’s name, and go from there. Research indicates that it’s best to teach the name and sound of a letter together.

-Come in and check out our adorable alphabet table in the children’s room! Kids love singing the alphabet while walking around the table, pointing out the different letters (and we love watching it!).

-Find these books and more on our "All About the Alphabet" booklist:
 Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin, Jr.
 ABC, Baby Me! by Susan Katz
 Take Care of Me from A to Z by Harriet Ziefert

There Are WORDS on This Page?!

The illustrations in picture books are often times what attract kids to them. So, it makes sense that when listening to you read a story, your child will primarily focus on the pictures. And, when she’s not looking at the pictures, she’s probably watching you as you read, especially if you’re an animated reader. While there’s certainly nothing wrong with looking at the illustrations and your amusing facial expressions, looking at the print on the page can really help your child learn valuable information about letters, sounds, and words. Here are some tips for helping your child notice and learn from the text:

 -Simply run your finger under the words as you read them. This will help your child see the relationship between the spoken and written words. If you don’t want to do this for the entire book, you can just point out certain parts, like when a character is speaking.

 -Talk about the different parts of the book when you read it. On the cover, point out the title, author, and illustrator and describe what they are. As you read, show your child where you begin—on the left side, at the top—and how you move from there.

-Point out different letters that you see. Your child will get excited to find ones that she knows, like the first letter of her name. It's also a good way to teach her letters with which she’s less familiar. In addition, you can talk about lowercase and uppercase letters and show how they look different in the book.

Doing all of this will contribute to your child’s print awareness and can have a big impact on her future reading success. Hopefully she'll soon begin to notice that there are, in fact, words on the pages of her books. J

K-k-kick!!

My two-year-old niece, Charlie, just got a huge alphabet mat for her playroom. Before getting the mat, she’d learned a few letters (C for Charlie, M for Mama, etc.), but within days of having it, she became obsessed with letters and learned them all. I’d like to think it’s because she’s inherited all of her aunt’s genes and is a prodigy, but in reality, she loved learning the alphabet because it was made into a fun game for her.

Rather than drilling her on letters, which is not too much fun for most kids, her parents make the letter-learning exciting. Her mom will say: “Charlie, find the h for hop—h-h-hop.” Charlie locates the h, picks it up, and hops up and down with it in her hands, giggling the whole time. Next, it might be: “Okay, now find the k for kick—k-k-kick.” Charlie hunts down the k, pulls it from the mat, and kicks it across the room. She’ll quack like a duck when finding the q for quack. When she has to find “D for Daddy” or “J for Joey,” her very handsome newborn brother, she carries the letter to the appropriate person and gives it to him.

This fun game, that Charlie LOVES to play, is doing some pretty wonderful things for her growing brain. Letter knowledge is a hugely important pre-reading skill, for obvious reasons. And, research indicates that it’s best to teach the name and sound of a letter together. So, just the addition of the k sound in “k-k-kick” is really beneficial. The fact that she can pick up and hold the letters really helps her learn their shapes, too. In addition, kids learn best when what they are learning relates to them. So, when Charlie can associate a letter with a person, action, or object she likes, it helps her remember it.

If you’ve been struggling teaching your little one letters or are getting ready to start, give this game a shot. If you don’t have an alphabet mat, a letter puzzle or magnetic letters can serve the same purpose. The key is to make it fun and relatable. So, k-k-kick away!

Play with a Purpose!

 

When promoting early literacy, the five practices are key—talking, reading, writing, singing, and playing. Playing is one thing that, as parents, you are constantly doing with your children. Thank goodness, too, because that interaction is incredibly important on so many levels. Even though play of any kind is beneficial, you can target certain areas of development by playing with a purpose in mind. Here are some ideas to reinforce different early literacy skills:

Phonological Awareness (hearing the smaller sounds in words): Play rhyming games with your child. Take turns thinking up words that rhyme with a chosen word. Or, play I Spy, giving clues like, “I spy something blue that rhymes with _______.”

Vocabulary: When your baby’s playing with a toy, use descriptive words to tell her what it is, how it looks, how it feels, etc. Hearing those new words will be a huge vocabulary-booster.

Print Awareness (knowing that print is everywhere and understanding that it has meaning): When you’re engaging in pretend play, make a menu for your restaurant or make labels for items in your pretend grocery store. This will help your child understand that the written words represent something else.

Letter Knowledge: Play with blocks of various color, shape, and size, and practice categorizing them. This will help your child when she starts trying to distinguish between different letters.

Narrative Skills: Act out stories together. You can even jazz it up by adding puppets or props. This is great storytelling practice for your little one.

Print Motivation (interest in/enjoyment of books and reading): Read a book using fun, silly voices. Your child will beg for more!

These activities are not only fun, but they’ll also help your little one prepare to read. So, don’t just play—play with a purpose!

What's in a Name?

So I've been reading the book Amazing Minds by Jan Faull, which talks about simple things parents can do to nuture their child's mind during the newborn and toddler years. Being a parent of a 16-month-old, I'm always interested to learn about the way a child's brain develops and see it play out in my son. Right now he's learning new words like crazy, and one of the first words he recognized was his name.

Research shows that babies as young as 4 and 1/2 months old can recognize their names. According to Faull, using your toddler's name in conversation can be a powerful tool to support and reinforce behavior. So when your child does something good, like help clean up her toys, use her name when talking about how she helped and she'll pay attention and likely repeat the behavior. When your child gets a little older, she'll be able to recognize her name in print. And when she starts to learn letter names and sounds, the most important letter to her will be the first letter in her name.

Knowing letter names and sounds is an important precurser to learning how to read. So start with the letters in your child's name and point them out on signs, menus, in books, wherever. Talk about what sounds those letters make and look for objects that begin with the same sounds. In our weekly storytimes, each child has a nametag, and it's amazing to watch them learn which one is theirs - they always look for that first letter! Sometimes they can even recognize that letter in another child's tag. So don't underestimate the importance of a name - it's more of a learning tool than you think. And have fun helping your child recognize her name and everything that goes into it! Guest post by Shelly P.

There Are Dots Everywhere!

Some dots are big,
and some dots are small.
Some dots float,
and some dots fall.

Lots of Dots is a colorful new picture book by Craig Frazier that uses the simplicity of graphic dots to portray a variety of circular or spherical objects in a child's world.  It is perfect for beginning a discussion with your toddler about shapes. 

Being able to identify shapes is an important skill needed for recognizing individual letters.  For example, to us, the letters "b," "d," "p," and "q" are easily distinguishable, but for children they all look like a circle on a stick.  Try finding the "dots" in your house, and move on to pointing out the other shapes you see in the world around you. 

That Elemenopee Letter

I'll admit that I occasionally catch myself humming the Alphabet Song  if I need to alphabetize something in that pesky “elemenopee” range. I was reminded of this when a picture book came across my desk this morning that made me laugh out loud. The title: LMNO Peas. Rather than your standard alphabet book with little plot or humor, this title is populated by tiny charismatic peas demonstrating a different letter and oodles of vocabulary on every page. I find the “Y” page, depicting each pea in a yogi pose, particularly delightful.

Understanding letters becomes increasingly important as your child nears school because they are the foundation of written language. Understanding that each letter has its own name and sound is an important part of letter knowledge. Because as many as 25% of the population are tactile or kinesthetic learners (they need to touch and move things to learn), make sure your child has access to letters that he or she can move around and play with. Try pointing to the letters as you sing the Alphabet Song so your child understands that “L,” “M,” “N,” “O” and “P” are their own letters and not just that one “elemenopee" letter.

My Heart is Like a Zoo

…and my house looks like one too.

But enough about my domestic distress, this new picture book uses one shape to create a dizzying variety of unusual animals. Before children learn about letters, they must first understand shapes. Because we have seen millions of letters over the span of our lifetimes, we’ve stopped looking at them as shapes for children to decode. Letter knowledge is an early literacy skill that requires children to grasp that each letter has a name and represents a sound. For example, the letter “D” looks like half of a circle and the letter "A" looks like a triangle. Make a game of counting how many hearts make up each animal!