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Letter Recognition

I cut out the Shell Letters form this month's plans and laid them out in order. We took turns singing the ABCs and pointing to the letters practicing letter recognition. 
He is getting good at letter recognition. I would say he is at about 90% proficiency. While singing the Alphabet he has a bit of trouble pointing to the letters because he wants to sing faster than his finger can keep up. I decided to take it a step further to check for mastery. 
I created a game using the letters. I called out a letter and Jake had to find the letter and pick it up. If he got it correct, he would collect the card into a pile. Next, he would call out a letter and I would have to pick it up and put it in my pile. This worked great! We had a lot of fun playing. I started with letters that I knew he knew and worked my way up to harder letters. It did help for me to say, "D, d for Daddy." This really helped for letters he was stuck on.
While playing the game Jake started jumping around. (He is the blur in the corner) This an important lesson I want to discuss. I let him jump and run around while we played. He was engaged and participating just jumping and running around. I feel that as long as a child is engaged this kind of behavior is acceptable. He was excited and having fun, why would I make him sit still? This is a touchy subject because so many teachers feel students should sit still in their desks and follow directions but that is not the way some/most kids learn. Again, as long as your child is engaged they are learning and having fun don't stand in the way of that!





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  1. NicoleJune 23, 2012 at 8:34 AM

    This is great. My daughter is 26 months and she is learnng her letters now. What is cute, though, is that she seems to remember the word associated with the letters a bit better than the letter itself. So she'll point to a C an say "arrots" for Carrots. but she is starting to say the letters, too. Its so cute!

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    Replies
    1. Jess-June 24, 2012 at 7:54 PM

      That is so cute and good to hear other kids remember that way too!

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