Teaching letter recognition

[KC's wifey]

Is it better to focus on teaching one letter at a time? Or start incorporating letter recognition in words fairly quickly?

My question is for a specific project, but also a general "what is the best approach" question as well. I am sewing a busy book, and picked up some alphabet letter beads on sale. I am trying to decide if I should make a page with the beads strung on in ABC order? Or if I should string short words with corresponding picture buttons? Like 'dog', 'cat', 'fish', 'sun', etc.? I don't think I have enough beads to do both.

DD recognizes several letters and can sing her ABCs, but she is very new to it.

When I was learning Sign Language, I was told that it was better to practice signing the letters of the alphabet with the phrase "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog", because it incorporates all the letters of the alphabet in words, rather than an "arbitrary" list, which made it easier to learn to smoothly sign the letters in a natural setting. However, when I learned ASL, I was already fluent in one language. I'm not sure if this carries over to learning a first language.

Thoughts?

[Gwenn]

Honestly, I think both are important and you could make a good case either way. I'm a fan of context, personally, but you probably aren't going to work every letter into words paired with pictures - it just really depends what you want to emphasize.

[Bean]

If you aren't opposed to sitting her in front of the tv for a while, my kids LOVED the Leap Frog movies (Letter Factory and Word Factory). I was shocked how easily they picked it up.

[cheeksy]

If you aren't opposed to sitting her in front of the tv for a while, my kids LOVED the Leap Frog movies (Letter Factory and Word Factory). I was shocked how easily they picked it up.

This. Leapfrog has EXCELLENT DVD series and we use them both for DD1 and in our ESL classes.

[misfit]

I think for Elliott Word World and Super Why are part of how he learned his. Add in reading to him, bath tub letters, and his Leaptop and it just clicked. Once we realized he had learned half by himself, we helped him correctly say some of the harder letters so now he pretty much says them all and identifies them in books and what not.

[*Christina*]

ANYTHING that you do to help your child learn is beneficial. Kids at this age are so adaptable and malleable, it doesn't matter...for handwriting, we teach the letters out of order for sake of developing the skill. For phonics, we teach consonants and vowels, long and short. Teachers are constantly revamping the alphabet order! Whatever you think is cute & your daughter likes, then go for it... My daughter recognizes letters at random but can sing the song...the order really starts to have meaning around 7-8 years old, as far as I've seen, when we teach more dictionary & ordering skills (and when the kids are developmentally ready for it). Do what you like or have your daughter help you decide.

[LaurainFL]

If you aren't opposed to sitting her in front of the tv for a while, my kids LOVED the Leap Frog movies (Letter Factory and Word Factory). I was shocked how easily they picked it up.

I agree! We don't watch a lot of TV at all around here, but I made an exception for The Letter Factory. Leap Frog's movies are fabulous!

[ibisgirldc]

I think for Elliott Word World and Super Why are part of how he learned his. Add in reading to him, bath tub letters, and his Leaptop and it just clicked. Once we realized he had learned half by himself, we helped him correctly say some of the harder letters so now he pretty much says them all and identifies them in books and what not.

This is us, too. I don't know word world, but he has bath letters and numbers, magnetic ones in the kitchen, and other letters toys. When we read every night, I'll say the letters of the title and might trace them with his finger... or ask him if he knows what letter or word something is (like the O in Optiimus Prime or the C in Caillou). He knows the alphabet pretty well, but he isn't at a stage where he can put them together into words.

[preciousnd98]

Super Why is great for letter recognition. Olivia has learned a lot of the letter sounds from that show as well.

When I was teaching kindergarten, I found that teaching phonics-based (so a letter at a time) was easier and I found more effective than when we based reading skills off of the basal readers (so more grouping the letters and learning them in context for the first time). But that might be me and what was more practical for my teaching style. And like a pp said, whatever you decide, working with her at all will be beneficial

[KC's wifey]

Ive heard great things about the Leap Frog movies! I've been meaning to go bargain shopping for them.

Thanks for all the input! Turns out, I do have enough letter beads to do the entire alphabet and about 6 words. Yay!