Teaching the Alphabet to Young Children

One crucial aspect of teaching the alphabet is providing opportunities for your child to express himself through writing. For a young child, writing can be as simple as scribble marks, a drawing, or some approximation of a letter. It does not mean penmanship or copying letters from text.

Through writing, a child makes connections between print and the spoken word. Writing allows your child to recreate what he experienced in a story or other print. By using print to communicate his thoughts and ideas, your child will see the purpose of writing and learn how print, thus letters and reading, are related.

Give your child many opportunities to write or trace letters in various media. One good way to show your child the shapes of each letter is to point them out in alphabet books. Alphabet puzzles in which each letter is a puzzle piece allow her to feel the curves and lines of the letters. Finger painting gives a child a different sensory experience in forming letters.