I have been so impressed this week with how motivated and excited your little ones are to learn!! It means that we have so many possibilities in our classroom =) I had several parents ask me for advice on teaching letters, sounds, and words, so I thought I'd share what we do in our classroom each time we learn a new letter and word!
Whenever I teach a new letter, we practice identifying it first. For example, I write a bunch of letters that include the one we are working on, others that look similar, and others we have down, and they have to circle, stamp, sticker, etc., the letter we are working on. After identifying our letter, we write it. We write it in sand, we write it on "paint bags" (ziploc bags filled with paint and taped shut), we write in on the table with dry erase markers, we write it with our fingers on our buddy's back or hand - anything to make it fun! After writing it, we learn the sound. We listen and look for words that start with that sound. For a GREAT letter sound song, look up Dr. Jean Alphardy on YouTube - we do it every day and the kids LOVE it!! =)
For words, we do a similar approach. We sing and spell our word (i.e. t - h- e spells the!). After getting our spelling song down, we work on putting the word together by mixing and fixing it with magnetic letters. You could even do this without magnetic letters simply by cutting the word into individual letters after it's written on paper or an index card. After that, we work on identifying the word - highlighting it in our paper books, finding it in books or other prepared materials. After identifying it, we learn how to write it. We write it in our journal, on dry erase boards, etc. After writing it several times, we'll try to put it into a sentence (i.e. the cat).
After that, I constantly review the letters and words we've introduced to build up their fluency (and their confidence!). This comes in the form of passwords by the door that they have to read whenever they leave or come back, games we play, etc.
Don't try to do the whole list at once! See what your K kid knows, and go from there! Introduce one or two and work on them until they get them down, then move on. We don't want to leave them frustrated! =)
I hope this helps if you are struggling with your little one or just wanted some more guidance. If you have any other questions I'd be more than happy to help! =)
P.S. You can COMPLETELY ignore this is your method is already doing wongders on your child - don't feel like you have to change anything you're doing! This is mainly if anyone is struggling or just to =)
Whenever I teach a new letter, we practice identifying it first. For example, I write a bunch of letters that include the one we are working on, others that look similar, and others we have down, and they have to circle, stamp, sticker, etc., the letter we are working on. After identifying our letter, we write it. We write it in sand, we write it on "paint bags" (ziploc bags filled with paint and taped shut), we write in on the table with dry erase markers, we write it with our fingers on our buddy's back or hand - anything to make it fun! After writing it, we learn the sound. We listen and look for words that start with that sound. For a GREAT letter sound song, look up Dr. Jean Alphardy on YouTube - we do it every day and the kids LOVE it!! =)
For words, we do a similar approach. We sing and spell our word (i.e. t - h- e spells the!). After getting our spelling song down, we work on putting the word together by mixing and fixing it with magnetic letters. You could even do this without magnetic letters simply by cutting the word into individual letters after it's written on paper or an index card. After that, we work on identifying the word - highlighting it in our paper books, finding it in books or other prepared materials. After identifying it, we learn how to write it. We write it in our journal, on dry erase boards, etc. After writing it several times, we'll try to put it into a sentence (i.e. the cat).
After that, I constantly review the letters and words we've introduced to build up their fluency (and their confidence!). This comes in the form of passwords by the door that they have to read whenever they leave or come back, games we play, etc.
Don't try to do the whole list at once! See what your K kid knows, and go from there! Introduce one or two and work on them until they get them down, then move on. We don't want to leave them frustrated! =)
I hope this helps if you are struggling with your little one or just wanted some more guidance. If you have any other questions I'd be more than happy to help! =)
P.S. You can COMPLETELY ignore this is your method is already doing wongders on your child - don't feel like you have to change anything you're doing! This is mainly if anyone is struggling or just to =)