Simple handmade materials are very effective in developing letter knowledge skills in young children. It’s important to provide lots of fun activities that will help your child to learn the visual features of letters and to identify letters quickly and automatically. This activity uses a homemade alphabet chart and magnetic or foam letters to provide practice in matching letters.
- paper
- marker
- magnetic or foam letters
Step 1: Print alphabet letters on a piece of paper that are similar in size to the magnetic or foam letters that you will be using. You can create one chart with uppercase letters and another one with lowercase letters. You might put the alphabet letters in order or place them randomly on the paper.
Step 2: Give your child the chart and sets of magnetic or foam letters and ask her to match the letters.
To make it easier, use fewer letters on the paper. Instead of putting all 26 letters of the alphabet on one piece of paper, put only six to eight letters per sheet.
When you create your alphabet chart with letters in alphabetical order, leave several letters off the chart. Then ask your child to match the letters on the chart AND to fill in the missing letters.
