Teaching the Letter Names & Sounds
Now that you are ready to begin instruction, where should you start?
There are a TON of different ideas out there for how to teach letter names and sounds. Today I am going to share with you what has worked best for me, my students, and my kindergarten teachers!
After many years of experience in kindergarten, I have found that letter sound knowledge is CRUCIAL. Therefore, we dive right in with our instruction. Don’t get me wrong, we have a ton of activities to teach those upper case letter names, but we tend to save that instruction for the whole group time.
Here are some of my favorite activities:
Alphabet Warm- Ups
I share this warm up with my kinders every day. We start the first week of school and we continue until everyone has a solid understanding. This activity is so effective because it reaches ALL learning styles (visual, auditory, and kinesthetic). Here is how it works.
Weeks 1-3
We say the letter, sound, and symbol with a motion in the exact order of the alphabet. A /a/ apple as we pretend to eat an apple.
Weeks 4-6
We repeat the same routine but I mix up the letters so they are not in ABC order.
Weeks 7-9
We repeat the routine from the previous weeks, but remove the picture support.
Play-Doh Building
Forming letters with play-doh is a great multisensory activity for kiddos because it doubles as a fine motor activity as well. Choose a few letters a week to focus on. Talk about the letter, sound, and it’s formation.
Now let’s talk about the small group side of things. This is where we focus instruction based on student needs. If you missed how to assess and analyze the data, click here to read the post.
Once I understand exactly which students need what, I am ready to start planning out my small groups. Sound knowledge should not be taught in isolation. Therefore, I usually choose 3-4 letters/sounds to focus on at a time. I use this continuum to help plan out the letter sequence.
Here are some of my favorite activities:
Letter Name and Sound Sorting:
Letter name and sound sorting can make a huge impact on students as they try to gain this knowledge. Providing them with pictures that begin with the sounds they are working on as well as the upper and lowercase letter to match them to, will help make it concrete. For this activity, I provide students with the header cards (letters) and we discuss the label and sound for each. We then work together to listen for the first sound in each word. Once they hear this sound, I ask them to place the picture under the correct sound. This helps students to categorize these symbols and sounds in their brains.
Say it, Write it
When teaching students letter names and sounds, I also like to include writing. It requires students to examine the letters closely and distinguish the features of each. Kids are hands on, and they need to practice fine motor skills. When students are learning sounds in many different forms, it will increase the chances of those letters and sounds sticking in their long term memory.
Where’s the sound?
We cannot forget to add in some phonemic awareness with our letter sound instruction. Why? Because, the two should go hand in hand. Here are some of my favorite activities.
Onset Rime Segmenting with a focus on the beginning sound.
Students naturally hear the first sound in words. It is the easiest sound for them to hear which makes it a great place to start.
Give each student an onset rime grid and a handful of letters.
Ask students to break the word into two parts (onset-rime) several times cat /c/ /at/
Then draw their attention to the first box.
What sound do you hear in this box? c
What is the first sound in cat? /c/
Can you find the /c/ sound and move it in the box?
Segmenting with a focus on the ending sound.
Once students have an understanding of how to segment words into individual phonemes, you can begin instruction on ending sounds. It is important for students to look at all the letters within a word as it will help strengthen their decoding skills.
Give each student a three square segmentation box and a handful of letters.
Ask students to segment the word /p/ /i/ /g/ by touching each box as they sound the word out.
Then draw their attention to the last box and ask them to segment the word again.
What sound do you hear at the end of the word pig? /g/
What is the last sound in pig? /g/
Can you move the /g/ into the box?
Segment and Write
Once students have an understanding of segmentation and the placement of sounds/letters within a word, they can begin to segment words into all of their sounds. This can be done by having students spell simple CVC words.
Give each student a three square segmentation box and a handful of letters. Be sure to plan words ahead of time. (sit, sat, fat, fit)
Ask students to segment the word sit by touching the box as they say each sound /s/ /i/ /t/.
Walk students through the process- What sound do you hear first? Do you see that letter/sound? Let’s put that letter in the first box. What is the next sound you hear? And so on
When students have successfully placed all letters inside the box, ask them to touch each letter, say the sound, (segmentation) and then blend the word back together!
This activity helps students to link both phonemic awareness and the alphabetic principle. They are able to both spell and read the words, which is powerful as they learn to decode more fluently. Don’t forget to snag your free letter/sound progression here!