It's that time of year!
School starts in just a couple short weeks and it's time to get ready! In kindergarten, our first couple of months in reading focus on learning letters and sounds. Keep reading to find out some of the things we do in our class to learn them!
Every early elementary class ever has the alphabet posted somewhere in the room. If you don't, GET ONE NOW. We start reading time by singing the alphabet song while I point to each letter with a pointer. This not only gets students familiar with the names and shapes of the letters, but also works on one-to-one correspondence (the ability to point and count or read at the same pace). This way, when students need to be reminded of which letter is which, they can sing the song and follow along with the letters on their own.
Another thing that we do is a letter scavenger hunt. Small pieces of paper with letters on them are placed all around the room, and students have to go find the letter (upper or lower case) that we are working on that day. Sometimes we will do pictures instead, and students have to find the pictures that start with that sound.
ABC Mouse also has adorable songs for each letter of the alphabet. I introduce the letter of the day with the ABC Mouse song, and then we listen to it multiple times throughout the day. They are super catchy and the kids love them and will sing them all the time! You can find the whole list of songs here.
Another important part of learning letters is learning to write them! I have created letter mats to help my students do just that. There are two sets. The first set has dots for placing small objects (beads, counters, etc.). This can be done with the students' fingers or large tweezers. This works on fine motor skills and gets the students used to the process of writing the letters before they ever pick up a pencil. The stars show students where to start and the arrows and start and stop dots help them along their way!
The second set is blank for finger and dry erase tracing!
You can get this great resource on my TPT store here!