Fun with letters
Childhood is full of amazing ‘light bulb’ moments. Young minds are like sponges soaking up information, and holding onto it in order to make sense of the world.
One of the most empowering stages for a child unfolds once they begin to understand that letters, those strange and squiggly shapes, are actually a key part of the language they know and are learning to own.
Parents support language development every day by chatting, reading and singing with their kids. We can also help children grasp language by helping them to recognise letters. As they begin to recognise and identify letters children figure out the seemingly ‘magic’ link between printed text and spoken language.
Kindergarten and primary school teachers are experts in teaching reading, but pre-schoolers usually begin letter recognition before school and it can be fun to support this learning in creative ways at home.
You don't have to introduce letters in alphabetical order, instead start with high-frequency ones - especially the letters in their names as these seem super special.
Pretty much any fun arty technique can be adapted to celebrate letters. Here are just a few easy ideas, each pictured above…
Draw a letter outdoors in chalk and invite your child to fill its path with objects from the garden.
Draw a large letter on a page and encourage child to trace along the line with stickers. For a re-suable activity use the plastic cover of a folder for the letter, and store the stickers in the plastic pockets within the folder. A $2 shop is usually a good place to pickup cheap stickers.
Cut out a letter from the flap of a cardboard box, and offer with lengths of colourful wool for some wrapping fun. Op shops often sell cheap bundles of woollen scraps.
Use scissors to cut a letter from the panel of a plastic milk bottle. Use a hole punch to pierce holes into the plastic letter, and offer lengths of wool for threading into the holes. If it’s tricky to poke wool through the holes use tape to make the end of the wool pointy.
Draw a letter onto a piece of cardboard and then trace over the line with a layer of glue. Sprinkle with salt, shake off excess. Add drops of food dye to the salt and watch as the colours creep along the path of the glue. Will dry to a sparkly finish.
Draw letter on paper or cardboard and offer a gluestick and a handful of paper scraps for a textured collage.
Enjoy… your children learn at their own speed, so keep things light and bright. Remember that the key to learning is fun.
