A few ideas to help your preschooler learn the alphabet

Children learn by "hands on" activities; touching, moving, and doing teach so much more than just "looking at", which is one reason why educators encourage parents to actively engage their children instead of putting them in front of a computer, video or TV screen, which is passive learning. During passive learning they are not engaged, they are observing. The more the brain is actively involved, the more real learning takes place. Brain connections are made when the body moves, especially movement that involves crossing the midline of the body-so reaching across your body for something engages the brain more than reaching to the same side. The other big, big benefit is spending time with your child in a fun learning activity.

Looking at flash cards of alphabet letters is not as helpful as touching the letters- making the letters out of materials, writing the letters in various ways. Here are a few ideas to make learning letters fun, engaging, and worthwhile.

Do one activity a day for a short time. The first letters to work on are the ones in your child's name, they have the most meaning to them. You can expand into other letters later- and concentrate on only a few at a time, not the whole alphabet. If your child's name starts with the letter "C" work on that letter a few minutes a day until they are very comfortable with it. Then move on to another letter. Find a way to highlight the letters your child has learned, get an alphabet poster and put a star next to each letter they know, or buy a big poster board and add each letter as they learn it.

• Take a cookie sheet and put a thin layer of any of the following- flour, salt, cornmeal, cornflour, sand (outside) or any other fine material. Have your child make the letters using their index finger on their dominate hand - it is easy to erase too, just lightly brush the material back into place or shake the pan slightly to smooth it out. You can make the letter first or you can each have a tray. It is OK to have a flash card that shows the letter to your child, the physical movement is what will help make the learning happen. Make this fun, also allow your child to "draw" whatever they want, or you can draw pictures of words that start with that letter and make a guessing game out of it.
  
• You can also take the cookie sheet and put shaving cream or finger paint on it and make the letters, it provides a tactile experience that is different than the dry material. Do the same letters they are working on.
• Play dough and modeling clay are great materials for young hands, they help develop those fine motor muscles in the hands and fingers that will help children with holding pencils later on. Some children who have trouble writing letters or remembering the letters of their name can do so more easily after they have formed the letters with clay. Something about the tactile feel of the letter helps it get retained easier. So, bring out the clay and roll it into long strips. Make a game of it, you make a letter and have your child guess what it is, then they can make one and you guess. Make all the letters of his/her name and put them on the table. Talk about the letters, what is alike and what is different? Some made have curves, some straight lines.
  
• As an extension of all of this, some children will like to make the letters out of their bodies, can they make their body look like the letter "C". It may take both of you to make some of the letters and then maybe someone can take a picture of each letter too!
• Take a white piece of paper and draw letters or your child's name on it. Give them watercolors and have them paint over the whole paper to reveal their name.
• When you write your child's name, do a capital letter (uppercase) for the first letter and lower case letters for the rest. This is how they will need to write their name for school so why have to relearn it later.
  
• Point out letters and words in the world. When you buy a product, if one of the letters you are working on is on the package, point it out or ask your child if they can find it.
  
• Talk about the letter sounds, this will help your child more than just knowing the letters.
• Put magnetic letters on the door of your refrigerator and ask your child to find you certain letters at first, then make simple words or their name. Have them find the letters in their name. When they are ready, you can make some simple word cards and attach them to the refrigerator with a magnet- ask your child to find those letters to make the word. Remember praise them for their effort too.
• You can get upper and lower case letters at most toy stores, or teacher learning stores. I have some links of this BLOG to a couple of the teacher supply places I especially like. Make sure you buy good quality ones though so the magnets don't fall out, they can be dangerous if swallowed.
• If you want your child to start writing the letters, it is better to start with a crayon or a thick pencil, but since many preschoolers lack the fine motor control over the crayon or pencil, it can become frustrating for them. You can try dry erase boards and dry erase markers too, they are fun and easy to correct mistakes. You will see that they first write the letters really large, and when they write words, some of the letters will be on one line, the rest on another. That doesn't matter, they will learn all that later. It takes a lot of skill to know the letter, know how to make it, have your brain communicate that to your hand and your hand to follow through with what the brain is telling it to do.
  

Well, that is just a few ideas for how you can teach letters to you child, I hope you will try them, and I hope you will make learning FUN! If it becomes frustrating for your child, back off a bit; try a different activity. If they are getting frustrated or you are fighting to make them do it, they will not get the benefit of the activity- maybe they are not ready yet.

How to use play dough to teach concepts in preschool children

There is a debate about "academics" verses "play" in preschool years. Basically an academic program focuses on teaching children primarily reading skills, and math skills by giving them worksheets, and assignments. The children learn rote memorization and can often regurgitate facts back to the teacher or parent. An example would be to be able to count to 100. You can certainly teach a preschooler to count to 100, but the understanding of the concept of "what is 100?" may not be there. In a "play" preschool, the children are learning all of the time, they are just constructing their own knowledge and learning it through concrete means. A child learning to count will count objects, or stairs as they go up or down. Numbers themselves are an abstract concept, children develop into abstract thinkers by experiences.

Here are some ways play dough is used to teach the needed concepts:

You may just see a child squeezing play dough, and rolling it or cutting out shapes with a cookie cutter. Some of the things I see are:

1. Fine motor development, the small muscles of the hands need to be worked to develop properly, this aids holding a pencil or cutting with scissors later. Being able to use a rolling pin to flatten the dough works the fine motor muscles and the larger muscles in the arms. Sometimes the dough is harder and takes more pressure, having to learn how much pressure to apply without making it too flat.

2. Spatial relations: making the dough the right size to fit the cookie cutter, children usually start out making it too small, part of the cookie cutter hangs off the edges. Later they are able to judge the size easily.

3. Math concepts including addition and subtraction: how to divide the play dough evenly for everyone at the table. How many pieces do we need, real life counting. There are four children, plus one teacher, how many pieces is that. Also math skills such as adding and subtracting, start with two balls of play dough, make one more, how many do we have now. Add another, how many now? Lets take away two, how many now?

4. Measurement/Size comparison: Children compare sizes of play dough balls, which is bigger, smaller, put them in order from smallest to largest, which is longer, how long is it, use a ruler, or a block to measure it. How many balls can we make, let's count them, then they are learning to count real, concrete objects, and understand what 1 or 20 or 100 means. They can learn one-one correspondence, meaning that they understand that when I point to one object I say "one". They also can begin to understand object permanence, for example, if I put out five objects and we count them, and then I add one more, developmentally, children will have to count the original five objects again, and then count the added one; but as they gain understanding they will start at five and count from there. Another example is that if I take a piece of play dough and break the same piece of play dough into two pieces, younger children will say I now have more play dough. They have to develop the understanding through concrete objects to understand that it is the same amount of play dough.

5. Social Skills: what to do to divide up one large clump of play dough into enough for everyone at the table, evenly. Then when another child comes, being able to share the dough a little more. Sharing the tools, sometimes sharing ideas about what to do with the play dough, what to create, making a group project. Joining a group is often hard for children. The social skills needed to join play is hard, but play dough is something that is easy to join. It makes that social transition easier. Then often those same children will feel comfortable playing at another activity together later, or will leave play dough and go to something else together. Play dough is great for solitary play, parallel play, or social play. They children can play at their level and feel part of the play.

6. Alphabet/shape The teachers put out a variety of materials to use with the play dough. When the alphabet letters are put out, the children can use them in variety of ways. They may just use them as a cookie cutter, or may use the letters to make the alphabet or their name. Letters are also made out of rolled play dough. The same types of things are done with shape cutters. Children at this age are concrete learners, they must touch to learn. Things have to be in solid form in front of them for them to understand it, they are not little adults who think in abstract ways. That is a developmental process that takes many years. When children are able to manipulate play dough into letters, it helps them form those letters with a pencil to write their names, it helps them to remember those letters when they see them written (which is abstract).

7. Listening to directions/conversation with teacher: Sometimes at the play dough table the teacher will give directions, make a small ball, make a rope this long, etc. This gives children the skills needed of listening, following directions, two step directions, and more. The children also have the opportunity to talk in important casual conversation with a teacher at the play dough table. They can discuss their pet, or what they did this weekend, and have a relaxed opportunity to talk. Conversational skills are something which develops, they learn the give and take of conversation, another child may join the group and they learn how to include them in the conversation.

8. Sensory experience: sometimes the play dough is warm, sometimes it is cold, it may be hard or soft, it may be a different recipe, it may have cinnamon in it or peppermint oil. The color changes and sometimes two colors are there to mix. Play dough is a wonderful, sensory substance which also helps children who are unsure about being in school to feel ok. When a child is upset coming to school, or is having problems separating from mom or dad, play dough is one of the best tools to help them feel ok. When they start squeezing it and manipulating it, they become so involved that school is ok. It is also a quiet activity, and feels safe. It can be a solo activity if needed, or others can be involved too.

I hope from this glimpse at how "playing" with play dough helps children learn the concepts needed for current and later school success, you have a better understanding that "learning and academics" are going on all the time in a good preschool setting. The materials are chosen with specific goals in mind, and the ways children play with them is teaching them. The most important part to understand is that children learn different than adults. They must have concrete objects to manipulate to learn. The more experiences they have, the more the brain develops.

Learning the Alphabet- a few ideas

Children love to sing the "ABC" song, and it is a fun way for them to learn the names of the letters, but play with the song a little or all they are learning is a song. It will not have a connection to them that it has any meaning other then being a song they like to sing. Especially the "LMOP" part, it becomes a blob of letters that are one. Here are a few ideas for the song, and other things to do to help your child learn the alphabet.

• Sing the song slowly, emphasize each letter.
• Get some ABC cards (upper and lower case) and point to each one as you say the letter while you sing the song.
• Hum the song, leaving the letters out
• Using the flash cards, turn one over and when you get to it, don't sing that one....later turn a few over.
• You can do these same activities without the song too.

Introduce your child to upper and lower case letters, (capital and small) some look the same, but some don't so it is good to teach them both.

The letters that have the most meaning to children are the ones in their name. Write their name on things they draw or color, using an upper case letter for the first name and lower case letters for the rest. Write it in the upper left hand corner when you can. Point out the letters in their name when you see them in writing elsewhere.

You can also point out the sounds the beginning letter makes.....popcorn starts with the letter "P", that is the "p(a)" sound. As they get more used to this, you can say, "Can you think of another word that starts with the "P (a)" sound? Write down the words they say. If they say one that starts with a different letter, sound out both words to help them learn the difference, but praise them for trying and see if they can think of another word or suggest one yourself. You can even write a list for each letter and tack it up. The words they say do not matter, they are not words they need to learn, just words they have thought of that start with that letter. You will find later they will say "Goodnight papa" and then come running to say, "Papa....that starts with the letter P". The consonants are easier than the vowels, so start there. Later they will learn ending sounds.

At preschool we also talk about the letter's shape, and the children love to practice writing the letters with dry erase boards and dry erase markers. We make all of this part of fun activities, not drill work. We also have the children who are able to write their own name on their art work.

If you are ever concerned that your child has a speech delay due to inability to say some of the letters, pay attention to what they can and cannot say. Some missing letter sounds are very normal in preschoolers and will develop as they mature. But some require speech intervention. If you are concerned contact your local school district and ask when they do screenings for speech evaluations. At times, because you are always hearing your child speak, you get used to how they say words, but if other people ask "What did she say?" all the time, you may want a speech evaluation.

Letters and words surround us all the time, so make some games out of word fun and your child will learn the letters with more ease. Go on a letter hunt in the grocery store, have him point out each time he sees the letter "C" today and next time the letter "M".

Put magnetic letters on the front of the refrigerator and have a letter of the day.

Read fun alphabet books, like "Chicka chicka boom boom", and "Alphabet Rescue" .

Art Idea #2 Finger Painting

Children love to finger paint, but parents don't always like the mess. Use a large tray or cookie sheet to contain the substance. Finger painting is a great sensory experience for children, and you can use it as a fun learning tool. If you don't have a smock, use an old shirt with the sleeves cut off to protect clothes.

Here are some things you can let your child experiment with for finger painting:
1. Pudding
2. Shaving cream
3. Cook some cornstarch and water until thickened, add food color
4. Mix some flour and water together, add food color
5. Store bought finger paint (add a little liquid soap)
6. Use two different colors that will make a third to teach about color mixing. (red and blue makes purple, yellow and red makes orange, yellow and blue makes green). There are some fun books that talk about color mixing to extend activity into story time.

Ideas to extend finger painting:
1. Have your child practice writing letters, numbers, their name with one finger.
2. After they make a picture, take a piece of paper and make a print of it by pressing paper down over finger paint and lifting it carefully.
3. Give them plastic fork or plastic knife or other safe kitchen objects to make patterns in finger paint.
4. Add some salt to make a different texture.
5. Tape some bubble wrap to the tray and put finger paint on top of it; this makes a totally different feel to it. Make a print of this picture too.