13. How to Introduce the Alphabet in Kindergarten

Alphabet principles and letter sounds are the foundation of literacy and a huge part of what we teach in kindergarten.  But what's the best way to introduce letters?

In this episode, I explain how we introduce letters and sounds in the first 30 days of kindergarten and how you can use the tools to reinforce learning all year long.  The key is to set up predictable routines with activities that kindergarten students can actually do - no tiny pieces to lose, limit the cutting, etc. 

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Show notes: https://kindergartentoolbox.com/episode-13-how-to-introduce-the-alphabet-in-kindergarten/

Transcript

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If you've listened to some of our writing podcasts and you're wondering, that sounds great, but what about the foundation? What about the basics, letters, sounds, and all of that? You're in the right spot. Today's episode is all about introducing the alphabet in your kindergarten classroom. Welcome to the Kindergarten Toolbox Podcast. I'm your host, Amy Murray, here to help you simplify kindergarten with tools and strategies that actually work with real live five and six year olds. Let's dive into your shortcut to calmer days and more confident writers. But the beginning of all of this really lies in the foundation of teaching sounds, and that sounds are represented by letters. And if you keep that in mind, you're going to be just fine. Teaching letters and sounds in kindergarten is really the foundation of all the other things that we teach throughout the school year. So you're going to spend a lot of time here. In my kindergarten classroom, we had a mixed bag of ability levels coming to us at the beginning of the school year. And yours is probably similar to that. So we had kids who were in previous years of preschool, ready to rock and roll, maybe even ready to start writing right away. And I had kids who had never set foot in a school building before, never even held a pencil. And we had to teach all of them at once. So we took the first 30 days of school, thank goodness, and taught them how to be students. And while we were teaching how to be in school, how to be a student, how to learn, and all of those important things, we introduced letters. And in the first 30 days, we did a letter of the day. I've seen this called like ABC Boot Camp. Personally, I don't want to be part of anything that feels like a boot camp. I also don't like to diminish what a boot camp is. Maybe it's because I have a green beret as a cousin. I don't know. But so I didn't call it ABC boot camp, but we did a letter a day every day. And that helped us to establish routines while teaching some for some students brand new content. We were not teaching for mastery here. We were teaching for exposure and learning how to be in school paired with a more simple academic piece. And it worked beautifully. So what does that look like in a real classroom? I'm glad you asked. We started with our letter anchor chart of the day. We talked about the letter, how to form it, right? So proper handwriting for the uppercase and the lowercase letter. And we used foundations. So we used the foundations letter line with the skyline, the plain line, the grass line, and the warm line. If you do not use foundations, I would encourage you to find a way to use lines that way. So you have like a sky, something in between the sky and the grass, and then like a dirt or a warm line or whatever you want to call it. It really does help the students to understand how to form those letters. Okay, that's my other side. So we talked about letter formation and the sound that the letter can represent. And that is what we called it. The sound a letter can represent. We had a little poem that we did for each letter. It was really the sound that the letter can make. And then we would put some pictures on the chart as well, as sort of like a beginning sound sort. And then students had a corresponding worksheet that they could do either with us, like we could do it as the whole group. But the way I set it up, because we were starting to learn routines and how we were going to do centers and how we were going to do independent work. So we would do the anchor chart all together as a group, and then they would complete the corresponding worksheet as part of their center or seat work back at their tables. And then we would all make alphabet hats or crowns. We'd use a sentence strip and a simple to cut out craft. If you were going to do this at the beginning of the school year, some of your students have never held scissors before. So those adorable letter um crafts where they have tons of pieces that you have to cut out and glue together, unless you're going to do all that cutting, forget it. That's going to be a major challenge for you as a management standpoint and for them because fine motor skills just aren't developed yet. So we did uh a basic hat shape. They were all the same shape for each letter, and then it had the little sounds and things on it. And that was part of their seat work as we learned. So we would complete it the example together up at the front, and then that was part of their independent piece. So they had their worksheet and they had their crown. And I think a lot of times people think, oh, that's a cute craft. I don't have time for that for the letter crowns or hats, whatever you want to call them. And they were such an important piece of our learning because the students would wear those crowns around, happy as can be, proud to show them off. And every adult that they encountered could ask them about the letter they learned, ask them about the sound it represents. And they took it home. And then their grown-ups at home could ask them too. So you are able to reinforce that learning over and over again with a simple craft that they love to make. So it helps build fine motor and it reinforces the learning. Super worth it, in my opinion. And their last independent job during center time was a mini interactive alphabet book where they would have to uh practice writing the letter on some pages. They would find the letter and you know, circle and find the letter on other pages, find the pictures that match the beginning sounds and all of that kind of thing. They love doing those books. And once again, those are a great way to reinforce learning at home as well. And when they finished those jobs, they could go on to our fine motor hands-on centers. We had a dotted, like you would use dabbers or dots or pom-poms to make the letter. We had a play-doh letter mats, SnapCube letter mats. They could build them with craft sticks like popsicle sticks. We had you could build letters with Legos, all kinds of fun ways to practice making letters. We also would use those for early finisher activities as the school year moved on, and sometimes even for morning tubs to keep things feeling fun and hands-on for our students. It really helped to reinforce the letters and sounds that we were learning in a fun and engaging way. And some years you're going to have kids who are ready for more of a challenge. You could try some directed drawings with them. You could try to make have them make their own beginning sound books and activities that way with your letter of the day. I always had more handwriting practice on hand as well for those kiddos who didn't really understand the first time, needed the extra practice, or just needed extra pencil practice. It's really important to have that as well. And you'll know your group better than I can tell you what to do with them right now. Some years we started with handwriting practice at the beginning of our alphabet routine block because everybody needed the extra practice. And that's okay. You'll know your group and you'll know what they need. But the important thing is to have sort of a toolbox of all of these alphabet activities so you're ready to go. And then you can set up the routines to meet the needs of your learners because you know you have all the tools to do that. And right now, for a limited time, you can get the exact tools I use to set up our alphabet routines in our real kindergarten classroom. It really does work. I love our anchor charts. I miss using them every year. So please go grab them and use them in your classroom. Our kindergarten ELA bundle is brand new and it's a special price for a limited time. So if you're watching or listening to this later, it may not still be that promo price, but that's okay. It's still available. I will drop the link down in the show notes so you don't miss it. And if you're listening to this podcast later in the school year and you're thinking, okay, well, that's the first 30 days of school, what about the rest of the year? The beauty of these tools is you can pull them out, like the anchor charts. If you have kiddos who are struggling in small group, pull them out and do the anchor charts with your small group kids. If you have kids who still need fine motor skills practice, great. Use the centers all year long to help build those fine motor skills. It's not just for the first 30 days. We did use these to help establish routines in those first 30 days, but these are great tools to use for your small groups or practice with letter sounds throughout the year. My goal is to keep these podcast episodes short enough so they're digestible for you, but I could talk about introducing letters and sounds forever and ever and the importance of establishing routines at the beginning of kindergarten. So make sure you stay tuned, follow along so you don't miss our upcoming episodes. We'll be talking about phonemic awareness, like what to do when haggarty isn't enough or it's boring, and uh introducing short vowels and CVC words and just establishing classroom management at the beginning of kindergarten. So you don't want to miss it. Follow along. And if you're enjoying the podcast, please leave a review wherever you're listening so that other kindergarten teachers can find us as well. Thanks so much for listening. See you next week. Thanks for listening to the Kindergarten Toolbox. I'm Amy Murray and I'm so glad you're here. Be sure to check the show notes for all the links and resources from today's episode. For even more tips, tools, and support, head to teaching exceptionalkinders.com or connect with me on Instagram at Teaching Exceptional Kinders. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow along and subscribe to the show and take a minute to leave a review. It helps other kindergarten teachers to find us too. Teaching kindergarten is tough, but you're not alone. Here's to calmer days and more confident writers. You've got this.