How do you teach the ABCs? Part Two

Hi there, I am back again to talk about how I teach the ABCs in my classroom.  This is the one thing I do that I think helps ALL kids become fluent with letters and sounds.  It is really important for kinder students to become fluent with using letters and sounds for the real purpose of reading and writing.  I think this product more than any other helps my students master letters and sounds.  It is a Kinesthetic Alphabet with a character and movement for each letter.  I teach each letter explicitly with the movement.  When all letters have been taught, we do the chant every day until all students have mastered letters and sounds.  It takes no more than 5 minutes of instructional time to do the chant.  This is by far the most powerful instructional method for teaching letters and sounds.  Period!

I have been doing some version of a kinesthetic alphabet since my very first year teaching kindergarten (eighteen years ago).  It is kind of an obvious thing to get your kids moving while saying the letters and sounds.  It really helps address the various learning modalities of your students and it is FUN!

 

These are some examples of the teaching posters.  You can also see an example of the back side with directions and a scripted lesson for each letter if you choose to use it.  After I teach this alphabet to my kiddos, we then use this alphabet chart for reading and writing.  Always!  The kids go from using the chant and motions to remember the letters/sounds to eventual fluency.  It works!  The chart is free in my TpT store.  You can go grab it there.  Just click on the image below.

I will try to add a video of me doing the chant with my class as soon as I can.

If you would like to add this set to your language arts program, you can go get it in my TpT store.  Just click on the image below to go grab it.

Happy teaching!