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Make abc lowercase letters your child’s first steps in the realm of knowledge and learning. It has been customary to first teach uppercase letters to children but changing trends and researches have shown that since most of the English words (which happen to be the basic units of spoken and written language) are in the lowercase, children would benefit more if they were introduced to abc lowercase letters initially.
For ages, parents and guardians have been planning thousands of activities and engaging games to get their young ones interested in alphabets – their sounds, shapes as well as the order in which they occur. You too should leave no stones unturned to ensure that your child is able to rightly identify and vocalize individual letters before you get him/her enrolled at the nearest kindergarten. Remember, your child’s familiarity with the sounds and shapes of the letters of the alphabet makes it all the easier for him/her to pick up reading and writing.
Many parents make use of expensive tools and programs to teach their preschool kids to read and write a language. This, however, may lead to complications. A far better way to teach alphabet to a child is to make it a routine, a part of the daily life. Learning abc lowercase letters along with the capital letters as part of the common activities of life greatly amuses your child. By the time the child enters kindergarten years he/she is more confident and ready for more inputs, to better hone his/her skills.
Following are some real attention grabbing and effective activities for preschool children:
- Match Capital Letters with Small Letters – Have two sets of letter cards, one set presenting the lowercase letters and the other uppercase letters. Ask the child to correctly match individual lowercase letter with its capital counterpart. Bingo games with both upper and lowercase letters will help children become familiar with abc lowercase letters and capital letters.
- Memorizing Alphabet Order – Write down individual letters (in lowercase) in cards and ask your ward to read out and arrange them in order. You can make the game easier for younger kids by having the alphabets arranged in groups of threes and fours such as abcd, efgh, ijkl, mnop, qrst, uvw, and xyz.
Another interesting activity, which will help children learn the order by-heart, is to complete a picture by joining individual letters. Draw the outline of a picture using dots and write small letters by each dot so that the picture emerges as the child joins the dots in the correct alphabetical order.
- Learning Sound Of Letters: Write abc lowercase letters on cards and cut out various pictures. Ask the child to match each picture to its corresponding lowercase beginning letter.
Have abc lowercase letters written on cards by children and ask them to make words with them. Start with simple three/four letter words. This will also help the children become familiar with sounds made by combined letters.
Give vent to your imagination and come up with more interesting games and activities. Bake breads and cakes imitating abc lowercase letters, have abc lowercase letters embroidered in the dress, have playthings in similar shapes… try to surround your child with things that increases the child’s association with the letters. Most importantly, teach your child writing along with reading because a child picks up things faster if he/she is given verbal and written training side-by-side.