Teaching Letter Recognition

Capital and Lower Case

By teaching the letters in this manner, children are able to begin forming words very quickly. After learning the first 6 letters kids can make words in the “at”, “an”, “it”, “ip”, “ap” and “in” families.

Capital printed letters are the straightest, simplest forms of most letters in the English alphabet. They are both easier to teach and easier to learn to form than their lowercase versions. Young children usually recognize more upper case letters than lower case, have a preference for upper case writing and write upper case letters better than lower case between the ages of 4 and 6.

Introducing the letters and letting children begin to make words almost right away creates a huge sense of pride. 

Introduce the letters in little groups. At first, relatively quickly introduce the first row of letters, maybe over a week. Then do lots of activities playing with those letters: their sounds, shapes, and names. Once they are mastered, add in the next row. Building and growing, slow and steady.

Slow and steady. This is so important! There is no point in rushing through these steps. We want our children to have a rock solid foundation and that can only be built one small step at a time.