Alphabet Activities Found At

Alphabet Activities found at http://www.alphabetmats.com/activities.html

Letter recognition is one of the best predictors of reading success. Automatic recognition of letters gives a strong indication of how quickly a student will be able to learn the sounds of letters and ultimately read and spell. For students who have not yet attained instant letter recognition and letter-sound correspondence 5-20 minutes daily of Alphabet Activities is recommended.

The following activities work on instant letter recognition, the sounds of the letters, the application of sounds to letters for reading and spelling, the alphabet as a sequencing tool, and dictionary use. The activities can be done with capital or lower case letters and mats unless otherwise indicated.

Large and Small Group Activities: 1. Name Those Letters

Objective: Instant letter recognition Alphabet as a sequencing tool. Materials: Alphabet mat Activity: Student places the writing finger on A on the arc and echoes the letters after the teacher as s/he points to each letter. This activity is done daily at the beginning of all alphabet activities. It is a warm-up.

2. Sign Those Letters

Objective: Instant letter recognition Alphabet as a sequencing tool Materials: Capital letter alphabet mat Activity: Students signs the letters of the alphabet using the signs provided on the capital letter mat. Introduce 2-3 signs during a lesson and review those already learned. Extension: Randomly call out letters and student signs the letter.

3. Chugging Choo-choo

Objective: Instant letter recognition Alphabet as a sequencing tool Materials: Alphabet mat Activity: Student places the writing finger on A on the arc of the mat and echoes the letters after the teacher while pointing to each letter. Ask student to place the pointer finger on Z and put his/her engine in reverse. Student touches and names the letters starting with Z and going backwards to A. Repeat 2 times.

4. Run-away Train

Objective: Instant letter recognition Alphabet as a sequencing tool Materials: Alphabet mat Activity: Student places the index finger of his/her writing hand on A. Student points to each letter while naming the letter. To prevent having a “run-away-train,” hold up a stop sign or say, “stop” during the activity. The student stops and then starts again touching and naming when the teacher/leader says, “go” or lowers the STOP sign.

5. Show Me

Objective: Instant letter recognition Alphabet as a sequencing tool Materials: Alphabet mat Activity: Student places the writing finger on A on the arc on the mat and echoes the letters after the teacher as s/he points to each letter. Ask student to “Show Me a.” Repeat with 5-7 letters. Go as quickly or slowly as the student needs to go. If students are having difficulty, pair weaker and stronger students for this activity.

6. Pinky Point: 23. What’s Missing?

Objective: Instant letter recognition Alphabet as a sequencing tool Materials: Alphabet mats and letters Activity: The student places the letters in the center of his/her mat and turns the letters right side up. Student is led to find the first letter of the alphabet (A) and place it on the arc at the bottom of the mat. Then the student places each letter of the alphabet on the arc on the mat. After placing the 26 letters, the student touches and names the 26 letters again. Students now work in pairs. One student closes his/her eyes and the other student removes a letter from the arc and holds it so the other student cannot see it. The student opens his/her eyes and “proofs” the arc to find out which letter has been taken. The letter is returned when it is guessed and the other student gets a turn. As student places the letters back into the bag, s/he says the letter names again. (This game increases in difficulty by the student taking up to 4 letters from the arc and the other student guessing the 4 missing letters.)

24. Capital to Lower Case Matching

Objective: Instant letter recognition Alphabet as a sequencing tool Materials: Lower case mats and lower case letters Activity: The student places the letters in the center of the mat and turns the letters right side up. Student finds and places each letter of the alphabet on the letter/keyword/sound boxes on the front of the mat. After placing the 26 letters, the student touches and names the 26 letters again. Student names letters as s/he puts them in the bag.

25. Twenty Questions

Objective: Instant letter recognition Alphabet as a sequencing tool Materials: Alphabet mats and letters Activity: The student places the letters in the center of his/her mat and turns the letters right side up. Student finds and places each letter of the alphabet on the arc on the mat. After placing the 26 letters, the student touches and names the 26 letters again. The leader picks a letter out of a bag and the class guesses the letter. The only answers the teacher can give are “yes” or “no.” They can ask if the letter is in the first half of the alphabet or they can ask if it is a vowel or a consonant; but they want to guess the letter in as few questions as they can. Lead them to ask questions. As you answer, students put eliminated letters back in their bags. This game requires scaffolding in the beginning if students do not know how to ask questions. Count the number of questions and graph each time students play. The goal is to discover the letter in the fewest number of questions.

26. Spelling

Objective: Instant letter recognition Alphabet as a sequencing tool Letter-sounds Application of letter-reading and spelling Materials: Lower case alphabet mats and lower case letters Activity: The student places the letters in the center of the mats. Student finds and places each letter on the arc. The student touches and names the 26 letters again. Ask students to find the letter a and put it in a grid in the center of their mat. Now ask them to put the t in the grid after the a and read the word. Ask student to add letter to make sat. Change sat to pat, pit, sit, pit, tip, tin, tan, nat, not, nut, cut, cot, cat. Only change one letter with each new word. Ask student to place the letters back into the bag, saying the letter names again. Extension: a. Practice spelling cV words using: no, go, so, wo, we, be, he, me. b. Practice spelling Vr words using: car, far, bar, jar, mar, tar, par, park, bark, mark, lark, dark, hark, hard, lard, card, cart.

or: or, nor, for, fork, cork, corn, born, horn, morn, corn, cord, ford, fort, forth, north

wor: work, word, worm, world, worst c. Practice spelling Vce words using: ate, date, fate, gate, hate, late, rate, mate, made, fade, face, lace, mace, race, pace, pane, cane, lane, mane, name, came, dame, fame, game, lame, same, tame, time, dime, lime, rime, rite, bite, bide, hide, tide, ride, rice, dice, lice, mice, nice, rice, price, pride, bride, bide, bode, rode, code, cone, bone, lone, tone, tote, note, vote, use, fuse, fume, fune, dune, tune d. Practice spelling VV words. Write ee on a small piece of paper and use in spelling: feet, meet, beet, sheet, sheep, deep, keep, keel, feel, feed, heed, need, reed, seed, weed, wee, see, bee, fee

Write oo on a small sheet of paper. Tell student the sound (oo) like in book. Practice spelling the sound using: book, look, took, cook, hook, hood, stood, good e. Multiple syllable words can be spelled one syllable at a time. Ask students to say magnet. Now ask them to say the first syllable: mag. Help them to break it down into sounds and move a marker for each sound in the first syllable. Then move the corresponding letter for each sound below the marker. Next say the second syllable and lead the students to break the second syllable into sounds. Have them move a marker into the top row of boxes to represent each sound. Then have them move the corresponding letters below the sound markers. When students are ready, they can write the letters in the bottom row of boxes. f. Students sign the letters as they spell words.

27. Battle

Objective: Instant letter recognition Alphabet as a sequencing tool Materials: Capital letter alphabet mats and capital letters Activity: Students play in pairs. Each student picks one letter from his/her bag and names the letter. The student whose letter is closer to Z, says, “I win because ___ is closer to Z than ___. The student with the winning letter puts his/her letter on the alphabet strip at the top of the mat. The student with the losing letter puts his/her letter at the bottom of his/her mat. The student with the most letters at the end of the game is the winner. 28. Auditory Sequential Memory

Objective: Instant letter recognition Alphabet as a sequencing tool Materials: Alphabet mats and letters Activity: The student places the letters in the center of the mat and turns the letters right side up. Student finds each letter of the alphabet and places it on the arc on the mat. After placing the 26 letters, the student touches and names the 26 letters again. The teacher says a series of 2-7 letters (not in alphabetical order). Student repeats and picks up letters and places them in his/her bag. Student does not pick up letters while they are being named.

29. Four in a Row

Objective: Instant letter recognition Alphabet as a sequencing tool Materials: Alphabet mats and letters Activity: Students play in pairs. The pair has 1 set of plastic capital letters. Each student has a container or a “shield” to hide his/her letters from the other student. Each student closes his/her eyes and picks 7 letters and places them where the other student cannot see them. The goal is to get 4 consecutive letters is a row (alphabetical order—ABCD). The remaining letters are in a pond. The first player discards one letter to the pond and takes one letter from the pond. The first player to get “4 in a Row” says “4 in a Row!” and shows his/her 4 letters.

30. Dominos

Objective: Instant letter recognition Alphabet as a sequencing tool Materials: Capital letter alphabet mats and capital letters Activity: One set of letters is given to a pair of students. The students place the letters in the center of a mat and turn the letters right side up. Students place M and N and on the arc. Students close their eyes and pick 5 letters each. MN is the “spinner domino.” The first student must play the letter before or after MN (LMNO). If the student does not have L or O, then s/he goes to the “bone yard” and takes the needed letter and plays it. Each player can only play one letter during a turn. If the needed letter is not in the “bone yard,” the student takes no letter and misses his/her turn. The goal is to be the first player to play all of his/her letters.

31. Letters Up-7up

Objective: Instant letter recognition Alphabet as a sequencing tool Letter-sound Materials: 1 set of capital letters Activity: Seven students start out at the front of the room. The rest of the students are given 1-2 capital letters. Students at their seats close their eyes and hold up one letter. The students who are “up” take one letter from one student. When all seven have taken a letter, the leader says, “Heads up! 7 Up!” The students who are seated hide their letters. Students at their seats take turns calling on students who are “up.” When a student who is “up” is called on, s/he must do an action that starts with the sound of the letter that s/he took. If the student can guess the action and the letter was taken from that student, then the student who is up sits down and the one who guessed is now up.

32. Alphabetizing

Objective: Instant letter recognition Alphabet as a sequencing tool Materials: 5 index cards Activity: Write on index cards: ant, bear, cat, dog, elephant Ask students how the room is organized. Are books and toys and paper put in the same box? Or do books go in one place and papers in another? Why? Let them discover that alphabetical order is the same way. It is organizing words so we can find them quickly. Guide class to put the 5 words in alphabetical order by the first letter.

33. Dictionary

Objective: Instant letter recognition Alphabet as a sequencing tool Dictionary use Materials: Dictionary Activity: Lead students to discover that dictionaries are in alphabetical order. Write the word dog on the board and tell students to look at the first letter of the first word. Ask students where this letter is in the alphabet? If the word begins with this letter, where would the word be in the dictionary? Would the word be in the first or second half of the dictionary? Discuss the first letter of the word and ask a student to open the dictionary to where they think the word might be. Show the students guidewords and lead students to use first letter of the word to decide if they should go toward the front or back of the dictionary. Locate 2-3 words.

34. My Book of Words

Objective: Instant letter recognition Alphabet as a sequencing tool Materials: (7) 8 1/2 x 11 sheets of paper folded in half and stapled plus colored paper for the cover. Activity: Students write a title (Jane’s Dictionary or Bryan’s Book of Words) on the cover and their name as the author and illustrator. Write one letter of the alphabet (capital and lower case) on each page and draw or paste pictures that begin with that letter. Title page: title, their name as author and illustrator.