I hope your little one has a lot of fun feeding the puppy, Becky! 😊

Adebisi,
Please let me know if you need more information or have questions about All About Learning Press. I’m happy to help!

Great question, Bethany.

The answer is not really. Our Pre-reading program teaches letters in alphabetical order to take advantage of the alphabet song and to reinforce alphabetical order. However, our All About Reading level 1 program reteaches letters out of order to allow students to be able to read words when just four letters are learned. It starts with M, S, P, and A so students can read map, Pam, sap, Sam, and am.

I do encourage you to spread the vowels out, however. The sounds of the E and I particularly can be confusing, so having space between learning one and then the other is helpful.

Starting with the letters of the child’s name can be very motivating and exciting for a child as it makes the letters very personal. Then you could move onto another family member’s name and then another until most of the alphabet is covered and then you finish with the few left. However, it would be very likely that the child will run into a sound or sounds that aren’t the sounds you are teaching for letters. For example, if the child’s name is Dave he may wonder why the A in his name doesn’t say the short /ă/ sound and why the E in his name doesn’t say a sound at all. This could cause confusion for some children.

Another method is to teach letters that have similar construction together to be easier for the child to learn to write them. This would be capital A, E, F, H, M, and other straight-lines-only letters first before adding in letters with curved lines. Then the same is done, but with a different order, for lower case. For example, the handwriting program Handwriting Without Tears teaches lower case c and then teaches all the letters that start with the same stroke: a, d, g, o, and q.

Whatever way you choose, be sure to provide enough time when each new letter is learned for it to be mastered. This could be one day per letter for some children or a week per letter for others. And then spend a couple of minutes reviewing all the letters learned so far each day to keep them fresh in the child’s mind.

I hope this helps some.

Thank you, Simone. 😊

Thank you for sharing our site, Sally! 😊

Kim,
I’d love to see a photo if you can get the whole alphabet built! 😊

Gianna,
Taking advantage of your child’s interest in learning is one of the best ways to teach! I hope you and your daughter have lots of fun. We have lots of preschool blog posts and activities beyond these too.

Christina,
Feed the Puppy is a favorite. If your 4-year-old prefers, we also have a similar Feed the Monster activity on this blog post.

It sounds like you have a good plan, but let me know if you need more ideas or help.

I hope these help, Liana.

One thing to consider is focusing on just one letter at a time. After a couple of days, maybe even a week, focused on one letter, then introduce the next one. But as you focus on that new letter, review the previous letters every day. If you find he or she starts to have trouble remembering a previous letter, go back to that letter for a few days before teaching a new one.

I’d love to hear how it goes over the next few months, but let me know if you need more ideas or have questions.

The author of our Pre-reading program, Marie Rippel, is a member of the International Dyslexia Association and has instructed graduate-level courses in Orton-Gillingham Literacy Training offered through Nicolet College in Rhinelander, Wisconsin. She is also a member of Pro Literacy, has previously served on the Board of Directors of the Literary Task Force in Wisconsin, and tutored students for more than 20 years. She did extensive research on this. What the research showed was that children who know the names of the letters have three major advantages:

1. Kids will learn the sounds of the letters much more easily. By contrast, children who don’t know the letter names often have tremendous difficulty in learning the sounds of the letters.

2. Children who can easily name the letters of the alphabet have an easier time learning to read.

3. As they learn the letter names, children tend to be more motivated to discover more about the letters and words around them.

In the appendix in our Pre-reading level, she cites numerous sources and references. One major research source is:

National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction.

Let me know if you have further questions.

You’re welcome, Evan!

You’re welcome, Kathryn. Enjoy.

You’re welcome, Eka.

Shubhangi,
This blog post has links to all of our letter learning blog posts and activities.

When you begin letter learning, start with capitals and introduce one at a time. Work with that one letter for at least a day or two, but for younger children or those that may have trouble with remembering names and such, spend 10 or so minutes a day for four or five days on that one letter. Then introduce the next letter, but keep the previous letter in review. Many find it best to teach letters in alphabetical order, as it allows you to make use of the “Alphabet Song”. Every day you can sing the “Alphabet Song” while pointing to the letters you have learned so far on a chart.

Once your student has mastered the capital letters, introduce the lower case ones, again one at a time. The activities, crafts, and games in this blog post will give you lots of options for reviewing letters as you introduce them.

Then you can go through the alphabet a third time, reviewing capital and lower case together, and adding in the most common sound for each letter. The first sound on our Phonogram Sounds App is the most common.

I hope this helps you get started with teaching the alphabet. Please let me know if you have any questions.

You are welcome, Beth. Have fun learning together!

Cathy,
You are going to love it! Everything is new to preschoolers, so everything is exciting.

Amanda,
Most children begin to learn letter names, letter sounds, and phonological awareness at age 4 or 5. All these readiness skills are covered in our Pre-reading level. After mastering these reading readiness skills, children then move on to beginning reading typically at age 5 or 6. There is a lot of variation in the age that children read, although being somewhat older is more common than being somewhat younger.

I hope this helps. Please let me know if you have further questions or concerns.

You’re welcome, Patrick. That “Feed the Dog” activity seems to be the most popular one we have!

You are welcome, Kathy. We are happy to be a help.

Sandra,
We love to hear that AAR is a student’s favorite subject! Thank you.

Erica,
The Feed the Puppy activity seems to be the most popular with everyone!

Katie,
Have fun. Preschool age is one of my favorite ages!

Mindy,
A teacher’s honest enthusiasm is often very “catchy” to students!

Alyssa,
I have always felt that a friends referral is the highest praise. I am happy to hear our program lived up to your friend’s promise!

Brenda,
Your duck pond game sounds great! How much fun!

Have fun, Carrie!

Christine,
Yes! All About Reading and All About Spelling well to so many learning styles and needs.

Becky,
Congratulations on beginning homeschooling! It’s a wonderful experience!

Let us know if you have any questions or need anything.

I’ve had the exact same thought, Susanne! These make me want to borrow a preschooler from a friend. :D