Throughout the post, I added some of my TeachersPayTeachers reviews to share other teachers’ opinions.
I’m going to share my “proudest” Teachers Pay Teachers review very first!
WHY & HOW I Came Up With These Cards!
I developed this way to teach the letters and sounds my first year teaching Kindergarten and it took another year to fully develop it the way I wanted.
I had gone down to Kindergarten from teaching 5th grade (which I had loved). I soon found myself with a lot of students who couldn’t remember the alphabet and their sounds or one or the other. I was really BORED reteaching the letters and sounds. Plus I needed something to STICK – that worked with all types of learners. I randomly started to come up with actions that reminded me of the sounds the letters make.
I came up with these actions to help students with some kinesthetic and clue triggers. That was definitely working! I immediately heard back from parents how much their child LOVED learning the sounds and how quickly they were catching on!
However, I soon found that my students could remember the sounds, but not the letter (visually). I asked a former 5th grade student to draw some uppercase letters for me that represent the action and clue triggers. My Kindergartners loved the uppercase letters cards!
I started my 2nd year teaching Kindergarten. My students were extremely quick in learning the letters and sounds! However, then I discovered that they couldn’t tell me the lowercase letters! So I used what little drawing skills I have and mimicked the uppercase letters. These were a huge success! Finally, I had the auditory, kinesthetic, and all the visual prompts to help students learn their letters and sounds.
The last month in school, I had a Spanish speaking student join my class not knowing her letters or sounds. She practiced the cards, actions, and sounds every day (that she showed up to school) and was able to learn almost all of them in a month!
Uppercase letters were drawn by a child with the initials C.S. I drew the lowercase and tweaked some of the uppercase to fit more of my look. The more years I have taught kindergarten, I have made changes here and there, but I left them even if not perfectly formed.
How I use them in my classroom:
I use the flashcard to teach the letter and sound. I display the card all day and for the rest of the week (the first time introducing the letters). I introduce 2 letters a day! YES, 2 letters a day every day! My class (majority of my class), has their letters mastered by October/November. The ones that don’t, now have a good chunk of sounds and are a step closer ready for spelling.
Every day, my teacher helper (student job) goes through the flashcards we have learned with the class while I take roll. It is a great starter before floor lessons and gives me time to remember to take my roll! We practice letters after the class finishes their morning work (check out my CVC journal, Sight Word Journal and Reading Response Journal.
I also have a handwriting page that students practice writing the letters while saying the letter name and/or sound. It has the visual cue that they take home. I tell my students to go home and TEACH their PARENTS! Students love that!
I like to do the handwriting pages TOGETHER, so they can learn how to form the letters correctly (as an introduction). We say the letter and sound after finishing the letter. More visual and auditory learning. 🙌🏼
If time, the students can color their letter or do Free Reading and Writing time.
My flashcards are available on TeachersPayTeachers! It contains 3 sets of uppercase letter sets, 2 set of lowercase letter sets, handwriting pages, intervention card set (upper/lowercase combined), letter sound action and introduction, and flashcards to send home. (Upper and lowercase letters comes in black and white in case you want to do your own coloring or give to students.
Don’t miss out on these! Do yourself and your students a favor by getting the best and quickest way to learn the alphabet. 😍
Another help in teaching letters and sounds:
I have this chart in my download, but I feel this information (my opinion) will help many students learn their sounds mainly (and letter names) regardless of the method and lessons you use.
Happy Teaching!
Some other fun alphabet activities on Teachers Pay Teachers are: Alphabet Actions Quilt, Alphabet Go Fish Cards for fun learning, and Free Download of Games to Play with cards.
I don’t NEED an incentive to encourage my kindergarteners to learn their alphabet, BUT we started Power Standards and we are doing incentives throughout the year with the others. Since we already do others, I came up with an incentive to start the year off! Check out the ALPHABET and NUMBER INCENTIVE post!
