What does my child need to know?

At first it seems like a simple thing to learn the alphabet, however there are actually many different steps.  You may find that your child does very well in some aspects of studying the alphabet but needs practice in other aspects.

1.  The alphabet song helps us learn the order of the letters and the names of the letters.  Then we practice identifying the letters in a random order.  For some students, it is difficult to tell the difference between the lowercase letters "d b p q" and "h n r."

2.  There are uppercase letters and lowercase letters.  They do not change in pronunciation from uppercase to lowercase.  We will practice matching letters.  

3.  There are a few letters that look different when printed rather than typed in standard fonts.  We will expect students to be able to recognise both.  These letters include lowercase "a g q t" and uppercase "I J"

4.   Your child will need to learn the sound of each letter as well as the letter name.  We do this with a key word.  For example, "a...apple...ah."

5.   Some letters, particularly vowels (a e i o u), can make more than one sound.  We start with the most common.

6.   When we write English letters, we start at the top.  Practicing good stroke order will allow your child to increase the speed of their printing.  It will also make it easier for them to learn cursive writing.

7.   The placement of letters on a line for writing is important.  Some letters stretch from the top line to the bottom line (b d f h k l) and other start at the middle and go below the bottom line (g p q y).  The rest start halfway between the top and bottom lines (except t).

8.  Uppercase is usually used only for the beginning letter of names, the word "I" (meaning "me"), and the beginning of sentences.  Sometimes it is used to emphasize a word.

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