Child Struggling With Letter Recognition In Kindergarten
Is your 4 year old or 5 year old having trouble learning letters and sounds? What to do when your child struggles with letter recognition in kindergarten.
Why Your 4 or 5 Year Old Child May Struggle To Learn Letters And Sounds
When you found out that your child is struggling with letter recognition in kindergarten, you probably had a moment of panic.
That's understandable because no parent wants to worry that their child is falling behind, especially when it comes to learning to read!
I'm guessing that you started scrolling online to figure out how to get your 4 or 5 year old child to memorize letters and sounds.
Maybe you've found yourself here after searching for alphabet activities that you hope will finally make letter names and sounds stick.
The trouble is that a lot of alphabet activities make learning letters and sounds too complicated for some 4 and 5 year olds.
I'm talking about the alphabet activities that try to teach uppercase and lowercase letter names and letter sounds, all at the same time.
Some children have challenges with working memory, and this traditional way of teaching the alphabet can result in cognitive overload.
Another reason your child might be having trouble learning letters is if your child's teacher at school is using an outdated curriculum that's not aligned with the science of reading.
An independent investigative journalism project produced a shocking report in 2022 called "Sold A Story: How Teaching Kids To Read Went So Wrong".
It revealed that some of the products used to teach reading in schools in the United States are rooted in a debunked idea about how children learn to read.
I've had some parents join The Playful Path To Reading after their child didn't do well on an alphabet knowledge assessment at school, and their child's teacher could not explain the issues and didn't know how to adjust their teaching to bridge the gap.
Although more and more teachers are becoming aware of the science of reading, their hands are often tied because of school policies and a powerful curriculum industry that's invested in keeping the status quo.
That's why it's a good idea for parents to educate themselves about how to teach phonics at home, even if your child isn't struggling with letter recognition.
How To Simplify Letter Recognition Activities If Your Child Is Struggling
The words we say are made up of individual speech sounds.
Humans invented written symbols to represent those speech sounds so that we are able to write down what we think and say.
The science of reading confirms that learning to read isn't hardwired in the brain. It doesn't happen naturally like learning to talk.
That's why children need to learn letter-sound correspondences.
Teaching phonics means helping your child learn the code between speech sounds and alphabet letters for writing and reading.
When your child is asked about letter sounds on an alphabet knowledge assessment, your child has to remember the written symbol that represents a speech sound, or vice versa.
If you agree that the purpose of learning the alphabet is to get ready for learning to read, then the most important information for your child to remember is letter-sound correspondence.
Letter names are not relevant when it comes to learning to read with phonics.
In the beginning stages of learning to read with phonics, children who know letter names will sometimes say that instead of the speech sound that the letter represents.
Then they have trouble figuring out what the word is because it doesn't make sense when they blend together a mix of letter sounds and names.
Also, most letters in books are lowercase. That's why knowing lowercase letter sounds is the priority.
If your 4 or 5 year old child is struggling with letter recognition, it's OK to postpone teaching uppercase letters and letter names to help your child can focus on what's most important for learning to read.
Phonemic Awareness Activities Will Also Boost Letter Recognition
Sometimes kindergarten children have trouble remembering letter sounds when they are taught out of context and in isolation.
They are asked to memorize letter sounds with little understanding of what the letters actually mean.
It's important to first help your 4 or 5 year old child understand that words are made up of speech sounds called phonemes.
Phonemic awareness is the ability to identify and manipulate individual sounds in spoken words.
It's the best predictor of how well children learn to read, even more so than alphabet knowledge.
Before trying to teach letter sounds at home, play beginning sounds activities first so your child hears the phoneme in a word.
Then show what the phoneme looks like in written form.
Beginning sounds activities will make it easier for your child to remember letter sounds.
That's why developing phonemic awareness is the first step inside The Playful Path To Reading phonics program.
This online course for parents takes all of the guesswork out of helping your child learn phonics at home!
There's a clear success path to follow so that you can see progress and know that your child is on track with learning to read.
It's the way to ensure that your child has the correct foundation for learning to read, even if your child's school does it differently or less effectively.
Related Article: Letter Sounds Learning: Tips To Make It Easier And Fun
Author: Lisa Adele
Founder of The Playful Path To Reading™
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