My Child Is Having Trouble Learning Letters

This is especially true for toddlers learning letters.

It's a common mistake to think that toddlers are ready for learning letters when you notice them pointing to letters and asking, “What’s that?”

The truth is that a toddler's “interest in letters” is actually just an eagerness for language.

Toddlers simply want to know the names of everything to build vocabulary.

Most toddlers aren't developmentally ready for the abstract thinking required to understand that letters are symbols that represent sounds in our spoken language.

Keep in mind that words are made up of speech sounds in a row.

It isn't until children are around 3 years old that they've gone through the language explosion.

It's only then that they will begin to shift their focus from building vocabulary to building phonemic awareness by becoming aware of individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words.

Once a child can identify at least the beginning sound of spoken words, then it's time to show what those sounds look like using alphabet letters.

There’s really not much point trying to get your 18 month old to learn letters by buying a bunch of alphabet toys and puzzles, stamping letters into play dough or making letter crafts.

Sure, some young toddlers can memorize letter names and letter sounds. But that’s no more impressive than naming any object!

You can really simplify learning letters when you do phonemic awareness activities before you start letter recognition activities.

Otherwise your child is just memorizing letter sounds out of context and in isolation, with little understanding of what the letters actually mean.

One of the biggest mistakes is starting sound-letter matching activities before your child understands that letters are symbols.

The alphabet letters only have meaning because we’ve all agreed that a certain written symbol represents a sound in our spoken language.

Phonemic awareness is the best predictor of how well children learn to read!

That's because reading requires knowledge of the code between speech sounds and written symbols.

Phonemic awareness is what really matters for reading readiness.

By focusing on phonemic awareness first, the letter symbols will have meaning for your child when it comes time to associate them with the sounds in spoken words.

When you search “learning letters” on Pinterest to find alphabet activity ideas, it’s easy to think that you’re supposed to teach uppercase and lowercase letter names and letter sounds, all at the same time.

For some children, it’s just too much information to absorb when you try to teach uppercase and lowercase letter names and sounds all at the same time.

Keep in mind that knowing the names of the alphabet letters doesn’t prepare your preschooler for learning phonics!

Knowing letter names might interfere with learning phonics and beginning to read.

When sounding out a word, some children who know letter names will say the letter name instead of the speech sound that the letter represents. Then they cannot hear the word when they blend it together because it doesn’t make any sense.

For example, imagine a child who sees the word “cat” and sounds out “see ay tee”. This child will be unable to decode the word because of confusion between letter names and letter sounds.

Knowledge of letter names becomes more useful when your child shifts away from inventive spelling and starts learning conventional (correct) spelling in the early elementary years. There’s no rush!

It's also OK to postpone teaching uppercase letter sounds.

Most letters in books are lowercase. Uppercase letters really aren’t that relevant until your child is at the stage of reading sentences that begin with an uppercase letter.

You can keep it simple by teaching only lowercase letter sounds when you start teaching phonics to your preschooler at home.

Is your child is having trouble learning letters? Or maybe you just want to start teaching phonics the right way so you can avoid this stressful scenario!

You might find yourself in this situation if you've unknowingly skipped ahead in the process of teaching phonics step-by-step that I teach inside The Playful Path To Reading.

It's important to have a roadmap so that you don't get sidetracked with random alphabet activities and just hoping that something sticks.

To avoid struggles learning letters, first take time to observe whether or not your child is developmentally ready for learning the code between speech sounds and letter symbols.

You can get started by doing phonemic awareness activities to assess readiness and help your child hear the speech sounds in spoken words.

That way your child will have the foundation needed to understand that letters represent speech sounds.

Related Article: Letter Sounds Learning: Tips To Make It Easier And Fun