Letter Knowledge

5 Alphabet Books We Have Been Reading

My daughter, now 3 years and 9 months old, was talking with me after school earlier this week. She was asking me to tell her how many letters I knew, I quickly answered "26." Then I asked her how many letters she knew. Her answer was "29." 

Letter knowledge is one of the skills needed before one can read. Yes, there are 26 letter names but letter knowledge is also knowing the sounds of those letters which includes 44 English phonemes (25 constant sounds and 19 vowel sounds). Learning 26 letters includes knowing both upper and lower case letters, so knowing how to identify 52 shapes. And then there is the issue of different fonts and sizes of the letters.

My daughter has been enjoying the magnetic alphabet letters that we have and we were just gifted a set of lowercase magnetic letters. She loves to line up a long string of letters and have us read what she wrote, ha! An uncle of hers does a great job of reading her writing and it is funny to hear because it is nonsense words and sounds like Russian code or alien language?! 

We own more than 10 alphabet books, we will gift our daughter an alphabet book for her birthday, and we have and will continue to read many more alphabet books. With enough alphabet exploring she will be ready to read and letter knowledge will help her decode words. 

Here's our top 5 alphabet books:

Listed alphabetically, of course.

1. A is for Angry by Sandra Boynton. Copyright 1983 by Workman Publishing Company, Inc. Ages 3-5.

Our daughter received this book as a Christmas present from one of her Grandmas. We have read it over and over again during these last two months since Christmas. The illustrations include Sandra Boynton's iconic characters that we have come to love. Each letter includes an animal and an adjective. The letters are big and our daughter likes tracing them with her finger. Part of the reason that this book is fun is because the animals interact with the letters. The hungry hippopotamus eats some of the H and the baby yak is asleep in the Y and so on. Our daughter likes to ask why question such as: "why does the fox look like that?" Answering her questions helps to explain the pictures. Books like this one helps to expand her vocabulary. 

2. ABCs of Kindness by Patricia Hegarty, illustrated by Summer Macon. Copyright 2019 by Caterpillar Books. Published in the United States by Rodale Kids, an imprint of Random House Children's Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. Board Book. Ages 0- 3.

I was gifted this book at my baby shower. We've read it since she was an infant. The pictures are sweet and lend to conversations. The dotted lines in the letters lend to more tracing. In the book, we are sad to see the car wheel broken but then happy to see that in the end the car is fixed and the bunny is sleeping peacefully on page "z" with the mended car. This alphabet book has text that has a nice meter with rhymes, making it a nice book to read before bed. 

3. Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault, illustrated by Lois Ehlert. Published by Simon and Schuster, 1989. Ages 3-7. 

This is a classic. How can you have an alphabet book list without this one? Even though this is a given it is loved by many children, including our child, and shouldn't be missed. We were playing with our magnetic letters today and our daughter quoted part of this book. The rhyming couplets and repetition is key. The words are fun to say; "Skit skat skoodle doot flip flop flee" and "Oh, no!" The book also has lots of potential for play with glockenspiels/xylophones, felt boards and more. The detail with the damage of the letters falling out of the tree with "loose tooth t and skinned knee d" etc is fun for all to explore. 

4. The Hidden Alphabet by Laura Vaccaro Seeger. Published by Neal Porter Books. Ages 4-8. 

In this alphabet book, an object is named and then we lift a flap to find the shape of the letter that that object starts with. I love all of Laura Vaccaro Seeger's vibrant visuals in this book and all of her books. They are captivating and they invoke a feeling of creativity in me. I think the hidden alphabet letters help the child's brain identify the shape of the letters and search for letters in the everyday. Last night we were reading a book that wasn't an alphabet book and our daughter spotted an "A" in the artwork of the buildings. This hide-n-seek book is fun, imaginative and also expands vocabulary. 

5. U is for Unicorn illustrated by Shannon Hays. Copyright 2019 by make believe ideas ltd. Ages 0-3.

A touch-and-feel alphabet book. I remember our daughter loving this book more last year, maybe it is a perfect 2 year-old book. This book is great for the interactive tactile elements and stays together well when little hands play with it. When she was younger I would just read the first part of each page, "A is for apple" then when I thought she would listen to a longer story I read the rest, "A is for apple that grows on a tree..." The alphabet book is also a rhyming book which helps it stand the test of time.

More ways to explore letter knowledge:

1. Play I Spy. "I spy something on the table that starts with the sound "p."

2. Alphabet puzzles, alphabet flashcards and alphabet stickers.

3. Writing letters with lots of materials: shaving cream, sand, rocks, pinecones, paint, play-doh, markers, etc...

4. Play count the letters/find the letters: "How many A's are there on this page in the book?" 

5. Learn how to sign letters using American Sign Language. 

6. Point out letters when out and about. When walking about some signs are good for touching and feeling the letters. Stop signs are great to point out. Food boxes and menus are great for finding letters. Remember POP, point out print. 

7. Letter sensory bins. You could play a guess the letter based off of the objects in the bin game.

8. Memory/ matching game. Our daughter checked out a Playaway, pre-programed iPad, from a library that had a letter matching game on it that she really liked.

There are so many alphabet books to choose from! A couple other alphabet books that we have enjoyed from the Growing book by book blog are Touch Think Learn ABC by Xavier Deneux and Backseat A-B-See by Maria van Lieshout. 

What alphabet books do you enjoy exploring? 

What materials or activities do you use and do to increase letter knowledge?