Alphabet In Action

During Alphabet in Action time, we explore the alphabet! We are using the program Wilson beginning in the next 9 weeks. We have not yet received the book so we are introducing letters and using zoo phonics for now. 

Introducing Letters

When introducing letters, we first show the students how to write it. We have names for each line and we use these names very intentionally each time we talk about the letters. The lines are shown below: sky line, plane 

line, ground line, and the worm line. To write the lower case k we say "start at the sky line, vertical line down to the ground line, frog jump over to the plan line, slant line in and kick out". We use the phrases 'vertical line', 'horizontal line', 'slant line', and 'curved line' to explain the shape of the letter's parts. During the first lesson we simply introduced these lines so that they were aware of what we meant:  l  __  /   \   )   (

Once students understand how to write the letter, we use zoo phonics to explain how the letters sound. 

Zoo Phonics

Zoo Phonics is a program that uses real letter sounds and kinesthetic learning to teach about letters. This is not the official program the school uses but my mentor teacher has found that students really enjoy it and remember it! Each day we introduce one letter character. They kids love to guess what animal it might be and what sound they might make. The cards explain exactly what sound should be made. Some are long sounds like Allie the alligator who says "aaaaaahhhhhhh".  Some are short sounds like Catina the cat who says 'cu, cu, cu" when she cleans her face. We also explain how to say the sound. Some sounds are soft and use more breath where as others are harder and are spoken from the throat. The kids love learning the right way to say it and they will correct each other when they don't do it right. 

Reviewing 

It is important to review with the class and to practice together so that students can see how the letters are written and see the common mistakes made by others. 

Sky Writers

Sometimes we review by using our 'sky writers' (aka holding your pointer finger in the air and writing). We say "put your sky writers up and make a capital B". We use the phrases 'capital' and 'lower case'. 

White Boards

Students use white boards to write the letters and show the teacher. We usually review by writing the letters on the board and then ask them to write the capital and lower case. When they hold up the board, we ask them to do a self assessment to say if they think they did a great job (thumbs up), an okay job (thumbs in the middle), or a poor job (thumbs down). We usually don't call out individual students but we will address the common mistakes we see on the boards.

Fill In the Letter

This is one of the students' favorites because they get to come to the board and show off their letter skills. We draw the 4 lines for them and will write in all the capital letters or lower case letters we've learned while leaving a place for the missing pair. If the students want an extra challenge, we will just draw the lines and then tell them which letter to write without any guidance.