11/04/2023
Letter recognition, or the ability to recognize and identify letters begins at a very young age. But did you know that teaching letter recognition skills starts way before kindergarten and and even before entering the classroom?
Kindergarten students are many times exposed to writing and copying letters on trace worksheets, and writing pages. But before a young child can do these skills that are part of the curriculum, knowing what skills lead up to these skills is helpful.
Even before a young preschooler is able to identify and name letters in printed context such as books or letter play activities, they are learning this skill through the immersion of seeing letters in everyday life.
Letter identification and the ability to recognize letters in printed form might occur through exposure on television, printed media, following along while a book is being read, or while engaging with technology.
There is a progression in the important literacy skill of recognizing printed letters:
❤️Letter recognition in isolation – example, pointing out all of the upper case letter As on a letter picture book
🧡Letter recognition in every day life – example pointing out the letter S on a stop sign
💛Letter identification – identifying and stating letter’s names
💚Letter identification in text -reading and sounding out a letter’s sound in reading or sounding out written text
💙Matching upper case and lowercase letters– matching the upper case letters to lowercase, and vice versa
Each step of teaching letter recognition skills is founded in experience and practice. This includes communication with others, exposure, and reading with caregivers.
