Alphabet Recognition?

Question

My 3-year-old knows how to recite his alphabet, numbers and sign lanuguage but it's difficult for him to recognize the letters when asked and especially out of order. Do you have any suggestions?

No he's not deaf or academically challenged in anyway. Just great with route memorization in song but lacking skills to identify the letters.

Answer 1

You should make a game out of it. I have seen the same situation in my kindergarten class. It's easy for a child to memorize a song or (rote) sequence. An easy way is to make flash cards and have them laying face down, as you turn one over say the name of the letter, soon he will be able to recognize the letters while they are out of sequence. You can also have pictures that accompany letters to enhance recognition, eg. apple and write the word under the picture. As for math the same technique will work you can take it one step further by showing a set of objects (two trucks) and then aks you child to find the correct number (2).
It is nothing to stress over, remember he is only three.

Answer 2

You get the star today!

I am very glad you are asking this question now, but I will leave it to the others to give you ideas, as they are countless (I also don't have time right now to get into that).

The reason I'm glad, is that I taught kindergarten for 22 years and every year there were parents who brought their child in thinking they were very bright because they knew the "ABC" song or could "say" their numbers.... only to be disappointed when, in many cases, they later realized that their child was not meeting the required skills for kindergarten because they didn't know what the letters or numbers looked like, or just what the numbers meant (or could even count "X' amount of objects). You also mentioned recognizing letters and numbers "out of order" - VERY happy you did that, as many wouldl only "say" the alphabet in order as I pointed (I could even point at any letter, number or symbol and they would just continue their "order" of the song!). Most parents do not think of "testing" it 'out of order'.

I do hope you get many good ideas from your answers here. If you want ideas from a teacher you could probably contact your local primary school and I'm sure they would be happy to help you. My school even had a "school readiness kit", full of ideas just for people like you. You could also find more ideas by typing "preschool ideas" "early childhood ideas", or something like that into your brouser.

Thanks.....we need more concerned parents like YOU.... Parents are teachers too!

Answer 3

well...most 3 yr olds will not know that yet, but if you do want to continue teaching it...
there are 2 kinds of language...expressive and receptive...it sounds like the expressive is harder for him...here is an example..
receptive language: hold two letters (a and b for example) and say 'show me b' or 'show me a' or 'which one is a?'...this requires no language from the child but they must understand the question.
expressive language: 'what letter is this?' while holding a letter up.
I would focus more on the receptive side for a 3 year old. simply talk about the letters, identify them for the child, and then, ON OCCASION, do testing type stuff (show me the letter 'a')...start with letters that are in their name (first letter of first name is a good one to start with)...
but really...kids are not expected to be able to label and identify all their abc's and numbers until the end of kindergarten. your child will be just fine...try not to worry about teaching these things so much as just talking about them and having conversations about them...your child will get them with development and time.

Answer 4

First letter to word picture association.

A=apple (or picture thereof)

Your refernce to sign language in post tells me your son is deaf, but even though the sound of the letter association may not aid him with the above mentioned practice, the first letter association to an item will.

It is best to take your son to a linguist so as to improve both the sound and letter association, at once, while he is still young, for much better benefit towards his future, in many ways.

Some of your posts reference also hints at your sons possibility of also maybe having dyslexia, (if you are showing him an entire word along with the first letter), and if this isn't the case, my example of how you teach and he responds (in parenthesis), it may be his rote memory.

Answer 5

Make up a word for each letter like a is for apple and b is for banana and so on. When he sees the letter and does not reconize it then when you ask him about a letter like z and he does not reconize it then say zebra. He has to memorize the letter as an individual.

Answer 6

I am a recently retired preschool/elem teacher and I would suggest looking at leapfrog toys. They are amazing. There are tons on ebay and in stores. I have taught 1st and 2nd, beginning reading and preschool and these interactive toys each have 3 modes and are such fun for the kids. www.leapfrog.com
ebay has tons used and at good prices.

Answer 7

Make a game of identifying objects... like A words, B words, etc. He probably just needs practice -- he's young!

Answer 8

you can get alphabet flashcards for preschoolers with pictures and stuff on them. they will help him realate the letter to something he can see which will help him to recognize the letter and remember it better also. with them you can play memory games and stuff too, usually the box will have some ideas

Answer 9

he is still very young but sounds very clever, why not try to put a letter beside a object that starts with the same letter,,,,,,,, good luck