Alphabet Activity

It's time for Mr Cheeky to get to grips with his alphabet. He probably knows about half of it and can do the sounds for s, a, t, p, i and n thanks to Jolly Phonics. The problem is Mr Cheeky is quite a different learner to his older brother Mr Social who picked up the alphabet in a matter of a few sessions. I saw problem...maybe that's the wrong terminology. We all know that children learn differently and that there is no one mould to suit all and that is what I am learning with my boys. Mr Social is gifted with his literacy, he loves books and he learned his alphabet quickly and had a thirst for learning to read. I was curious to see what he would be graded as a reader if he was following some kind of graded system and he was very excited to take some reading tests (which for him meant just more opportunities to read which he loves) and I discovered that his reading ability fell between an age of 7 1/2 to 9 1/2. (The range in age comes from the fact that the reading level tests focused on different things). He turns 6 at the end of the month so I am thrilled that the one thing I was nervous about teaching has gone well and he is quite fluent now.

Mr Social learned his alphabet and sounds mainly through the Jolly Phonics reading scheme. It involved work sheets and I supplemented with other activities like playdough letters, alphabet magnets, letter bingo and other such fun crafts. We also have bananagrams which is great for teaching letters and we play a few modified versions of the game depending on what I am wanting to teach.

Mr Cheeky on the other hand does not want to focus his attention on worksheets or if he does it is for very short bursts. And he often resists my attempts to turn everyday play activities into alphabet learning opportunities. But I did find a happy marriage this morning of two things he loves doing...jigsaws and running. Slightly odd combination as they do not normally go hand in hand but I did get a sustained period of alphabet learning from him. Mr Cheeky has always loved puzzles, he is of a more logical nature and his grasp of logic and numeracy is very good. For his last birthday he received a lovely Dr Seuss alphabet jigsaw and he happily pieced it together this morning. Noticing that he could do with running off a bit of energy I challenged him to run into the kitchen and bring me one letter of the alphabet off the fridge at a time and match it up with the matching letter on the jigsaw. Well a challenge is enough to get this boy moving and off he whizzed and came skidding back with his first letter. I asked him to name the letter before he placed it and if he couldn't name it then he was allowed to place the letter in the LeapFrog letter machine to hear it's name and the sound it makes. This kept him occupied until he had completed about half of the alphabet. I was pleased with his attempt and let him finish as I didn't want to dissuade him from returning to another alphabet task tomorrow. So that was my impromptu alphabet activity of the day.