1. What is the name of the letter? (letter id)
2. It is important that the students learn the sound and the name of the letter at the same time. What is the sound of each letter? This is nice because instead of hearing /buh/ for the letter b, the students hear /b/. http://www.edina.k12.mn.us/cornelia/classrooms/kindergarten/pilcher/Meet_Alphafriends.htm
3. How do you form the letter? How do you make the letter? Uppercase? Lowercase? Heidisongs has excellent resources for this! (This is a gentle introduction of letter formation instead of mastery.)
4. What is the song? The actual song is posted. The music so you can click and let the kids sing along AND the words are posted so the kids can see the words! I like #3 the best personally.
Song Site #2. http://www.myteacherpages.com/webpages/KristinHall/alphafriends.cfm
Song Site #3. http://teacher.ocps.net/janet.cahill/page7.html
These are examples of alphafriends from Alphafriends:
#5 Teacher reads a 8-16 page that has a single picture on each page. Each letter book has a picture that starts with each letter. For example, reading a to z has these. The letter Aa Book might have a picture of an ant, and the word ant under it. The next page might have a picture of an apple and the word apple under it. The next page might have a picture of an ax, and the word ax under it. The next page might have a picture of an acorn, and the word acorn under it. Etc.
#6. The teacher then leads a discussion of generating a list of words which is why the HM Card that is attached to the song and the book read (#5) is helpful.
Filed under: writing Tagged: | Alphafriends, Houghton Mifflin, kindergarten, letter cycles, letter id, letter sounds, Name Cycles
