Today I am recommending 'Alphabet Posters', really they are just a compressed version of an Alphabet Book - that you are able to display on the wall.
What excellent value !
Position them in a prominent place, where your child or children will be able to view them easily. Rooms that you might consider are the bedroom, a playroom, or the kitchen, somewhere, where the child spends a lot of time.
My favourite place would be the bedroom, because when a child is in bed and is restless, you may encourage them to focus on the 'Alphabet Poster' - instead of counting sheep, they can look at and try to remember the pictures and letter sounds that go with them. Do this gently - this is not a test situation - you are helping them to become familiar with the 'building blocks' that will enable them to become a good reader.
Presenting 26 letters in one go, is too much to learn at once, the aim is to familiarize the child with the components that will be useful to them. I will be dealing with how 'teachers' break this down into smaller, more manageable chunks in my later posts.
When your child is at school, or even before then, at Nursery or Play Group, they will gradually be introduced to the idea of 'letters'. It is for this reason that having an 'Alphabet Poster', on the wall at home will reinforce and enable them to practise what they are learning in the comfort of their own home and at their own pace, in their own way.
A good position, I feel, for an Alphabet Poster would be on the opposite wall to the bed, or by the bed, so when they are falling asleep they will be able to see the pictures and letters. This is assuming you have some sort of safe low lighting that enables them to make it out. In the morning, especially in the summer months when the light is bright, they will wake up and the Poster will come within their field of vision.
The Poster will become something that they feel familiar with, almost like their teddy bear (see my post - Early Reading : My Favourite Alphabet Books : 3 Dec 08 ) and they will not feel threatened by pictures with letters and the associated sounds which they are gradually absorbing and thereby learning.
What makes for a good 'Alphabet Poster' - really this is down to personal taste and the interests of your child. However one that I especially like is produced by 'BYEWAY' Wall Charts.
I bought it in WHS, it cost a couple of pounds. Bookshops such as Waterstones, and stores such as Marks & Spencers are good places to look out for 'Alphabet Posters'. Once you are on the look out for them - you will see them everywhere.
An alternative is wrapping paper, which is sometimes presented in the form of the alphabet with letters and pictures, but these are easily torn. A professionally made wall chart has a laminated finish, is not very expensive and will look good for a long time. Because it is laminated it will easily wipe down if sticky fingers make a mess - which they are bound to do !
The 'Alphabet Poster' that I have shows just lower case / small letters, which I think is a good idea. It has just one picture and one word, the graphics are clear, uncluttered and it uses bright colours. The pictures are of familiar objects, eg: apple, egg, umbrella - personally I would shy away from over commercialised posters that may be more complicated or have frightening images.
Another important consideration is to choose a poster with 'short' sounds, eg 'igloo' or 'ink' not 'ice-cream' which begins with the long 'I' / 'eye' sound.
Also, I would try to avoid 'blend' sounds. What on earth are 'blend' sounds, I hear you ask ! 'Blend' sounds are where two consonants become one sound.
( The alphabet has 26 letters, there are five vowels, a, e, i, o u, and the other 21 are consonants - you will know this if you are a regular watcher of Countdown ! ).
An example of a blend word would be 'grape' - the beginning sound of this word has two consonants 'g' and 'r' these blend together to form the sound 'gr'. This means that the word grape does not strictly speaking begin the single initial / first sound of 'g' on its own. A good alphabet picture might instead show a picture of a 'gate'. This word begins with the single 'g' sound.
However it is quite difficult to find a poster that follows this advice, even the one that I have which I know is very appealling and useful to children shows a 'glove' which acutally begins with the blend sound 'gl' rather than 'g' on its own, similarly for 't' there is a picture of a 'tree' which begins with the blend sound 'tr' rather than 't' on its own.
As I recommended in my earlier post , it is best in the early stages to concentrate just on 'single' sounds. ( See : 'Early Reading : My Favourite Alphabet Books' : 3.Dec.08 )
So if you want to do something really useful to help your child learn to read a simple and inexpensive action, such as putting an 'Alphabet Poster' on the wall will make a huge difference to how your child views the learning process. Being familiar with the content of school lessons, will mean that rather than school becoming a dreaded experience, learning will be viewed as a 'fun' activity to be welcomed and which they find very enjoyable.
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