How To Teach Letter Sounds
By Hallie Bulkin
Recently I was asked by a parent how to teach their child each letter’s sounds. This took me back to my days of working in a preschool classroom. Well, really out of a preschool classroom closet. OH and do I have stories of what you hear from the closet of a preschool classroom, but that’s for future posts 😉
I am really glad that I was asked about this as it is a REALLY important skill for children to learn between the ages of 3-5 years of age. In fact, the sounds of letters are actually a pre-literacy skill that are considered crucial for later reading development skills. Research has shown that children who lack this skill in preschool are significantly more at risk to develop reading delays by second and third grade. So this is a great skill to work on at home!
As I sit her writing this I am remembering a particular circle time song that a few of the teachers used. I used to go home singing it at night. Afterall, it’s pretty common to go home with a preschool song stuck in your head when you spend much of your day with 3 and 4 year olds.
So how does this song go? Well I tried to find the one that I was thinking of but YouTube brought up a few similar songs. I will share one below! But first, here is the reason why I LOVE this song. First, it is catchy and you might just want to sing along (go ahead, I dare you ~ let your inner child out!). Second, it reviews the alphabet letters in a different way than the typical alphabet song (which they should already know before teaching letter sounds). And third, it repeats some of the sounds and therefore, for speech pathology purposes, gives extra opportunities to practice the sound that each letter makes. Note: I will keep searching for that other letter sound song and post it when I find it 🙂
The Lyrics if you would like to print them out are as follows:
Some letters are made of straight lines,
And some are groovy and round,
But every letter makes a sound.
The A says “aaa”,
The B says buh, buh, buh, buh,
The C says “kuh”
The D says “duh”
The E says “eh”
And The F says “ffff”
The G says “guh”
The H says “huh huh huh huh”
The I says “ih”
And the J says “dg”
The K says “kuh”
And the L says “uhl uhl…uhl uhl”
The M says “mmm”
And the N says “nnnn”
The O says “ah ah ah ah ahhh”
And the P says “puh”
The Q says “kwuh”
And the R says “ruh ruh ruh”
The S says “sssss”
And the T says “tuh”
The U says “uh”
And the V says “vvv”
The W says “wuh wuh wuh wuh”
And the X says ” ks”
The Y says “yih”
And the Z says “zzzzz”
And those are all the letters in the fac-tor-y!
Hope this helps to teach the sounds of the letters! Have fun with it and be silly. Remember, learning should ALWAYS be FUN! 🙂
With Love,
Hallie Bulkin, MA CCC-SLP