How to Learn Your Alphabet

Learn the alphabet with daily practice.

Learning the ABCs is the first step toward literacy. You should learn not only the way that the letters look, but also how they sound, so that you can put them together to form words. Learn your alphabet through daily repetition, with flashcards, videos or books. Games can also help you remember in a fun way. Once you know the letters, you'll be set for a lifetime of reading.

Instructions

1. Sing the ABC song often. The ABC song is catchy and can help you remember all of the letters. The great part about it is that you can sing it anywhere---in the car, the bath or on a walk.

2. Look at the letters while singing the song. Once you know the song fairly well, you should look at the letters along with the song. This helps you to understand that there is a connection between the printed letter and the letter names. Use flashcards or a poster to point to the letters as you sing.

3. Mix the letters up to see if you know them independent from the song. You need to know each letter on its own. Use flash cards along with a friend or parent to test whether you can recognize each letter.

4. Ask someone to teach you the proper pronunciation of each letter. Each letter makes a different sound, and you need to know the sounds to read words. It's fun to sing a song to learn phonics. A good one to sing, to the tune of "The Farmer in the Dell," is, "The B says 'buh.' The B says 'buh.' Every letter makes a sound. The B says 'buh.'"

5. Play games to reinforce your knowledge. Start with simple games to see if you know your letters. Spread flashcards on the floor and try to put them back together in the right order. You can play other games like ABC bingo if you have a group of people. To practice phonics, think of a letter, then try to find things around the house that start with that letter.

Tips & Warnings

• There are two different versions of the ABC song. One of them has the letters LMNOP running together very quickly, which can be confusing when you are just learning your alphabet. Use the version of the song that says each of these letters distinctly.

References

• Succeed to Read