How to Teach Your Baby Letters

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Step 1

Obtain the necessary tools. You'll need one or more of the following:
Letter DVD
Letter Book
Letter Flash Cards

You can make your own letter flash cards with a marker and index cards!
Step 2

Introduce letters to your baby in a fun, relaxed way. Make sure you have your baby's attention (or at least 50% of it!) Show the baby your letter book or card and be entertaining! Pretend this letter book is the greatest thing you've ever seen. If you're excited, baby will be excited.

*Notice how excited everyone is in the video of our 19 month old. The crowd goes wild after every letter!
Step 3

Start by just telling baby what the letter is. Keep your language short and to the point. Your baby will get lost in too many words. "A!" "It's an A!" "Look at the A!" "Touch A!"
Step 4

Once you've gained baby's attention and he enjoys looking at the letters, ask him to point to them. Again, keep the wording short. "Touch A!" "Get A!" "Where's the A?"
Step 5

Teach 1 - 5 letters at a time. Based on your baby's age and interest, teach just a few letters until the baby knows those. Then incorporate a few more. Imagine if you were learning a new language. It would be difficult for you to memorize 26 new labels at once! Your baby is more likely to learn 1 - 5 letters quickly and once he realizes that he's actually learning and he's succeeding, he'll get excited to learn more!
Step 6

Once baby can point to A - Z, start asking him/her to say the letter. Remember to keep your wording short! While holding up a letter, ask "What's this?" "What letter?" "Tell me what this is!" Remember to teach only 1 - 5 letters at a time! Even though baby knows all the letters and can point to all of them, saying the names is new, so back up and do 1 - 5 at a time so baby can learn them faster and feel successful!
Step 7

Be sure to cheer your child on and keep your language positive. "Yay!!!" "You did it!" Even if baby gets the answer wrong, you can respond in a positive way. If you ask baby to point to B and he points to D, you can say, "Close! B is over here!" If you ask baby to label the Q and when you say, "What letter?" she answers, "O" you can say, "Almost! It looks like an O... It's a Q!"
Step 8

Finally, keep in mind that every baby is different so if your baby is not interested, put the letters away and try again later. You want to keep the learning environment fun and relaxed. Your language should always be exciting and positive and baby will begin to enjoy learning if he views it as fun rather than stressful. Good luck!