Teaching the alphabet to young children doesn’t have to be boring. You can make learning the letters fun and engaging for your preschool or pre-K kids by providing them with hands-on activities that use all the different senses. Using multi-sensory activities helps young children retain concepts being taught.
What are Multi-Sensory Activities?
Every child (and adult!) learns differently. Some people learn best by touching and manipulating objects, they’re called tactile learners. Those who prefer to watch and imitate are called visual learners. Auditory learners are those who excel when listening to verbal instructions or audio books. And your kinesthetic learners are the ones who like to move.
The term used to describe all of these strategies together is multi-sensory.
Why Use Multi-Sensory Activities When Teaching the Alphabet?
Multi-sensory strategies help concepts “stick” in our long term memory. Essentially, when we see, hear, say, and do something, we’re activating all of our senses at the same time.
Using multi-sensory techniques to learn the letters is helpful for all children because each child has their own unique learning preference.
Each sense that is engaged when learning the letters provides the brain with an additional opportunity to encode and process the information being taught. The more senses you engage, the more likely you are to be successful in reaching all of your students, and ultimately helping them learn.
Hands-On Activities for Teaching the Alphabet
When using multi-sensory techniques, it’s helpful to follow the sequence below:
- Show the letter to the child first.
- Say the name of the letter aloud and have the child repeat the letter name.
- Invite the child to make the letter using the materials provided while saying the name of the letter aloud.
- The teacher reinforces proper letter formation – start at the top etc.
Be sure to have the child say the name of the letter or number if they trace the letter with their finger, this will ensure that the touch to brain connection is not broken. When children can touch the letters and feel their shapes, they will begin to remember the letter names and identify them more quickly. This will also be helpful as they begin to learn how to write letters.
Some teachers also like to pair the letters and sounds they make together when following this sequence.
Of course, there’s much, much more that goes into helping young children learn how to read and write, letter recognition is just one piece of the large puzzle.
Below are 31 of my favorite activities for teaching the alphabet using multi-sensory methods.
- Gel Bags
- Building Brick Letters
- Sensory Writing Tray
- Wikki Stix
- Pipe Cleaners: These work in a similar way to Wikki Stix, although they’re not sticky.
How Do you Teach the ABC’s in a Fun Way?
- Pattern Block Letters
- Glue Dots: The pictured on this page is a number, but the same technique can be used to teach letters.
- Alphabet Sensory Bottle
- Letter Roads
- Geoboard Letters
What Are the Techniques of Multi-Sensory Teaching?
- Tactile Letters
- Connecting Cube Letters
- Play Dough Letter Mats
- Letter Matching Mats
- Sandpaper Letters
How Do you Make Learning the ABC’s Fun?
- Bingo Dot Letters
- Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Letters
- DIY Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Tree
- Letter Fishing
- Kool-Aid Letters: This one makes your classroom smell great!
- Ink Stamps
- Alphabet Puppy Chow
- Letter Beads
- Letter Hunt
- Playdough Letter Stamps
- Alphabet Soup
- BONUS: Tape Resist Letters
