Letter Sounds, Concepts About Print, and ABC Books

I, like most of you, are busy, busy, busy getting ready for the new school year!! I know I have said this before, but I seriously am just SUPER excited about going back to Kindergarten!

As I am preparing for my little ones, I am keeping in mind that most have not been to pre-school of any kind.  I am working on simple activities that will help reinforce letter sounds and identification.  Last year as I taught phonics and phonemic awareness more explicitly than ever before, I saw a much greater gain in my struggling students’ reading levels. I also know how important teaching basic concepts about print is at this emergent reader age.  I decided that I needed a set of ABC Books that would allow my students to practice letter sounds and concepts about print.  Both of these are skills that are assessed regularly in emerging readers in Marie Clay’s Observation Survey.

I created the books with large, easy to read print.

I used both capital and lowercase letters to work on letter identification and sound identification for each letter. I wanted something that would exaggerate several concepts about print.  I choose to make the books long (or “hot dog style”!) so that the left to right text tracking and page turning would be greater than that of a normal “hamburger style” book.

I used pictures that were easy for the little ones to identify so that they could easily read the picture themselves and listen for the letter sound.

I also love to have the students work in a book making work station.  Sometimes I combine this with “buddy reading”.  I have them create a book, then read it to 3 friends.