Have you experienced this before: “Ooooooohhhhhhh, you just teach the ABC’s” usually made complete with a little eye roll or a small chuckle that instantly makes you feel like your job is quite inferior to whoever is talking to you? Well, let me tell you this – you are not inferior and there is no such thing as ‘just the ABC’s!’ Without the letters of the alphabet there would be no reading, no spelling, no writing. Whether you are a Preschool or Pre-K teacher that works on the letters of the alphabet all year long, or a Kindergarten teacher that begins the year with the alphabet, you know the importance of giving your students a solid foundation. In my classroom, this starts with interactive alphabet anchor charts.
“But Emily, what is an anchor chart?”
Let me show you…
What is an Interactive Anchor Chart?
An anchor chart is a chart or poster that relates to a skill or topic you have taught in class. It gives the students something to look at to remind them of what they learned. But do you want to know what’s even better than anchor charts? INTERACTIVE Anchor Charts!
An interactive chart is one you and your students create together, in class, as part of the lesson. Not only does this help students remember the skill or topic, but they also have the added benefit of the experience which makes more brain connections or mental anchors. You might as well call them Plus, my students LOVE helping to create them. It really increases engagement in the lesson and the learning, and it gives them a sense of ownership in the process. Here’s what it look likes in my classroom:
Teaching with Alphabet Anchor Charts
When it is time to introduce a new letter, I always start with the interactive anchor chart. With one anchor chart we are able to work on:
- uppercase and lowercase letter identification
- uppercase and lowercase letter formation
- letter sounds
- beginning sounds / words that begin with the letter sound
- vocabulary building
It’s really quite an efficient way to cover a wide variety of skills in a single lesson. It’s the perfect introduction for any letter.
My students favorite part of the anchor charts is finding out what each letter will become. They love the letter characters and it really helps them to remember the letter and its sound. Check out all the great letter characters that bring the alphabet to life.
The Lesson Format
This is the basic format I use for teaching each letter with the interactive alphabet anchor charts. These steps can be done in one day or you can break it into smaller chunks and complete the anchor chart over a few days or a week.
1. Introduce the Letter
The first thing I do is begin with a blank piece of chart paper. I have the uppercase and lowercase letter already cut out and ready to add to the chart. I begin by telling the students the name of the letter we are learning. As I add the letters I say the letter name and the students repeat it. Then we say its name a few times together.
After learning the name, we spend a few minutes working on the letter formation. I use my finger to trace the letter on the chart, showing the correct letter formation. Then a couple of students come up and trace the letter too. Finally, as a class we air write the letter by holding our pointer finger in the air and writing the letter.
2. Create the Letter Character
After identifying the letter by name, it’s time to turn that ordinary letter into a character! The students LOVE this part. After we have done this a few times and the students know what to expect, I start by asking them what they think the letter will become. It’s a great way to start working on the skill of predicting. We take a few guesses and then we get busy building the letter character.
Once the letter character is finished we talk about what the character is. This is a great time for students to learn new vocabulary words. It’s so fun watching as their vocabulary develops. It’s amazing how it carries over into writing too!
3. Learning the Letter Sound
Creating the letter character is the perfect segue into the letter sound. For the first few letters I introduce the letter sound and connect it back to the letter character. I really emphasize the beginning sound as students start to develop the connection.
Later, I allow the students to take a guess at the letter sound based on the character. It doesn’t take long before they start building those beginning sounds skills and are able to correctly give the letter sound simply based on what the letter character is. I love when we get to this point because it gets the students using higher level thinking skills. They are no longer relying on me to give the answer, but they are thinking analytically. {Yeah – we are teaching just the ABC’s.}
4. Reinforcing the Letter Sound and Building Vocabulary
The final step in this interactive anchor chart process is reinforcing the letter sound with a variety of words that begin with that sound. I start by adding the title “Words that start with. . .” to the top of the anchor chart. Then we use the word cards to find words with the correct beginning sound.
Sometimes I hold up a card and the class tells what it is. We all say the name of the item focusing on the beginning sound. It might sound like “/l/, /l/, laundry.” Then I have a student add the picture of the laundry to the chart.
Sometimes we play a guessing game. I tell the students that I have some cards with words that start with the target sound and ask if they can guess what they are. If a student guesses a word, they take the card and add it to the chart.
And sometimes I let the students come up with their own words. We add these to the chart too. The important part is to help students connect letter sounds to words.
Add Some Interactive Alphabet Fun to Your Classroom
You can find all of the interactive alphabet anchor charts in my store. You can buy each letter individually or you can save almost 40% and purchase them all in the alphabet anchor chart bundle.
Save Alphabet Anchor Charts for Later
I don’t know about you, but I hate spending precious time searching for an idea that I saw online. Don’t waste time, just pin this to your favorite classroom Pinterest board so you can pop back over whenever you need to.
