When it came time for me to teach the alphabet to my second child, I ran into a few obstacles. I was new to the alphabet game, and I was working with a completely different personality. I really enjoyed trying new things to help her succeed, and I was also learning in the process!

We’ve had our ups and downs as we learn the alphabet together, but I definitely have my list of favorite tools that have worked for us. I hope by sharing them, it may give you some ideas to try at home. After a lot of trial and error, I was even able to create an alphabet curriculum that has worked wonders. I will share that in this post, as well.

I listed these tools in time order. We started at age three with a more playful approach (#1-6). I knew at that time she wasn’t ready for something intense. We gradually added a few different tools at age four that really helped her to succeed.

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1. Alphabet Spiral Notebook

When Joanna was three, I was pretty laid back for a couple of reasons. One, I didn’t think it was necessary to get super serious at three. Two, she didn’t sit very long! I didn’t want to push it, so we tried something I called the Alphabet Notebook.

Each week, we went through a letter of the alphabet. The first day, we crafted the letter out of construction paper into a cute animal or object. Next, we glued it into a spiral notebook. The following days of the week, we would use the next page or two in the notebook for writing practice. Sometimes I would glue different letter worksheets in there as well.

The one pictured is handwriting practice pages from Super God Not Super Mom on Teachers Pay Teachers. We didn’t use it all year, but it was a cute resource, and it’s great for early handwriting skills. (It’s a lot more expensive than I remember…I’m wondering if the cost went up.)

This was great for us. We really had the freedom to do whatever we wanted with it. It was low-key, easy to plan, and it’s so cute I can’t get rid of it!

My oldest actually did it with us for Kindergarten, and she really enjoyed it as well! If you follow me on Instagram, I have a whole Alphabet highlight where I show all of these pages. @simply.learning.together.

I hope to one day put together a blog post of my favorite, EASY alphabet crafts. We found almost all of them on Pinterest!

2. Sensory Learning

Sensory learning is great as it is, but my Joanna loves it! She wants to touch everything. So, I made sure to add in some sensory play with letters. Play-doh was a huge hit and a tool we used often (I’ll get to that more below). We also love shaving cream. She has so much fun with it. I always let her play in it for a bit and then we practice writing her name and letters.

I did try a salt/sugar tray once for her to make letters, but I spent most of the time trying to get her not to eat it!

3. Cardboard Letters

This one sounds odd, but it was a huge success for learning her name. At the beginning of the year, I cut out BIG cardboard letters for the letters of her name. We spent a couple days painting them and decorating them. Then, I would just play games with the letters.

We would lay them out on the floor and trace them with our finger. We practiced calling out the letter as if they were a flash card. Our favorite was a scavenger hunt where I’d hide the letters and she’d find them and spell out her whole name. These were so fun!

This could definitely be a great tool to teach the alphabet at home, as well. I’d suggest cutting as you learn them so you’re not having to cut 26 cardboard letters at once. Don’t forget to make them fun and decorate! You could display them in a play room/homeschool space…they’re really so cute! And the best part – FREE. She loved these and they’re so easy to pull out and play with.

4. Books

Books are always helpful, but I will say that some books don’t work the same for each of my children. My oldest’s favorite was “The Sleepy Little Alphabet”. She was recognizing the letters at a very young age in this book. It has a catchy rhyme to it and a cute story.

We purchased “A is for Apple” this year, and I loved how it encourages the child to touch the letter and trace. I knew that would be so helpful for Joanna.

There are so many alphabet books out there, but my all time favorites are the “A to Z Animal Antics”. There’s one book for every letter. We found most of them at our library, but I know you can find them online as well. The books go beyond just learning a letter. It tells a story using tons of words that start with that letter, so the sound is repeated over and over. At the end of the book there’s even enrichment activities to take learning even further. These books are fun, well written, and helpful when it comes to learning about the alphabet.

5. Magnetic Letters

I love having magnetic letters to teach the alphabet. We’ve practiced finding our name or finding a specific letter. Now that we are working on lowercase, we can match the capital to the lowercase. You really can do so much with these. The set that I’ve linked is just like the one we have, but it must be updated. This version actually comes with an e-book series that has 40 different activities you can do with your child!

I know it’s so fun for my girls to be able to pick up the letters, touch them, and move them around. Their favorite game is to put random letters in a line and ask me to “read” it. The words make absolutely no sense, but they sure do giggle – and I’d say we are getting good practice with letter sounds!

6. Play-Dough Mats

This falls in the sensory category, but we had our own special journey with play-dough that I wanted to share. I love using play dough to learn. It was especially helpful for Joanna because she loves sensory play. I knew play-dough mats existed, but I didn’t really want to pay the price. I also felt like everything I saw was just the letter on a piece of paper, maybe with a cute picture.

I didn’t think it was necessary to have to pay for that, so when she was three I would just write a big bubble letter on a piece of paper and slip it into a sheet protector. That was our play-dough mat, and it was perfect! No printing, no cutting…easy. If you are just starting out learning letters, I highly suggest this easy, free method!

When Joanna turned four, I needed more of a challenge. I started hunting around to find play-dough mats but was unhappy with the result. To me, they weren’t worth the money. Most of them had the letter and maybe a tracing prompt or two. I wanted more practice for her. I wanted something that I could take out and work with her one on one each week. Building one letter on a mat didn’t help me very much. So, I created my very first resource – Write and Play Alphabet Mats.

Joanna LOVED them. She could make the letters, trace them, write them, color them, find them…it was so much exposure to one letter in multiple ways. The best part, they’re designed so that your child can choose to write or play! We switch it up all the time. Sometimes she does a mix of both.

These mats were just what we needed to add a little fun, and it really helped me see where some gaps were. Suddenly, I started realizing she could recognize the letter easily, but she still struggled to write them…so I worked on that more. By having multiple skills on one page, I could easily assess her progress.

The mats are all set up the same, so eventually she was able to complete them independently. We still use these today, and they have been incredibly helpful for my daughter!

7. Alphabet Workbook – Preschool Alphabet Curriculum

After a few weeks of using the alphabet play dough mats, I started noticing that repetition was really helpful, but we obviously couldn’t do the same play dough mat every day!

This led me to create the Alphabet Workbook. I wanted consistent, repetitive letter practice. We were working on a specific letter every week, and I wanted her to have practice with that letter each day. The thing is… I didn’t want to have to go and search for multiple worksheets each week. Plus, most of them looked the same! I wanted variety.

The Alphabet Workbook is set up to do just that. There are four practice pages for every letter. Each page has different activities. There’s dot sticker/dot marker activities, dice games, ten frame practice, an optional painting activity, and color by number. That’s just a few of them listed. The focus is around one letter while so many other preschool skills are being practiced: shapes, counting, numbers, patterns, graphing, and more!

I have seen tremendous improvement with my daughter after using this Alphabet Workbook. She is finally starting to recognize her letters. She is learning the letter sounds. She can write almost the entire alphabet now. Most importantly, she is enjoying it all in the process! She has fun learning and doesn’t complain about completing a page in this book.

8. Puzzles

I love educational puzzles. It’s kind of like good books to me. I could buy so many, because I think they’re incredibly useful and so helpful! We have a couple of giant alphabet puzzles – the ones that are about 10 feet long (Click here to see one we have). These are great to practice with and I’ll explain how we’ve done it in the past.

You may have to adjust this depending on your child, but it should give you a good starting point of how to play. I organize about 10-15 letters and line them up nice so they are easy to read. I don’t want them upside down, and I don’t want it to be overwhelming by looking at the whole set of pieces.

Next, I ask her to find the letter, and I give hints as needed. (It’s on this side…it’s at the top) Once she chooses the correct letter, we practice writing it on a mini dry erase board. I make her dotted lines to trace if she needs it.

Then we add the piece to it’s correct place in the puzzle and move to the next letter doing the same thing.

Remember, go at the pace of your child. My oldest would’ve loved to play this game multiple times in a row. The first time I played with my second daughter, she made it through about half the letters, and then I could tell we needed to wrap it up. So, I cut out the writing portion, gave her a few more hints, and we finished. The more we played, the more I could challenge her to go a little bit further. Every child is different.

9. ABC, See Hear Do

I can not say enough good things about these books. We have the “Learn to Read 55 Words” book, and all of my children love it. My oldest already knows how to read and she even thinks it’s fun. My 2 year old can actually turn the pages and “read” the sounds. When my 4 year old opened the book for the first time, I helped her read through the first few sounds. That same sitting, she read her very first word – instantly! The book is incredible. Worth. Every. Penny!

Now, I use it as a supplement as we practice letter sounds. The book actually encourages you to introduce it before you learn letters, but we were past that by the time I found it. As we practice letters, I pull it out to practice the sounds and motions. The movements stick and really help my preschooler to remember the letter sounds!

There is a whole set of books that advance as you work through, including blended beginning sounds, blended ending sounds, sight words, long vowels, and more! We do not own them all yet, but I know many will become part of our collection soon once we master all of the letter sounds. You can learn even more about their program and products by visiting their website.

10. Screens – Movies/Apps

I don’t really like to have the TV on much, but I’ll be completely honest, having it on at certain times during the school day helps me get certain things accomplished easier. While I make lunch or while I work with my oldest, I will try to pick something educational or related to a topic we are studying.

There are some great alphabet shows that we’ve watched and probably more for us to discover. So far we have loved Leap Frog Letter Factory and Alphablocks (on Netflix) as well as Super Why (Free on PBS). Catchy songs and fun characters make learning letters fun and easy to remember.

Leap Frog Letter Factory focuses on the letter and its sound. Alphablocks is all lowercase and the shows are very short (10-15 minutes). Super Why covers letters, sounds, spelling, and early reading skills.

I also downloaded a free alphabet app on my phone. It’s called ABC Alphabet Phonics. The point of the game is to select the letter that is said out loud. It’s very basic and it costs nothing. It was playing this game that I realized my preschooler could identify a letter when it was said out loud, but struggled to call out the name of the letter when asked. So, although it’s not the fanciest game on the planet, it really helped me to easily assess her knowledge of letters. Make sure to play with the settings a bit. You can change it to lowercase, sounds, and add helpful pictures.

Every Child Will Learn At A Unique Pace

As I mentioned before, my first two children learn very differently, and I’m sure when my younger two are ready, I’ll have new ways that work better for them. I don’t believe there is ONE right way to teach the alphabet. What works for me, may not work as well for you. However, I do believe it’s important to try new things to discover that special tool that helps your child grow.

So, what are your favorite tools to teach the alphabet? Have you seen success using something that’s not listed above? I’d love for you to comment and share with me what has worked in your home. I’ll be saving ideas for my next two littles as they get older!