Letter of the Week - What are your thoughts?

When I started teaching we did a letter a week.  That was then...this is now.

What do you do?  What are your thoughts?

In the area that I teach, the majority of our kindergarten students come in to kindergarten already knowing their letters.  (I will talk about what I do for the students who don't know their letters and sounds at the beginning of kindergarten in a few.)

When doing a letter a week we are spending 26 weeks teaching the alphabet.  We are teaching letters up until late February early March!  WOW!!!  That's a LONG time!  

(Especially for students who already know their letters.)

In order to keep students engaged we need to teach them new things and help them grow.  

With that being said, I teach a letter every two days and review on Friday.  

Here is an Example of my week:

Monday

Letter A

(Introduce the Letter, Write the letter, discuss letter sound, Introduce Zoo friend  (Allie Alligator), do unscramble a name with letter A names, 

(split into 2 days if you have more than 2 names)

clap syllables, add stickers to a sentence strip with name on it, hang name onto word wall.  

Do letter (Letter A) work during Literacy stations for Monday & Tuesday.

During Literacy Stations we do a letter A writing page or a letter A activity. 

(I do Literacy Stations Monday - Thursday.  I do six stations over a two day rotation

twice a week.  I will go over my Literacy stations in a future blog.)

Tuesday

Letter A review

For the review I have a set of picture cards that I use.  I pick out all of the picture cards with pictures of items that start the letter A.  I mix in a few cards of pictures that start with other letters.  

As I go through picture cards, if the letter starts with the letter A the students say the letter A sound /a/.  If it starts with a different letter they hold up their hand and say "stop"!  It's a simple game that takes just a few minutes and my students love it!  

Then I read a Letter A book

Brainstorm words that start with the letter A on an anchor chart. 

example:

Wednesday

Letter B

(Introduce the Letter, Write the letter, discuss the letter sound, introduce the Zoo friend  (Bubba Bear), do unscramble a name with letter B names, 

(split into 2 days if you have more than 2 names)

clap syllables, add stickers to a sentence strip with name on it, hang name onto word wall.  

Thursday

Letter B Review

(same as Tuesday)

Read a Letter B book

Brainstorm words that start with the Letter B on an anchor chart.  

Friday

Letter A & B Review 

I use letter cards with pictures that start with the letter A and B.  The students then say the letter sound that the picture starts with it.  Once they get the hang of this 

you can throw in a picture that starts with a random letter.  

I continue to do this every week until we have completed all of the letters.    

My thoughts on homework are something to be discussed in a different post, 

but I do send home written homework when introducing letters.  

I send home a writing page on Monday night and on Wednesday night.  

Now lets talk about the students who come to kindergarten not knowing all of their letters.  

(I totally understand this, my youngest son was one of them.)

I remember stressing about sending my son to kindergarten without knowing 

all of his letters and sounds.  (Seriously, I was a kindergarten teacher and my own son didn't know 

all of his letters and sounds!?!?!)  He was busy he wanted to play.  I realize now that is okay.  

Guess what... he learned all of his letters and sounds in no time!  He is now a fifth grader who is 

exactly where he needs to be.  

So for those kiddos I spend more time with them working on 

both letters and sounds. 

 During my literacy stations, I have a guided reading group. 

This group is grouped by ability.  I take this time to work with students 

on what they need.  At this point, these students need more work on letters and sounds so that is what I do.  We still work on reading and sight words like the rest of the class but I just add a little more.  

This way all students in my class are getting what they need.  They all have the opportunity to grow.  

Here is a link to my alphabet pages if interested.  

I will do these along with our kindergarten writing work books.

(One for in class and one for homework.)

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Alphabet-Practice-Pages-No-Prep-1884343

So no letter of the week for me...

I guess I do 2 letters a week!

Once again, these thoughts and ideas are mine.
It's just what I do in my kindergarten room.