Inside: How my 2-year-old learned the distinction between uppercase and lowercase letters
Psst… DISCLOSURE: Some of the links in this post are through Amazon affiliates. That just means, at NO additional cost to you, Amazon gives me a small portion of the sale if you decide to click a link and make a purchase.
Letter recognition is the foundation for all future language arts endeavors with our little ones. So why not start building and reinforcing that foundation early on? It’s actually easier than we may think for our kiddos to make that mental leap.
Rather watch a video? Check out this one:
5 Ways to Teach Uppercase & Lowercase Letters
We started teaching Arwyn in a more structured format when she was just 2 years old. But even before that, she was introduced to letters. Here are 5 tried and tested methods for teaching uppercase and lowercase letter recognition and differentiation to small children.
1. Dave & Ava
Before I ever started teaching Arwyn at home, we loved Dave & Ava’s YouTube channel. Their tagline is “rediscover nursery rhymes,” but they also have a lot of learning songs and even some fun apps for letters, numbers, etc. The bright colors and fun designs really bring their videos to life.
We stumbled upon their alphabet song one day, and Arwyn was hooked. We watched it EVERY. DAY. along with their phonics song.
So before we began anything else, Arwyn could sing her ABC’s, recognized some of the letters, and also knew a few random letter sounds.
To visit Dave & Ava’s channel, click here.
Not big on screens? I get it! Even just introducing a few of the songs and then singing them with your child on a regular basis while pointing to the letters in a book or on a poster will be beneficial!
2. Letter Crafts
Early on in our homeschool year, we began working on little letter crafts. We started with “A is for alligator” and kept rolling from there!
Check back soon for a post with letter craft ideas and templates!
3. Letter Tree
I’ve found that simple homemade activities that are fun and game-like work super well for teaching letter recognition. Arwyn loves to use this letter tree! We pretend that our letters are fruit and match our lowercase fruit (bottle lids that I’ve written lowercase letters on with a Sharpie) with our uppercase fruit on the tree.
If you’d like to use our tree, you can get it for free by subscribing below!
4. Letter Acorns
These sweet letter acorns were a Christmas gift from one of Arwyn’s pappaws, and we love them!
The uppercase letter is written on the front of the acorn, and the lowercase is printed inside the lid. She has fun finding matches.
Plus they each also have a fun plastic/rubber figure that starts with the letter’s sound and can hide inside the acorn.
You can find them on Amazon here:
5. The Good & the Beautiful Pre-K
Finally, in January we started the Good & the Beautiful PreK program, and I COULD NOT be more pleased with it. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting her to be this far along already, but this curriculum is amazing.
I AM NOT being paid to say this. I bought the curriculum myself. I have no reason to recommend this course other than pure results. Arwyn is excited to do her schoolwork every day, and it has helped her come so far!
Not only does she recognize both uppercase and lowercase variations of each letter but she also knows which one is which AND the sounds for about 90% of her letters. Plus she’s tracing them–something I really didn’t expect her to be doing this early.
The Good & the Beautiful is really language intensive. Because of that, they really focus on laying these early foundations well. I definitely recommend it when your child is ready.
For more on our first year of homeschool with Arwyn and my thoughts on early preschool at home, check out this video:
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How do you plan to teach your child letter recognition? Seasoned moms: what are some of your tips? Let me know in the comments!
Until next time,
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