Letters A - Z Games for Preschoolers

Learning A-Z games for Preschoolers

The formative learning years are critical in creating well-adjusted readers, writers, and spellers. 

Teaching your child the reading and writing basics is the first step to developing strong literacy skills. Playing A-Z games for preschoolers can prove innovative and stimulating in helping your child learn alphabets and sounds in a fun environment. 

Fun Ways to teach A to Z

At the preschool, children are incredibly playful and love to learn through play. Getting children to sit down and stay still is challenging, so allowing them an environment of movement, activity, and expression is the perfect setting for learning. Here are some of the best practice games and activities for your preschooler:

• Musical maze: This is a combination of musical chairs and a maze-walk. Create a maze on the floor and play some music. Ask your child to dance and walk through this maze and freeze the moment the music stops. They must then call out the letter they are standing on. Once identified, you can spend a moment talking about its sound and words that start with the letter.
• Letter hose: Children and water are a match made in heaven. Write down the letters on the garden wall. Now call out a letter, ask your child to identify it, and hose it down. This is play-way learning at its best! If you don’t have your own garden or open space, you can even do this in your bathroom by writing letters on the bathroom walls using chalk.
• Be the builder: Preschoolers love their blocks. Show your child a letter, and ask them to use blocks to stack up a formation that resembles the letter. Remember that this can be quite a challenge for your child, so do step in to advise and help. A good way to start this would be to create a stack yourself and ask your child to replicate the formation. This is an excellent way to help build a strong connection between letters, sounds, and figures.
• Shot in the dark: This is a wonderful game for spooky nights. Stick some letter cards randomly on the wall. Turn out all the lights in the room and keep it as dark as possible. This game has two levels of complexity. Ask your child to shine a torch on any letter, and call out the letter highlighted. 

Once your child is fairly comfortable with letters, you can call out a letter and ask the child to shine to the torch on the correct one. This can be taken ahead to revise letter sounds as well.

• Cook ‘em up: Bake a batch of cookies shaped in the various letters of the alphabet. You can call out different letters each day and have your child only pick and eat the letter called out. It’s a great way for your kids to have their cookies and eat them too!

How to Teach the letters A-Z

Preschool children are excited and ambitious beyond their capabilities. When teaching your child, do keep these pointers in mind:

• Pick a time when your child is fresh, alert, and open to learning. Avoid keeping very rigid timings. Sometimes children may be upset or tired, or may just be distracted and restless. Children who have slept well and have eaten well are usually alert and ready.
• Learning is all about practice. You may have to stay on certain letters for many days before a child can be comfortable. Certain letters may come so naturally to you that you can introduce a second one.
• At this grade level, you want to maintain consistency. Use the same template to teach – sight, sound, and write. You must teach every letter in the same pattern to avoid confusing the child. Pick a method and stick with it – regardless of the games and tools used.

How to support your child in preschool

Preschoolers look actively for approval. They will constantly look at their parents and teachers to gauge what their response is. Always smile, motivate, and build confidence. 

Stay close to the child, and use several rewarding mechanisms like a high-five, a hug, or a fist bump. If your child is struggling, applaud the effort they put in and remind them that they can do it later. Do not prolong the struggle for the child. Come back to the concept another day.

SplashLearn offers abundant opportunities for online learning through our educational activities and games. Browse through our special A to Z games for preschoolers and build a happy, confident learner.