A question for parents who home school pre-k or kindergarten.?

Question

I have just started homeschooling my 5 year old son. Along with two other 4 year old boys. I have lots of different books/workbooks that were given to me before we started. Some say to teach capital letters first, then learn lower case. Others say to teach them at the same time. Any parents that have dealt with this, and opinions on which way is better. I would really appreciate it. Thank you.

Blessings,

Jennifer

Answer 1

I usually teach them at the same time, but if any of the boys seems overwhelmed (one of my kids just couldn't handle it all at once like that), then just let that one focus on the capitol letters and come back to the lower case with him after he's gone through the whole alphabet once and gotten familiar with it.

Answer 2

4 and 5?  Just have fun.  I've been playing learning games with my 4 year old since we started reading together at around 2.  We started doing circle time with singing and signing alphabet and days of the week and focus on a letter or shape on lesson they needed to learn that day (not hitting) and then we'd sing and play games for that theme.

Examble the letter B would have b songs.  The wheels on the Bus, Apple and Bananas, Where are the bees.  

Then going around the room and finding B words...ball, bat, batman, blanket.

Crafttime included looking through magazines for the letter b and ripping then out....scissors aren't as fun currently.  Glue them to a big piece of paper and practice writing on the bottom.

Collect all 26 letters this way and display your child's own wall alphapet display....they'll be proud.

Answer 3

I introduced both at the same time for recognition, but really focused on capitol letters first, then lower case.  

For writing definitely capitol letters first. But I would start with the letters in their name and do that correctly - i.e. teach them to write their name with upper case then lower case letters.

A lot of pre-school edcuators also don't to letters in order.  

Good Luck

Answer 4

There is honestly no right or wrong way to do it; my son learned them at the same time, which is what he was developmentally ready for.

I would say to go with whichever one the kids recognize first.  If they see capital letters a lot (on signs, brochures or books, calendars, etc.), then teach capitals first.  The familiarity will make it easier to catch on.  Likewise if they tend to see lowercase letters on most of their things - teach the lowercase first.

Hope that helps!

Answer 5

I am a pre-school teacher, we have found it is best to teach both at the same time.  Write words as they are normally written.  For example: some people tend to teach children their names in all capital letters, this causes confusion when the children have to learn to write their names properly with one capital and the rest lower case letters.

Answer 6

I home schooled other people's kids (mostly 5-12 year olds) for about 5 years and preferred to take an informal approach to reading and writing.

Think about it this way, did you teach your child to speak vowels first or consonants?

Of course, you didn't "teach" your child to speak consonants and vowels they simply learned them. The way they learned them was by being completely immersed in spoken language.

I recommend teaching reading and writing in the same way.  Make sure that you read and write as part of your everyday activities when you are with the kids.

Let me give you an example of how I did this with two my students one day. I was teaching two 7 or 8 year old boys who decided that they wanted to order pizza to be delivered for lunch. I said that was a great idea and handed them a phone book.

Now neither of these kids were readers yet, so this presented a significant challenge. They needed to know the alphabet and how to look up "pizza" and then the phone etiquette for getting the necessary information about how much it would cost. Then they had to figure out if we could afford it with the budget that we had for each day.

I do not think we even had pizza that day, but based on their enthusiasm for the idea they learned about the alphabet, etiquette, math and probably more than that.

I helped when asked and to the extent that they requested. Their learning was driven by the fact that much of what they needed to do to accomplish their own goals required literacy skills. Therefore they learned a variety of literacy skills because that was what they needed to accomplish their goals.

Answer 7

you are good parents

Answer 8

I was told to do capitals first.  Then after theyr eally know them do the lower case.  My sons taught themsel;ves really with "the letter factory" with their leapster. Ofcourse we write but the game is so neat and its easy and causual they learn sounds too which lead to reading:)  It all happens so fast.