How to teach my 4 year old his letters?

Question

i have a four year old son who will be going to pre school this september. i bought him a workbook to get a jump start on his letters and writing in general. he knows very well how to do circles, straight lines and zig zags, but at the moment, he is having a really hard time with his letters. he got through the letter Aa wonderfully, but after that, he is having a hard time with the other ones. every letter is pre traced for my son and he gets through that great, but can not do it himself without the letter already been traced. he does straight lines and circles instead. what are some fun games i can do with him to help him do the letters better? he does not know how to write his own name yet, should i be teaching him that as well, or learn the letters first then move on the names?? i am stuck in a rut because he seems to be bored of the workbook and not feeling challenged maybe? or this too mcuh for him? please help!

Answer 1

Ok I don't have children of my own but do have a little nephew and niece. My niece is four years old and how I started to teach her was that I bought her the ABC blocks from Wal-Mart and would start her off with one letter by day and then speed the pace of three per day. I would sing the ABC songs with her and got her the Dora the Explorer ABC book....so maybe you need to get him ABC things with a cartoon character he likes/loves. After he starts with his letters then maybe you can start with his name. Maybe you should try to give him a notebook and sit with him to practice his name and encourage his tryings and hard work with a snack or prize. That worked for my little niece and now she can write my name.

Answer 2

many kindergartens never use  writing tools, it is not actually age appropriate to demand that they write.  they just aren't ready until about 6

Answer 3

If you do sight letter, go to the dollar store and buy the magnet letters and put them on the refrigerator.  That way you can mix them up.  I have the upper and lower case ones.

If you are looking for your son to write them.  Start with the tracing and gradually use less and less dots and see how he does.  Like for the S, use the dots, then use less and less dots and that may help.  

Put big pieces of paper on the wall and let him write on the paper.  You can write the letters and he can go back and forth to write them, plus he thinks he is getting away with writing on the wall, so that should help.

Answer 4

Make a game of it. That's the best way to get children to learn.

My daughter would mimic what I'd write and we would just have a ball drawing and writing and then....BAM!!!  She can identify her alphabets and numbers. 4 is a REALLY good age to start feeding their "spongy" brains because they pick stuff up QUICK. Have fun-Don't push child.

Answer 5

Does he recognize all the letters when he sees them? That, of course, is the very important first step. For that, we used those very large soft alphabet puzzles

Answer 6

It's understandable for him to have trouble with the tracing first...

Does he understand all the letters, what they say, and what they look like?  

My kids LOVE the Leap Frog videos, The Letter Factory and The Word Factory.  Start out with the letters.  They use repetition, and you see each letter A LOT and you hear what they say A LOT, and my kids have learned A LOT.  :-)

Read with him, often.  Be willing to sacrifice the story for the words.  Point out letters and words.

In regular conversation, play word games with him.  Go over the alphabet, with what words start with various letters. "Name a word that starts with A" "Name a word that starts with B"

It is extremely important that you make this fun for him, and not work that he dreads, at this point, because he has about fourteen years of workbooks, homework, quizzes, tests, exams, lectures, book reports, etc. ahead of him.  You don't want to turn him off learning this early in the game:  you haven't even started!

Write out words in large, clear letters for him to copy.  My older son, Cameron, learned to write his name while we were waiting for our dinner to arrive at Cheddar's.  He wouldn't stop talking, so I wrote out his name on his menu, and he started writing it out.

Get him interested in sending birthday cards to friends and relatives.  Make or buy kind of cheap cards.  Have him tell you what birthday wish he wants to send, and write it out in large, clear letters on a piece of paper.  Get him to try to copy what you wrote out.  When you give or mail the card, include the "translation" and the paper he wrote out.  Mail them out.  He gets to feel cool for sending a real card to someone that he did ALL BY HIMSELF.  He's copying, not tracing, so it's a kind of a stepping stool.  Grandmas, aunts, old ladies at church, all of them would get a kick out of a hand-written (even illegible) birthday card from a four-year-old.

Try to keep in mind, too, that writing his letters is not a requirement for starting preschool.  It's not even necessarily a requirement for kindergarten (but it is a good idea these days, since kindergarteners are expected to do more than they were twenty-five years ago).  When he starts preschool, he'll be in good shape if he recognises his letters and knows what they say.  They'll spend the whole year teaching him to write and spell his name and sight words and stuff.  

But please, please keep in mind, that if you push this too far, you could flatten his natural desire to learn, making the upcoming years of school torture for him, and for yourself.  Of course, when there is an actual assignment or something he really does need to do, push him to, but when it's just you guys, if you push too far, he could end up hating it.

Answer 7

My daughter will be 4 July 23. About a year ago I bought her the dry erase letter book from Sam's Club (they have a numbers one too) and she loved it. She traced and filled in all the pages over and over again. Maybe she just likes letters and writing, but she has been able to write her name, mommy, daddy, and all the letters of the alphabet big and small. She is in preschool too and they re-enforce it too, so of course it helps. She is not ahead of her peers so (although most have turned 4) so you are not pushing too much on him. I'm guessing when he gets to pre-school he will be ahead of some of his peers, and perhaps behind some too. He may be bored and or uninterested, so find his favorite character as a learning tool (video or manipulative) or perhaps have short sessions of practice with his favorite candy as rewards (m&m's, gummy bears, jelly bellys, skittles). Keep learning something he looks forward to, not something he dreads!

Answer 8

Make it fun to keep him interested.  Kids have a hard time holding pencils a lot oft he time so let him use his fingers to draw the letters.  Spread pudding on a table and help him  draw the letters-shaving cream works great too and really cleans the table when you are done!  Get the bath crayons and let him draw letters while he takes a bath.  If he ever even just happens to draw a correct letter PRAISE PRAISE PRAISE cause that will strengthen his desire to keep doing it.  

Take him out to the sandbox to write there as well.  With the sand and pudding her can wipe it away and start over if he's not happy with his results.  My kids were always bored with the workbooks and tracing the same stuff over and over and these are creative ways to make it enjoyable again!  Have fun with him!!!

Answer 9

We started out with the Winnie the Pooh ABC video. My daughter liked the rhymes and then they showed how to write some of the letters. She is also really into princesses, so we found a princess ABC learning book that came with one of those magnetic? drawing pads that you can just slide the bar to erase. She liked being able to just erase part of the picture or letter.

Since he can draw lines and circles and such, show him how the letters are made of lines and circles. Start with capital letters, they're easier. Show him which letters are at the beginning of his favorite things..i.e. Batman starts with "B". Show him how to make letters with his body...like in  "Y-M-C-A".

Have fun. And learning to spell, or at least recognize, his name is great for when he starts school.

Answer 10

That is the one of the first things he will learn about in preschool is recognizing his own name. You could try to paint  the letters, if you have a sand box, you could get the sand just a little wet and get a stick and try to have him draw the letters in the sand.  Now just remember you want to make learning fun, you don't want to have him bored and stressed out trying to learn the letters, you don't want him to hate school already. Just remember their is a lot of different activites you can try, just use your imagination. Their is also shaving cream this if a fun one. Put shaving cream on your dinning room table and have use his fingers to write the numbers, you will have fun with this one too. This activity is cheap and easy clean up. I hope this helps you.

Answer 11

very slowly

Answer 12

I am a preschool teacher and most 4 year olds are not able to write their names. My suggestion is to play games like letter identification..see a stop sign and point out the letters...S..T..O...P...and to do activities that strengthen those fine motor muscles...picking up small things like raisins. Children will get bored using worksheets and they do nothing to help them.  have fun and your child will learn to write their name eventually..its really not that an important skill to know at 4.

Answer 13

You don't want to put the child under pressure, this will happen if the same thing is repeated day in day out.

Do something different.  Try cutting out the letters and sticking them in a scrap book or the cut letters are stuck on things in the house and kitchen (sellotape or blue tack) C for Chair, D for desk - it's fun and he'll learn with time.  Just give him time