I've discovered a way to teach kids how to recognize letters, do you think it's a good idea?

Question

I was reading an article when my niece decided to do the same, she can't read but she knows some letters. She kept asking me what this and that letter was so I decided to start with the letter A even thought she already knew what it looked like. I told her to look for as many A's she can find in an article, I also showed her that a capitalized A and the small one looks different. She circled every A she can find! She had a lot of fun doing it.

She has a learning disability so it's hard teaching her. Next, when she learns all the letters, I'll teach her to look for certain words.

Answer 1

wow! yeah thats an awesome idea! Especially since your cousin has a learning disability. you should keep on doing that and you can be glad to say you taught her by yourself. =)

Answer 2

I work with special ed students and I think this is a good idea !

When my students get in trouble, or if they are "antsy" I've have them circle the A's. B's. C's etc from  a newspaper.  They don't like this, but it calms them and they are learning!

Good job!

Answer 3

Yeah, if it works, and she has fun, you have hit the jsckpot. If she has a laerning disability, you should definitly do this with her!

Good job!

Answer 4

yes this is a good idea. I do the same thing with students recognizing the parts of speech.

Answer 5

yeah! thats a great way! after all, research says that the more she writes the better she'll learn things.

Answer 6

Great teaching tool! You are a great teacher. You used qualitative data to assess. Created an Individual Education Plan and now have reassessed to prepare for future plans. Great!

Answer 7

Good job!  Anytime you make learning fun it ends up being better for kids.  It doesn't seem like their actually learning to them.  To them it's a game.  Most kids like games.

Answer 8

yes, this is a form of visual tracking.  Ann Arbor has a whole series of workbooks using this strategy.  However, don't wai to go though all the letters.  Find short words almost right away.  ( the, an, to, my, was, is  are common ones)

Teach your niece to take a pencil and run it under the line while she scans for a letter or word.  When she finds the letter, she circles it and goes on ( pencil does not leave the paper until the end of the line)  This helps with the left to right reading direction and scanning for a purpose.   My grandmother had me do this some 50 some years ago.  Only she gave me a religious newspaper, and I filled in  first  the letter O  and then the word God.

Answer 9

First, as a teacher, learn to punctuate.