These worksheets will be a great leap towards helping students learning their letters. As students progress through this series of worksheets, they will be gaining skills that can easily be pivoted to phonemic awareness and eventual reading. This skill correlates with improved early reading comprehension and language use. Technology can be a huge help towards improving these skills. There are wide range of games and apps available for mobile devices that help students' practice. Research has shown this that these types of activities can help improve letter comprehension at a high rate. We start students off by recognizing words that signify certain letters and writing the words. We then ask students to think of their own words working off of a given letter. The goal here is help students learn both their lower case and upper case letters whether it be by themselves or located at the front of words. We also work off filling in missing letters in an alphabetic series.
Printable Letter Recognition Worksheets
Click the buttons to print each worksheet and answer key.
Picture It!
Write the symbol found in the alphabet that the picture starts with on the line. This worksheet will see if student can recognize the letter that makes a certain sound.
Recognizing the Letters B, D, P, and G
Color the Ps orange. Color the Gs yellow. Then do something similar when you see the other letters below it.
Letter Matching
Match the uppercase to the lowercase. Students usually catch on with the upper case quickly, lower case is a different story.
Fill in the First Letter
Say the name of each picture. What will complete the word? Draw a line connecting the letter to the name of each picture. Then write in the blank.
It Begins With...
Circle each picture that begins with /m/ sound. It will help you to say all of the words aloud.
What's in My Name
Write the letters into the correct columns. This is a fun activity because students will practice recognizing letters that are and are not in their names.
The Letters M and N
Students will work on the middle of the alphabet and work on their recognition skills for these particular consonants. Color Ms orange. Color Ns red.
Curvy or Straight
Cut out the tiles. Look at each symbol. Is it curvy, straight, or both? Glue them into the correct row.
Alphabet Stamp #1
Use uppercase alphabet stamps or stickers and cover the matching lower case letters below. This goes with the worksheet below to create a 2 page activity.
Upper Case Stamps
Use lowercase alphabet stamps or stickers and cover the matching uppercase letters below. this goes with the worksheet found above.
Complete the Words
Circle the correct letter to complete each word. This puts everything together for students.
How to Help Students Recognize Letters of The Alphabet
The road to learning a language starts with developing an ability to recognize the symbols of tyhe alphabet (letters). Letter recognition is one of the critical skills children need to develop early on. Before your students start sounding out words, blending syllables, and reading sentences, they'll need to be able to recognize the letters of the alphabet.
For students that are just learning to read for the first time being able to recognize letters of the alphabet is often one of the first steps toward literacy. While you may think it is an easy skill you need to take into account that students need to understand the order of letters, identify letters that are out of order and understand the difference between lower case and upper-case letters. Often the best way to prepare students with this skill is just practice. The alphabet song is something that we all have experience with, and it has been known to work wonders.
Surrounding them with resources, providing a literacy-rich environment, and actively guiding them will help them recognize and be able to pronounce the letters' names very quickly. Students who recognize the letters of the alphabet move on to spelling and reading words and are motivated to learn more.
What is Letter Recognition?
Letter recognition and identification all mean the same thing, and they refer to a student's ability to recognize the letters of the alphabet through multiple learning activities.
The Importance
This skill enables the beginning readers to comprehend the connection between the printed text and the spoken language. When the students have learned to recognize the letter names, it makes learning the letter sounds much easier. Many of the letter sounds are the same as the letter names, making it easier for students to graduate from letter recognition to letter sounds, blending, reading words, and then sentences.
How to Help Students Recognize Letters of the Alphabet
Children aged 4 to 6 require regular exposure to the letters of the alphabet. This can be done by incorporating the letter knowledge into the day-to-day play activities of the kids. If the curriculum is fun, engaging, and incorporates sensory and motor activities, the kids are more likely to recognize the letters of alphabets and retain the knowledge. To start, you can try these activities and gradually increase the difficulty level as the child grasps the earlier concepts.
- Reading loads of alphabet picture books.
- Playing with alphabet puzzles.
- Pointing out the alphabets around you (n a book, in a magazine, on TV, or in an advertisement).
- Teaching the students, the beginning letters of their names.
- Teaching each letter individually and explicitly.
- Doing hands-on alphabet activities (writing in sand, making it with play-doh, pointing to the flashcards, finding the blocks, painting and freehand drawing, etc.).
- Singing letter songs and poems (make up your own to practice rhyming).
- Celebrating designated alphabet days.
- Matching uppercase letters with lowercase letters.
- Finding everything that starts with a particular letter of the alphabet.
- Practicing the letters on worksheets .
- Encouraging the children to pose in the shape of the letters. (Bending the arm to make an L or a C, making a V with both hands, or making a W with a friend).
- Playing letter games (Find the hidden alphabet flashcards in the class, jump on the letter j cutout, I say B, you say Balloon, etc.).
In Which Order Should You Teach the Letters of Alphabet?
The short answer is: Not in alphabetical order! When you teach the letters of alphabets in order, the students focus on the beginning letters. The downside of teaching the letters in order is that the initial letters do not frequently appear in the CVC words, making reading a lengthy process for preschool students.
Instead, you should introduce the letters in order of their appearance frequency in easily decodable words. The letters s, t, r, m, n, a, o, and p should be the introductory letters. If you emphasize these high-frequency letters, your students will soon start recognizing and reading simple words.
Final Thoughts
A multisensory and focused lesson will create a meaningful experience for your students. Repeated exposure to letters of alphabets through play enables the students to start recognizing and writing the letters at a fast pace. But all students have their own learning pace when it comes to letter recognition, and they shouldn't be pushed to move forward; rather, their concepts should be cleared and enforced through activities.