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Do you use Letter of the Week curriculum? I’ve used it in the past and while it does have some benefits, it’s not my first choice.
The concept is great…children will learn a letter every week and then at the end of 26 weeks, they will know all the alphabet letters! But the reality is, most children aren’t going to magically know the alphabet letters after 26 weeks. In my opinion, Letter of the Week (LOTW) curriculum isn’t effective.
Children learn from repeated exposure over time and they learn at their own pace. It doesn’t always happen in a straight line as we want it to.
After reading a book called No More Teaching a Letter a Week by Rebecca McKay and William H. Teale, it really convinced me that there was a more effective way to teach kids. (I highly recommend reading this short book if you are interested in learning more!)
I know LOTW curriculum is really popular. In the book, they said that an online search of this reveals 144 million sites that offer resources that teach this.
Before I go any further, I want to say I’m not writing this post to make you feel bad if you do use this method, I’m writing it to reveal an alternative to Letter of the Week curriculum. After writing about this to my email subscribers, I had so many responses from wonderful teachers and they shared what they do in the classroom. Many of them use LOTW curriculum, but supplement with more activities. If you only do a short lesson on each letter each week, with no review over the letters, then you may want to rethink your strategy.
Why Letter of the Week Isn’t Effective
1. The instruction is too isolated
Usually, a LOTW curriculum spends a week teaching one letter using things like songs, crafts, worksheets, books, and themed snacks. For example, if it was a week for letter B, you may do a bear craft, read books about bears, create a snack that looks like a bear, etc.
A lot of LOTW curriculum quickly goes through letters. They may only have one week per letter and don’t spend a lot of time reviewing. For some children, they only need to be taught one time and this works great, but for most kids, they need repeated practice learning letters.
2. The activities are cute but time-consuming
I’m sure you’ve seen or used cute letter crafts, but do they really teach children letters? I’m sure it does help some kids recognize letters and works on fine motor skills, but for how much time it takes to prepare the materials (especially for an entire class), I don’t think it’s worth it. In my opinion, it’s a lot of work for not much return. If you love these types of crafts and have time, then you go for it. I just believe there are easier and more effective activities.
3. Not every letter requires the same instructional attention
Some letters have multiple sounds, are harder to recognize or learn to write, and need more time on it. Most kids can recognize O, B, X, and A, but when it comes to lowercase letters b and d, it’s more challenging.
There shouldn’t be just one week per letter. Instead, I believe in teaching multiple letters in cycles and spending more time on more challenging letters.
Learning the alphabet is not always easy: the English alphabet comprises forty different shapes! That’s a lot for kids to learn!
Alternatives to Letter of the Week Activities:
I used Letter of the Week curriculum with my two oldest boys in preschool. It’s all I knew how to do, so I figured it worked. When I realized the letters weren’t really sticking with them, I switched it up and used multisensory activities to help them learn the letter and sounds. That’s when it began to stick with my kids. They didn’t do well with worksheets, they needed sensory play, games, and hands-on activities.
In the book, No More Teaching a Letter a Week, researchers examined learning letter names and found these conclusions:
- A child is very interested in learning the letters that make up their own name.
- When learning letters in alphabetical order, children are able to recognize the first half of the alphabet more easily than the second half.
- If a child knew their uppercase letters, they were sixteen times more likely to know the lowercase of that same letter. (Especially if the lowercase appearance was similar to the uppercase letter.)
- Research tells us there’s no one perfect sequence of instruction for alphabet knowledge.
Here are some ideas for teaching the letters with a multisensory approach:
- sensory bins – this one is AWESOME and there are so many ideas! You could just fill a bin with rice, add in some magnetic alphabet letters and have your child find the letters.
- tactile letter cards – having kids FEEL the shape of the letter helps them with identifying and learning how to write the letters. I’ve done homemade cards and used sandpaper letters.
- writing trays – spread salt in a tray and practice writing and identifying alphabet letters
- alphabet books – there are so many awesome books focused on letters
- alphabet chart – on an anchor chart, write an alphabet letter at the top. Then ask your students to identify items in the room that begin with that letter. Write them down and as you write it, draw students’ attention to the initial sounds. (i.e. D-d-d-door. What sound do you hear at the beginning of door?)
I wrote a preschool curriculum called Home Preschool Made Easy and it is an alternative to using Letter of the Week curriculum. This allows children to learn alphabet letters, math concepts, motor skills, the arts, and more through a variety of activities.
Instead of teaching one letter per week, you teach alphabet letters in cycles so they get repeated exposure.
Here’s how the curriculum is set up:
1st cycle – learn uppercase letter names (in alphabetical order)
2nd cycle – introduce writing uppercase letters, starting with the easiest ones to write
first- L F E H T I (straight lines)
second – U C O Q G S J D P B R (curved lines)
third – K A M N V W X Y Z (slanted lines)
3rd cycle – learn lowercase alphabet letters, starting with easiest ones
first – c o s v w t (like their capitals)
second – a d g (high-frequency letters and starts with ‘c’ formation)
third – u i e l k y j
fourth – p r n m h b (starts with line down)
fifth – f q x z
4th cycle – introduce letter sounds
first – b d j k p t y z (sound at beginning of letter name)
second – f l m n r x (sound at end of the name)
third – h q w y (no letter name – letter association)
fourth – c g s (more than one sound)
fifth – a e i o u (long and short vowel sounds)
Learning the child’s name is a big focus of the curriculum and the first week of lessons begins with this.
Hi!
My name is Diana Macaluso and I recently read this book and was so inspired to change up my alphabet curriculum. I am currently teaching 3’s and 4’s in Queens, NY and this will be my third year teaching.I am working on developing my own curriculum and love the way you set up your cycles as they just make a lot on sense. I am curious as to how you would implement your cycles though. For example, the first cycle is to recognize uppercase letter names in alphabetical order. Would you still move on to the next cycle if students have not fully mastered letter recognition? Also, as a teacher would you do a letter a day for each student depending on need or would you designate a day to one letter and only the students who need instruction with that letter would meet in small groups?
Thanks for your article and your advice!
Hope you and your family is doing well and is staying safe.
Diana Macaluso
Hi Diana! Thanks for your comment. I’m glad you agree with teaching letters in cycles. There is review time built into this curriculum, so some days you review over letters a child is struggling with. I like your idea of teaching letters in small groups to those who need it. That’s one of the many challenges of teaching…kids are at different levels! So yes, I would meet in small groups. I truly believe kids need many multi-sensory activities to help them learn the alphabet.
Thank you for sharing. I am a teacher in Junior High, so I am not into this anymore, but I have a kindergartener at home. As a mom, I always love to see my kid writing but he experiences difficulty. Glad that I have come this page. I will use the cycle format that you have presented here.
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Is this curriculum appropriate for a 2.5 year old? I don’t expect him to be writing letters or anything at the end, but I’m looking for early learning exposure in an at-home setting. I started planning my own “letter of the week” curriculum before I came across your site and your philosophy/pedagogy really makes more sense to me!
I recommend my curriculum for ages 3.5-5. I would do play-based learning with a 2.5 year old or simple activities to expose him to letters and numbers. You can try my curriculum and do the parts that are developmentally appropriate for him. Hope that helps!
Hello! I love the way you have organized the Alphabet portion of this curriculum. It makes so much sense to teach the letters and sounds in these intentional groupings/cycles! I will be teaching a preschool student, but only 2 days a week. Could we primarily use the alphabet portion of this curriculum and do the other activities as time allows? Is the alphabet portion able to be separated from the week easily or would we need to do all the activities to cover the letters/sounds for the week?
Yes! You could definitely do that. You can separate the alphabet portion from the other activities very easily.
Hello, I’m new here with a 3.5yo at home. How long is each cycle?
Welcome!! Each cycle is about 30 days long.
Would love this for my 2 little ones at home!
My youngest daughter is always wanting to do school with her siblings. She is only 2.5 now, but I think she would love to do this and learn as her siblings are.
Thank you for the encouragement to move in a different direction from Letter of the Week. I agree that starting with the letters in a child’s name is a very effective way to get them interested in the alphabet and once that happens the rest is magic!
Totally agree!
Hello! Homeschooling mom here. You just opened my eyes!!!! I will definitely try this way of learning letters. Thank you!
Thank you! It opened my eyes as well when I researched about this method and I haven’t looked back!
My son is 5 and I had him learning f his alphabets through fun hands on projects like turning cards over and matching them and also snapping letters into place where the picture had the word beginning with the letter.
We’re starting a homeschool with a charter school for Kindergarten level but I may also have him work on some preK concepts, where we need to turn in something every 3 weeks. Does your curriculum include that?
Hi Michelle! That’s great that you’ve been doing fun hands-on activities with your son to learn the alphabet! I’m not exactly sure what you need to turn into the charter school, but the curriculum does have “worksheets” that you could turn in to show the work you are doing at home.
Wow! This is very informative and helpful for children, teachers, parents, and caregivers. The range of children I teach would benefit greatly from all of this. Thank you!
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Love this idea! Will be adapting it for the French alphabet. 🙂
Hi, As you said in the post I saw that letters of the week isn’t the most effective way to teach the alphabet, I like the letters cycle, but I wonder if we can teach sound and letter at the same time? Thanks for your answer 😉
Yes! You can definitely teach sounds and letters at the same time.
I look forward to learning more with this curriculum. I have a degree in early childhood and have taught the last 6 years with early childhood kiddos and kindergarteners. I struggled to find all in one place resources and I would use this to strengthen my teaching and allow it to be a resource I can come to time and time again.
Thank you for sharing!
Thanks for the info! I ran to Amazon to buy the book.
I definitely agree with the fact that they enjoy learning letters in their names! And I believe the “whole language” type learning of letters is more beneficial than a letter of the week curriculum. Thanks for your ideas & input on this!
I was a preschool teacher for two yests and have littles of my own. I always though letter of the week would be a great idea, but had not implemented it. Going to get the book now thank you.
This is very informative, Thank You!
Love this method! This is a bit of what we’ve been doing so this makes me feel much better about my approach as a first time homeschooling mama. Thank you!
Something cool to think about. Thanks!
So, basically you do rounds of letters like Handwriting Without Tears and review with lots of hands-on activities. I think even adults would like this curriculum.
Yes! It is like that. Thank you!
Yes! That is right. Thank you!!