Jumbo Fun with the Alphabet, Grade Prek - 1, Teacher Resource

Help early learners develop essential reading readiness skills while they learn their ABCs.

Jumbo Fun with the Alphabet is your ultimate resource for teaching letter names and sounds! Over 200 pages of engaging activities help students see, hear, say, and write the 26 letters of the alphabet while they develop the important reading readiness skills of alphabetic awareness, print awareness, phonemic awareness, and visual discrimination.

You'll love Jumbo Fun with the Alphabet because it:

• comes with over 200 pages of curriculum-correlated alphabet activities. From 3-D arts & crafts projects to reproducible trace and write pages, there are a variety of activities to help your students see, hear, say, and write all of the 26 letters of the alphabet.
• develops the four basic readiness skills students need before beginning formal reading. Activities are thoughtfully designed and consistently repeated to help students master alphabetic awareness, print awareness, phonemic awareness, and visual discrimination.
• contains activities that help students exercise fine motor skills as they learn their ABCs. Students are asked to draw, trace, write, color, cut, fold, and glue as they learn letter names and sounds. Activities also provide extra practice in listening and following directions.
• includes teacher pages that help you introduce letters with ease. Teacher pages offer simple suggestions to help you introduce students to each letter of the alphabet and implement each activity.
• is correlated to state standards.

Unit at a Glance:
Activities incorporate the four language domains to engage students in the instruction and practice of each letter of the alphabet.

• Hear It!
  Students practice identifying letters and hearing them in spoken words. After a short discussion, a reproducible worksheet is provided that asks students to recognize and identify the sounds of the new letters.
• Draw It!
  Students are given step-by-step directions to draw objects or animals that start with the letters they're practicing. Drawings use simple shapes to create the images and give students opportunities to add their own creative details
• Write It!
  Students practice tracing and printing uppercase and lowercase letters. Worksheets are provided for both traditional and modern script and model the correct way to write each letter. There's also a fun dot-to-do activity to reinforce coordination and number skills.
• Read It!
  Each letter has a four-page fold-up book that provides students with short stories they can read on their own in class or at home. Stories help students practice a variety of readiness skills, such as:
  - Distinguishing letters from words.
  - Locating a printed word on a page.
  - Matching print to speech.
  - Moving from top to bottom and left to right on a printed page.
• Make It!
  A fun art project complete with pictorial directions engages students as they put together their own alphabet-inspired creation.

Jumbo Fun with the Alphabet skills and standards:
The instruction in Jumbo Fun with the Alphabet focuses on the four basic readiness skills that all students need to master before moving on to a formal reading program.

1. Alphabetic Awareness
To become of a successful reader, students must know the names, shapes, and forms of all 26 letters of the alphabet. Jumbo Fun with the Alphabet helps students achieve this goal by introducing them to the letters of the alphabet using engaging, illustrated animals whose names start with the featured letter such, as ant, bear, cat, and so on. The animal becomes a common thread throughout the activities for that letter, facilitating both sight and sound recognition.

2. Phonemic Awareness
Realizing that words are made up of sounds and hearing those sounds in spoken language are important steps in reading readiness development. "Hear It!" and "Draw It!" lessons provide this essential practice by asking students to recognize and identify beginning sounds through reproducible art and matching activities.

3. Print Awareness
Beginning readers need practice distinguishing the difference between a single letter, a word, a sentence, and a story. The simple story inside each "Read It!" mini storybook introduces important concepts-of-print skills while further reinforcing letter and sound recognition.

4. Visual Discrimination
Students are given multiple opportunities to view the letters of the alphabet and to practice making them. The "Draw It!," "Write It!," and "Make It!" activities engage students in visual discrimination practice while they practice drawing and following directions.

This resource contains teacher support pages, reproducible student pages, and an answer key. This is a reproducible resource (photocopying of lessons is permitted) for single classroom or individual home use only.

About Evan-Moor
A leader in PreK-8 educational publishing, Evan-Moor has been a trusted partner of teachers and parents for over 40 years. Our mission is helping children learn, and we do this by creating resources that motivate children to learn important skills and concepts across the curriculum while also inspiring a love of learning.