Alphabet+Book+&+Alphabet+Ring

=Alphabet Book= ==

Beginning readers love to read alphabet books and they are important to early literacy. They help students to relate letters to sounds in context. All readers need to be supported contextually.

Children on the Move can motivate young writers to write their own class alphabet books. After reading and discussing active living, ask the children to draw themselves in an active living activity. Use this alphabet format template or create you own. Children can draw their picture around a word that begins with the alphabet letter for their page and then add writing to their picture. Pictures and text are complied into a class book which can be read to the children and become part of the classroom.

Using Voicethread, the pages of the book can be compiled and students can make an [|ebook]. For this book, the pages of the book were simply saved as PDF documents and uploaded to voicethread. The following template is available for making an alphabet book.

Alphabet Rings
The use of [|class names] provides the opportunity to teach beginning readers about initial sounds in a meaningful way. Names of classmates becomes embedded background knowledge very quickly in the year. Why not use the names to teach students about alphabet sounds. For this activity make sure you have all the names of students in your class written on large cards. Keep these handy at the beginning of the year for many alphabet activities.

Set A - After reading "[|Children on the Move]" individual student names are placed in the blanks (make sure the first letter of the name matches the letter of the alphabet). Cards are used in a shared reading activity. Students read the name and the teacher reads the rest of the text. Eventually students will chime in as you read the rest of the text and perhaps even begin reading the text on their own. Students could be provided with a set of cards and write the names of classmates and familiar adults in each blank. They would have their own alphabet ring that could be shared with others.

Set B - This set is a little more advanced. Begin with a class book. Use the overhead to model writing a student name in the first blank and an appropriate word in the second blank. Give each student a set of cards, draw a picture on each card, hole punch and place on a metal ring