Take advantage of opportunities to practice letter recognition with your child in daily life. Point out letters on street signs and license plates while driving. Shopping trips offer many opportunities to practice letter recognition on different product packages and store displays. Practicing letter recognition while shopping will also help your child get accustomed to the different ways letters can be written with various product fonts. Read to your child every day and look for books about letter recognition or simply point out letters on the pages as you read along and let your child name them. Accompany your child to retrieve the mail every day and let her point out letters on envelopes and flyers. Short periods of daily practice offer an effective way to help children learn to recognize their letters.
Consider purchasing toys or activity books as gifts for holidays and special occasions to help your child with letter recognition. Computerized children's toys, puzzles and workbooks to help with learning the alphabet can be purchased at almost any toy store or superstore. Plastic letter-shaped refrigerator magnets are inexpensive and can help your child have fun while learning the alphabet. Later, the letters can be used when he learns to read and spell. Make homemade flash cards out of index cards and play recognition games with your child, such as allowing him to keep the cards he recognizes. Let him match the capital and lowercase letters, so he learns to associate the same phonetic sound with each version of the letter. Always reward your child with praise for a job well done, and do not speak harshly or discipline him for not recognizing letters during activities.
According to Auburn University, children do not learn to recognize letters as a whole shape, but rather by a sequence of features, such as lines and curves, that make up the overall shape. Because of this, printing letters helps children learn to recognize them more quickly than simply looking at pictures of the letters. Use children's printing paper with a top line, bottom line and a dashed center line to help your child learn to write letters. When teaching your child how to form each letter, it may be helpful to refer to the lines in terms young children can understand. Auburn University suggests using outdoor names, such as "rooftop" for the top line, "fence" for the dotted center line, "sidewalk" for the bottom line and "ditch" for the space below the bottom line. Indoor names, such as ceiling, windows, floor and basement can also be used.