Learning ABC with felting letters

How did you teach your little one the ABC's?


From about 6 months old i have always sang the ABC's song to Sophie every day so she heard the rhythm of the song and got used to the tune, whether it be in the car or while i was doing house work when she was in the room with me. It then became part of our walk up the stairs on the way to bed.

Soon she was talking and learning her words, and she was a very quick learner and loved to talk, the one thing she like to do was her ABC's completely un prompted but not all of it just the start A.. B.. C.. So we ended up doing ABC's together when ever she was in the mood to.

We extending her letter knowledge a letter at a time when she was confident to do so but mummy would continue to carry on and complete the ABC's so she could hear the song to the end.

We also learnt count at the same time as the ABC's doing 5 numbers at a time. However i would tag counting at the end of the ABC tune and changed the words a bit from
"Now you know your ABC wont you come sing along with me"
to
"Now you know your ABC come count number 123"
then we would count to as far as she could and mummy continue to 20

By the time Sophie was 2 she could do her ABC all the way to Z and count to 20.  Which is Great but...
it dawned on me that she could repeat ABC and 123 like a parrot but hadn't yet made the connection as to the meaning.

Now i don't know about you but there are two school of thought on this. One let your child go to school as a clean sheet and let the teachers do the teaching so they can mould them to what ever standard the government are basing them on.  Or help prepare them for their epic journey through schooling with some of the basics like counting, letter and being comfortable with books etc.

You can guess i am appart of the latter group so now i am having a think about how to support Sophie and help gain the understanding and meaning of the letters after all there are 26 of them and that is quite a mind boggle if you have never seen them before or know what they mean.  Also i have been very careful and we learn the letters saying Apple apple A A A to make the connection with the letter sound and linking to the item rather than A is for apple as this is supposed to be confusing for children as they know that 4 is four and not for.

Anyone who knows me knows i am a little bit crafty and you have probably noticed all the pictures as you have read down and have seen that i have made Sophie these ABC flash cards.  I have found lovely big letters then i have made a felt item such as Apple or Carrot which can be attached and removed via velcro we talk about the item practice the alphabet sound and match it to the letter i also wrote the name of the item underneath.

We play with these every day if she wants to and she does and slowly she is making the connection. Although she does still get them in a muddle and i help her out, but in time we will get there and she doesn't see this as learning but more of a game.

I am hoping that these will help her get to Z but wondered what it was that you did to help your little acorn learn their ABC's ?