Letter of the week is one of my more popular features on No Time For Flash Cards, we have multiple uppercase crafts for each letter and are presently doing one lowercase per week. I am often asked if you should follow an order when introducing letters to your child. Some will say yes, others will say no. I am sorta in the middle. Here is why… my goal with letter of the week is to introduce the letter, that’s it.  I don’t spend all week focusing only on it, it’s simply the focus of one craft every week.  There has been debate and studies done about the ineffectiveness of focusing only on one letter the entire week so I choose to continue focusing on all letters, after the one craft.

Children learn in context, they learn by authentic experiences and if we single out only one letter the entire week not only is that a artificial environment we are probably missing out on some lessons about other letters that could be comming up throghout the week.  This is also why I include books with my crafts so that your child can make connections from reading, listening and doing the crafts and other activities. Children learn in so many ways , if we offer diverse experiences they are more likley to not only hold onto the knowledge but also thirst for it.

So I choose to introduce the crafts as my son shows interest in either the object that the letter is being turned into or the letter itself.  Now that he is almost 3 I ask him all the time what he wants to do and our letter of the week is often his idea, although sometimes I slip one in there!