I have been dying to share this post and activity with you, but I wanted to use PreK letter journals in my class for many months before deciding to share the idea with other preschool teachers. Essentially, I wanted to test them out and ensure the outcome was as good as the idea. It is. These letter journals have been an absolutely fantastic addition to our literacy curriculum. There are a few reasons why these simple little notebooks have added such rich learning experiences for my Prek students this year.
Benefits Of Using Letter Journals for PreK
First and foremost, it is easy for me to differentiate the activity and how each student uses their letter journals. The next big benefit is that we use them in small groups. I can hand-pick who is in each group, sometimes sticking to children with similar ability levels and sometimes choosing to use the power of peer scaffolding for this activity. The small group is also ideal for learning letter sounds. It is hard to project single phonemes in a large group, and inevitability, you end up making more than one sound with some phonemes. A small group lets you get close and really isolate the sounds.
Supplies for PreK Letter Journals
- blank notebooks
- letter sound sorting cards
- pencils
- crayons
- letter stamps and stamp pads
- stickers
- small chalkboard or whiteboard.
How to use letter journals to teach letter recognition and letter sounds.
As I have shared in this article about teaching letter sounds, I explicitly introduce 26 of the 44 letter sounds in my PreK class. We use this mystery box activity to introduce phonemes, and then I follow it up with our letter journals. In years past, I have done sound sorting as a whole group, but I found that doing it in a smaller group is much more effective. You may want to do the sporting as a whole group and move to the journals after, do what works for YOUR students.
After group time, I welcome a small group to my table while the rest of the class has free choice.
Start by showing your small group the letter and asking them to make the sound we just learned it makes. I start this by writing the uppercase letter on a small chalkboard. Then, we all make the sound together.
Now it’s time to decide if these things make the sounds or not. Let’s sort some letter sounds – this sound sorting is really a phonological awareness activity. I am not focused on what letter each item starts with; it’s more about whether they make the same sound.
Thumbs up if it makes the same sound, thumbs down if it doesn’t. I use these sound sorting cards as well as others I have made. Here’s the thing: I am not randomly choosing images that make or don’t make this sound. Each selection of sound sorting cards has images of things we just pulled out of the mystery box, as well as items from sounds we have already done. So, there is an element of review every time we do this activity. Below is an example of letter Bb sound sorting. We’d previously done M and A, so those sounds weren’t just NOT B; they were a little review, too. I don’t spend any time saying, ” Oh, that’s an A sound…” but by the middle of the year, some students will start making those connections.
Now, let’s open our journals and write the letter. This step is really going to depend on your students’ abilities; do not push! Most of my students can attempt to write uppercase letters when they come into my classroom, but many don’t know lowercase or have the dexterity to write lowercase letters yet. I have letter stamps like these ready for use and encourage my students to try ( if I think they are capable), and then feel free to use the stamps as well. We know that when children write letters, it aids in their letter recognition abilities, so don’t skip this step. Make sure you are including it with a student-centered focus. This, again, is why I love doing these as a small group; that way, I am better able to scaffold each student.
Now, let’s fill our page with items that make that sound. I have stickers ( peeling them works on fine motor skills, too!), more stamps, and, of course, crayons for my students to draw their own items. I let my students decide how long they want to spend on this task, but before they can be done they need to show me their work and tell me what the pictures or stickers are. That way, I can reinforce the letter sound.
It usually goes something like this:
Me: “Tell me what you have on your letter M page.”
Student: ” I made an uppercase M, I used the lowercase m stamp. I have a mushroom, mole, moon, monkey, and mittens.”
Me: “You worked so hard on your M page, do you have a favorite thing on this page that starts with /m/ ( make the sound)?”
Student: ” Moon!”
Me: “Awesome, go play!”
One of the reasons I always do this isn’t just that one on one connection that is so important but also because some items might be ambiguous and I may not have caught it during the activity. For example, the mittens, some students might say gloves, and that is an opportunity to learn.” /g/ glove, does that start with /m/ ? ” This almost always immediately elicits a response like ” Oh /m/ mittens!”
Do you need to have stickers for letter journals?
No. But trust me, they are a major factor for success because it’s just a little bit of novelty and fun that fuels students’ interest in this activity. I don’t expect my PreK students to master letter sounds. What I hope they get out of this PreK letter journal activity is familiarity with letter recognition, letter formation, and letter sounds. My hope is this will help them confidently continue to learn and eventually master these skills in kindergarten.
Need more ideas for how to teach letter recognition?
Check out this article about how to teach letter recognition as well as the one on how to teach letter sounds for more ideas!
rachel says
how do you shop for initial sound stickers?
Allison McDonald says
In my curriculum I target specific words that my lessons hit the same time as I introduce the letter sounds. I don’t base our lessons on the letters but I try to connect a few of the words and phonemes so that we have the reinforcement. So… I try to find stickers with those words. Like we are learning about weather right now so when we did our U page it was all umbrellas. I find TEMU is the best place for it, shipping takes some time but amazon and temu are the best.