Free Alphabet
Worksheets
A, B, C, D ... is your little one starting to sing this familiar tune? These are precious days indeed. Enjoy these free alphabet worksheets with your child today. Key word - ENJOY :-).
If there is even a small chance that you will be tempted to use them to "learn the letter A today" - ie, this is the day we will learn what letter A is and we will understand it for all time... please STOP - back away from the print button :-).
How long has your child been singing the alphabet song? How long do you think he or she will sing it before it is memorized completely? How long will it take for him or her to understand that the song is about letters, used to write words, that we use to represent our langauge - which is used to represent thoughts about objects, thoughts and emotions that we want to convey? How long before he realizes that there is no elemeno (l, m, n, o)?
Now, if this doesn't apply to you because you and your little one were just planning to cut out the large letters on the worksheets and paste them onto a posterboard collage featuring the alphabet, by all means get going. Otherwise, read on :-).
For little ones (and many of us older ones), new concepts are often best introduced in multiple ways and repeated in short intervals. To maintain the interest of a little one in something as abstract as the letter A (he does not yet know we use this letter to make the words we speak and to write our applications to Harvard), it is important to make the experience joyous - a wonderful time of learning with you.
Use these free alphabet worksheets to cut and paste, trace (with fingers, pencils, crayons, string, clay, etc.), practice letter recognition, and 101 other things - but not to learn "X" today or "by the end of this week". Mastery learning takes time. Processing information takes time. By all means, progress at the speed that is comfortable for your child - but allow him (and you) to enjoy the journey. You are potentially setting the stage for a lifelong atitude towards learning. Don't set up an early pattern of your little one resisting everything that he is taught - when he is presently so eager to learn!
Are you ready to have fun? Your little one is ready! Alright then - off to the printer and let the hugs begin :-).
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