Letter of the Week…..should we or shouldn’t we?
I have been teaching a single letter a week for my entire career. It is the way we have always done things. I figured that if students are coming into K without letter knowledge, then throwing all 26 at them would be too much. Right?
Well, recently we (myself and my team) have been under scrutiny from the reading specialist (who was never a primary teacher) about this practice.
She argues that because most kids come into K with letter identification skills, so we don’t need to teach the letters in isolation.
Hmm. I don’t disagree with her on that point. However, I would like to note that we don’t do a whole week of only Bb themed work. We aren’t making Bs out of beans, for example. Our letter work is more phonemic awareness and handwriting based.
Let me explain…
ABC Notebook
We have a Letter of the Week notebook, which we use a handwriting tool and picture dictionary. We would put this in their spiral notebook every Thursday. You can find a link to this resource at the bottom of the page.