Simple Letter Review Activity for Hands-On Learning

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Sometimes the simplest things we can come up with are the most effective learning tools. If you have a glass window or whiteboard, you can help your child learn to recognize specific letters in a crowd – and that is an important stepping stone. Use our hands-on simple letter review activity to help your child take letter recognition to a whole new level.

Related: Uppercase Letter A Craft.

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How this Simple Letter Review Activity Works.

For this activity, you are going to use the letters your child already knows pretty well. I recommend starting with A through D at first, but if your child solidly knows the first letter of her name, for instance, you can add that one in there too. Eventually, you will be able to do this activity with all of the letters of the alphabet, but it is important to start small.

If your child is new to letter recognition and not completely solid on the letters A through D, you should probably use the instructions for the beginning learner found below, and use only the uppercase letters or only the lowercase letters. Mixing the two cases can be very confusing at first.

If your child is more advanced, you can mix uppercase and lowercase letters and include more of the letters you know your child can recognize. To jog his or her memory and provide a separate visual, you can use flashcards or letters written on paper to show which letter you want to have erased.

Why it works.

For our adult brains, this seems incredibly simple. Erase all the a’s. There you go. Done. For little kids, the explosion of letters on the whiteboard is a complex puzzle they have to decode. They have only just started to recognize and separate the various letters by shape, name, and sound. Soon, they will need to be able to recognize the individual letters in a word. This activity acts as a bridge between knowing the letter and being able to see it within a string of letters. It’s a form of practice.

Here’s What You Will Need to do this Simple Letter Review activity.

• Window or Whiteboard
• Dry Erase Markers
• Rag or Eraser

For years, I wanted a whiteboard and I was incredibly frustrated because we couldn’t afford one. Then one day I realized that we could use the windows in our home and it works just as well! For this very simple letter review activity you will need either a whiteboard OR a window and they both work the same. How cool is that?

Instructions for Beginning learners

1. Write the letters A-D OR a-d multiple times on the window. (You can also use the numbers 1-5 or 1-10 for number recognition.)
2. Call out one of your letters or numbers. Use flashcards as a visual if you have them.
3. Give your child a rag, eraser, or tissue and ask them to find and erase all of the copies of the letter or number you specify.
4. Repeat until the window is clean.

Instructions for More Advanced learners

1. Write both the uppercase AND lowercase letters Aa-Dd multiple times on the window. (You can also use the numbers 1-20).
2. Call out one of your letters/numbers (e.g. Uppercase A, Lowercase c etc). Use flashcards as a visual if you have them.
3. Give your child a rag, eraser, or tissue and ask them to find and erase all of the copies of the letter or number you specify.
4. Repeat until the window is clean.

This game can also be played by writing out the entire alphabet on the window. Or just the 10’s. For more advanced students you could even write several different site words.

Make it a fun challenge! 90% of teaching and learning is attitude. If you can make a simple activity like this fun and engaging, it will go a long way toward helping your child enjoy learning. Recognize progress with praise. Make it a game to beat the clock if things like that motivate your child. No matter what, keep it low stress. If the activity is too overwhelming take a break and come back to it later. In no time at all this simple letter review activity will help your child master letter recognition.