I have one learning her ABCs, one just starting to read, and one who’s always looking for a new way to practice his spelling words — must be the perfect time to share our favorite toys and games for learning about letters! These are in order by age-appropriateness from littles to bigs.
Enjoy!
Magnetic, Foam, and Wooden Letters
Providing your youngster with physical letter toys helps them process and build recognition of letter forms. Choose letters they can handle and manipulate. Having a few different sets — such as magnets and bath letters — allows your child to play with these shapes in different contexts and builds familiarity.
Letter Recognition Games
These are great games for kids who are learning to distinguish the letters and start to practice their sounds. Alphabet Bingo and Alphabet Go Fish! are geared for beginners and focus mainly on uppercase letters, where Alphabet Island does more to integrate letter sounds and lowercase letters for slightly older children.
Letter Tracing
Around age two, most children are ready to start using their fingers to trace the forms of the letters on sandpaper cards (or this beautiful Montessori Letter Work book, my personal favorite). As they gain fine motor control, they can begin tracing on a magnet board or a wooden tracing board.
Games for Early Readers
Once your little one is starting to read and spell, these games will help practice those skills in fun and engaging ways. We use the Bananagrams tiles and Alphabet Dice for all kinds of activities, including spelling practice, experimenting with rhyming words, and reviewing sight words, blends, and digraphs. We also love Scrabble Junior and recommend it for any early reader!
