There’s so much research supporting letter name knowledge and supporting it as also a predictor for later literacy learning.
~ Heidi from Episode 104 of The Kindergarten Cafe Podcast
Episode Summary
If you’re deep in the alphabet trenches like I am right now, this episode is for you. I’m joined (again!) by Heidi from Droppin’ Knowledge with Heidi to talk all about how to teach letter sounds and letter names using research-backed best practices in ways that are practical and doable for real classrooms.
Heidi is a national LETRS Early Childhood trainer and a former K–1 teacher, and she’s here to help us rethink some of the most common teaching habits around phonics instruction… like whether to teach letter names and sounds, why you should clip the sounds, how to avoid confusing keywords like “elephant” or “giraffe,” and what to do instead.
*Make sure to stay to the end because we have a very important P.S. for you!!!
In this episode we share:
- What the science of reading says about teaching letter names and letter sounds
- The six components to include every time you teach a new letter
- Why “B is for ba” might actually hurt blending and decoding later on
- Whether to teach letters in ABC order, or a different research-supported sequence
- What embedded mnemonics are and why they help kids learn faster
- Small tweaks to your language (like switching “says” to “represents”) that make a big difference
- Why repeated alphabet cycles work better than “letter of the week”
Previous Episode with Heidi:
Resources:
Connect with Heidi:
- Instagram – droppinknowledgewithheidi
- Website – droppinknowledge.com
Connect with Zeba:
- Instagram – @kindergartencafe
- Facebook – @kindergartencafe
- Website – www.kindergartencafe.org
- Tik Tok – @kindergartencafe
Read the Transcript
Zeba McGibbon [00:00:00]:
Hi, teacher friends. It’s Zeba from Kindergarten Cafe. I have an awesome interview for you today with Heidi from Drop In Knowledge with Heidi. She was on the podcast before, if that name sounds familiar, and we talked all about what the science of reading even is and what what to do about it and all that stuff. And today we’re specifically talking about how to teach letters because it’s really relevant right now. We’re all teaching letters and sounds right now. There’s so many just easy, small shifts that no matter what curriculum you use, you can make in your teaching starting tomorrow. And then there’s bigger picture things that are really great to hear and I had a lot of aha moments, so I hope you enjoy it and I can’t wait to hear what you think.
Zeba McGibbon [00:00:48]:
You’re listening to the Kindergarten Cafe Podcast where kindergarten teachers come to learn classroom tested tips and tricks and teaching ideas they can use in their classroom right away. I’m Zeba, creator and founder of Kindergarten Cafe and I help kindergarten teachers with everything they need from arrival to dismissal in order to save time, work smarter, not harder, and support students with engaging and purposeful lessons. I’m here to cheer you on through your successes and breakthroughs and offer support and resources so you never have to feel stuck or alone, ready to start saving time and reducing your stress, all while using effective and purposeful lessons that students love.
Zeba McGibbon [00:01:34]:
Let’s get started. Hi everyone. We’re back with Heidi. I invited her back. She was on a previous podcast about the science of reading. Heidi with is from Drop In Knowledge with Heidi and I consider her an expert in our field today of like, what is going on with the the latest literacy research and how to use that literacy research as a teacher in the classroom to best teach our students literacy. And Heidi offered to come back to talk to us all about teaching letter sounds and letter names and all of that. And it’s perfect for this time of year because I don’t know about anyone else, but that’s all I’m doing right now.
Zeba McGibbon [00:02:17]:
So Heidi, I don’t know if you want to introduce yourself a little bit more for people that might not have heard the first episode we did together.
Heidi [00:02:23]:
She sure, of course. So my name is Heidi. I actually taught first grade for over 10 years and then most recently taught kindergarten and then 4K, which is what we call it here. I know it’s called different things around the country, no matter depending on where you are. And then I have been a national letters trainer for letters early childhood, which is where we talk about the Alphabet So I love talking about all of those things for the past four years. I did my first science of reading conference this summer which was really exciting. The Science of reading minicon for K5 teachers. So that was fun.
Heidi [00:02:59]:
And work with my husband now. We published a line of decodable books, some other books with a publisher with different phonics activities and things like that.
Zeba McGibbon [00:03:08]:
And I recently purchased some last year and I can attest they are great.
Heidi [00:03:12]:
A decodable books. Oh, thank you so much. Yes, we love being able to provide them to schools. We’re actually writing some more right now.
Zeba McGibbon [00:03:22]:
Awesome.
Heidi [00:03:23]:
Yeah, just. I just feel like we can never have enough of those and kids need those books when they’re early readers that. That they can actually read and don’t have to memorize their guess words.
Zeba McGibbon [00:03:33]:
Yeah, it was actually the room parents, they were like, hey, we have a little extra money. Can we buy some books? And I was like, oh yes. Actually I’ve been eyeing these. They’re able to get a set of one of your earlier sets of decodables. And they were like, wow, these. I actually really like these. I have to look into these. I’m like, yeah, these are what kids need right now.
Heidi [00:03:51]:
Yes. And some people will say they don’t have to be a hundred percent decodable. And that’s true. But it’s also helpful to have some that are 100% codable and super like mine are because then it helps really build that confidence and that fluency for our younger readers.
Zeba McGibbon [00:04:06]:
So, yes.
Heidi [00:04:06]:
Hopefully you’ve seen that with your students.
Zeba McGibbon [00:04:08]:
Oh, absolutely. I’m all about the decodable books. And then we talked about that a lot in our last episode. So if you’re like, wait, I want to know more. I’ll put the link below to that so you can listen to the previous episode. But we’re going to back it way up on the scope and sequence here. Teaching before we ever get to teaching, reading, teaching letter sounds and letter names and all of that. So you’re a letters trainer.
Zeba McGibbon [00:04:30]:
Do you want to tell us what that means and things like that.
Heidi [00:04:33]:
Being a national letters trainer, you just work with districts and schools and we even do some public sessions for individuals all over the country who want to be trained to. So my husband did letters training for K8 for volumes one and two. And then I was for letters early childhood, which focuses more on our preschool students. So pre K and kindergarten. So a lot of kindergarten teachers are like, where do I fall in if I want a. There’s training and it could be either. Right. So it can be.
Heidi [00:05:04]:
They could really benefit from both because in early childhood is where we talk a lot about those important skills like phonemic awareness and teaching the Alphabet.
Zeba McGibbon [00:05:14]:
Yeah. And letters is a curriculum.
Heidi [00:05:16]:
No, it is not a curriculum. So it is. It’s literally just training for teachers that shares the research on how we should teach reading. So, yeah, I told them that they actually. I feel like they should come out with the curriculum because I know it would be 100% rooted in the research because that’s literally what they do. We just share the research. That’s all we talk about. And we talk about in the trainings too.
Heidi [00:05:40]:
Like, we are not. We are program agnostic. We don’t recommend any programs. We don’t do anything like that. We just are sharing the research because just like letters believes, like, I also believe that teacher knowledge is key. Then you can teach effectively with any program, no matter.
Zeba McGibbon [00:05:56]:
You can make an informed decision about what’s best for the kids in front of you. Exactly, yeah. So what do you recommend, the best practices or what does the research say are the best practices for teaching letters?
Heidi [00:06:08]:
Yeah. Wow. That’s a loaded question. It’s so funny because I used to really think that it’s teaching the Alphabet. Like, how hard can it be? We teach the letters and we practice them and we talk about them a lot in different ways and then we move on. Right.
Zeba McGibbon [00:06:22]:
I was the same way.
Heidi [00:06:23]:
I’m like, this is basic, guys, the letter people right there. But it. There’s so much more that goes into it that I didn’t realize until I started doing those trainings because there’s so much research. There’s been so much research done on teaching Alphabet and there’s a lot still to do. But from the research that’s been done, we can see a lot of different things that we can be doing, maybe differently, that are. That is better for our students. So there’s a lot of things that go into teaching Alphabet more than I used to think that there was. So do you want to just start with there’s six things that research supports in doing every time you teach a letter, I can start with that.
Zeba McGibbon [00:07:05]:
I love that that sounds.
Heidi [00:07:06]:
Because that’s pretty easy and pretty basic from what we’re talking about, the six things. So every time you teach a letter, you can do these six things. And I guess we can talk about the scope and sequence for teaching a letter, since I said every time you teach a letter in a little bit. But when you do teach a letter, you want to cover the properties and the characteristics of that Letter. So you want to teach the letter name. There is a lot of research supporting letter name knowledge. And I gave you a link that I think the listeners will have that they can go to my website and then there’s a link there that they can click to read some of this research phone, too, if they’re interested. If somebody’s interested in reading more of that research.
Heidi [00:07:50]:
But teaching the letter name and then also teaching uppercase and lowercase at the same time, the shape of the letter, the sound, and the mouth position. Like, what is our mouth doing when we say that letter sound? And then having a target picture or pictures and then writing the letter. And if anybody listening, or maybe even you right now is thinking, that’s a lot. Okay, that’s too much.
Zeba McGibbon [00:08:13]:
I’m actually not. I’m thinking it’s really. It’s like my curriculum that we use foundations. I’m like, check, check, check. Okay, good.
Heidi [00:08:20]:
Hey, I’m so excited to hear that. I actually thought it was too much for my kids.
Zeba McGibbon [00:08:25]:
It sounds like a lot.
Heidi [00:08:26]:
It sounds like a lot. And I’m like, every time. And when I was teaching 4K, I did this, and I was like, oh, my gosh, this is going to be so much. And it’s. It takes, like, literally to cover all of those things. Takes less than. You can do it in less than three minutes. And I found out it really wasn’t too much for my kids either.
Heidi [00:08:45]:
And I guess you. You can probably attest to that as well. They are like sponges at this age. So they really pick it up and.
Zeba McGibbon [00:08:52]:
They get into the groove of it. Obviously, the first couple of times you do it, it doesn’t take three minutes. But I. We start a few letters at a time and we build onto it. But. So by the time they’ve accumulated letter enough letters where it would take a while, they’ve gotten the routine down. So it’s much faster.
Heidi [00:09:09]:
Exactly. And thanks for clarifying that because, yeah, of course, in the beginning, everything takes so much longer. Yes, you’re in that stage right now, everything just taking so much longer. But. And then when you are working on those things with the Alphabet, then you’re going to cycle through, which I’ll get into in a little bit. But that’s. They don’t have to master all of those things right away. I think that’s the key.
Heidi [00:09:32]:
You’re going to teach those things. We’re going to talk about those things. They don’t have to master all of those things. Before you move on to the next letter, you’re going to want to come back to that letter.
Zeba McGibbon [00:09:42]:
Right. If you’re thinking, I teach them how to write the letter and then like, they have to know the letter before you move on to another letter. Like, that is going to take too long. Because even we’re working on that all year, we’re continuing to refresh on how to write the letters.
Heidi [00:09:55]:
Yes, exactly.
Zeba McGibbon [00:09:57]:
I do think the name one is a good one to highlight, like teaching the letter name. Because I do remember in my teaching career, there was a couple of years there where it was like, you don’t need the letter name at all. Just focus on the sounds. And like, we stopped even assessing for letter names. And I was like, but I want to know if they know the letter name. Because I’m in a talk about, like, for handwriting, like we’re. The letter names are going to come up. And so it’s good to know that.
Zeba McGibbon [00:10:23]:
My gut instinct, there’s some research behind.
Heidi [00:10:25]:
There’s a lot of research behind it. And I see a lot of times on social media people arguing about this and people saying, you don’t need to teach a letter name, like you were saying, because. And it makes sense. I get that thought process because you’re like, you don’t need the letter name to be able to read. You need that sound. But there’s so much research supporting letter name knowledge and supporting it as also a predictor for later literacy learning. And then also, so if you, if anybody out there has taken letters early childhood or is interested in taking letters early childhood, we do a deep dive into the letters. And it’s so interesting because we do way more with the letters than I ever thought I would ever do.
Heidi [00:11:03]:
But one thing that we do is talk about the letter names and the sounds that are in the letter names. For example, B has that sound information in that letter name. Right? So when I say B, I’m saying B E. I’m saying the B sound. I’m saying that sound of the letter. And a lot of letters have that sound information in the letter name so kids can pick up on that. And so there actually was a study done that where kids were taught. This is a.
Heidi [00:11:35]:
From a meta analysis from 2010, Piesta and Wagner. When kids were taught letter sounds, they only learn letter sounds. But when kids were taught letter names, they also learned the sounds they learned and sounds. And that could be. They concluded that it’s likely because a lot of those names have the sounds in them.
Zeba McGibbon [00:11:55]:
That’s so interesting. Like, I’ve never just thought, I’ve never thought about it that way, but it makes so much sense. So it’s just more bang for your buck.
Heidi [00:12:02]:
Exactly. You’re teaching those letter names. And of course. And then the deep dive is actually really fun. Cause then you talk about all these different characteristics of each letter. And what could possibly make these letters easier for kids to learn. And then these letters a little bit trickier for kids to learn. So there’s a lot of things that actually go into teaching the Alphabet that I don’t personally, I never thought of before, but can really help you as a teacher getting ready to teach the Alphabet.
Zeba McGibbon [00:12:29]:
Totally. A couple of things that I’ve noticed, like, over my years of progression as a teacher, I picked up on, like, I was doing it, and then I noticed the kids are doing it now. And I’m trying to stop it right away. Is adding that, like, extra vowel sound to a lot of the sounds. Like, you were very clear about B and not B. Right. Like, all my kids right now are saying, like, we haven’t taught this letter yet, but we’re gonna do it next week. But still they’re like, ba.
Zeba McGibbon [00:12:58]:
And I’m like, no, no, no. We’re gonna stop this right now. So I don’t know if you wanna talk about that a little bit for teachers that might not have thought about it.
Heidi [00:13:05]:
Yeah. That’s another thing that I never really thought of. And I. I feel like. So when we’re in the classroom and we’re trying to teach these letters, we’re trying to. For all students to hear. So say ba is easier.
Zeba McGibbon [00:13:18]:
Right.
Heidi [00:13:19]:
But then when I was teaching first grade, I noticed that if kids thought ba and T when they’re trying to blend, they’re like, ba at tub. And that becomes an issue. Right. And so I had actually a very respected. In the world of science reading, a researcher come after me for saying this. And, you know, the drama. Yeah, it was the second time he came after me. But I stand by what I said both times.
Heidi [00:13:49]:
And I stand by this because having been in the classroom, and I think that’s. Sometimes there is a difference between the researchers and the classroom. And I always bridge that. Because if you haven’t taught kids to read and taught kids who are trying to blend these sounds, then you may think that there is no correct pronunciation for those letter sounds or those phonemes. Right.
Zeba McGibbon [00:14:08]:
They said that.
Heidi [00:14:10]:
Yeah. I did claim that there’s no correct way. I think it was something. Don’t quote me. I don’t know exactly what he said, but it was along the lines of that there is Not a correct or incorrect way to pronounce a full name or letter sound. Because of some of my videos that were. He had seen, I was saying we should clip the sounds. And the reason that I stand by that, the reason that I think we should clip the sounds is because it does matter.
Heidi [00:14:35]:
Later on, we’ll get it. But it does affect kids.
Zeba McGibbon [00:14:41]:
I agree with you, because I’ve seen it, too. I’ve seen it where they’re adding a U or to their writing when it shouldn’t be there, or they’re having trouble when they’re sounding out the word that they’re adding that sound and they’re confused.
Heidi [00:14:53]:
Yes. And so that’s really. This. That’s. And that’s. You know, when you come. When a researcher like that comes free, you’re like, oh, my gosh. I was.
Heidi [00:15:01]:
Am I wrong? You know, and you really have to think about it. But then you. I think about it from a teaching standpoint. And like you said, way too often, those extra sounds don’t help the kids when they’re trying to blend those letters. So I had to reteach myself, because BA especially is. That was a hard one to reteach. So now I, like, teach myself to open and close my lips really quickly, and then I can tell my kids that, too. Like, we’re not saying ba with our mouth still open.
Heidi [00:15:27]:
We’re gonna say B and then close our lips again so that we can make sure that we’re clipping that sound. So, you know, there’s little tricks that you’ll find that you’ll start using when you kind of watch yourself with clipping these sounds. And then teach them to your kids, too. And those. Especially those continuous sounds. Like, the sounds you can hold as long as you can hold your breath. Like, yeah, do that when you teach the letter instead of. I’ve actually heard people say ma M sound.
Heidi [00:15:55]:
And I’m like, just hold it. If you just hold it, it’ll be much better.
Zeba McGibbon [00:15:59]:
The one I heard, my students, the first letter we taught them was T. And so that’s the one I heard, like, today was like, ta. And I was like, no, we’re gonna. Again, we’re gonna stop this right now. So I feel like I hear it in T. And then, yeah, there’s a couple of them.
Heidi [00:16:13]:
And mostly it’s the stop sounds. Puh. Those sounds that have to stop. But I have heard it in those continuous sounds as well, because I think just sometimes it was mostly from parents or students that I was hearing this from. But I think that they get into, like, the ba.
Zeba McGibbon [00:16:28]:
Yeah.
Heidi [00:16:29]:
And then it becomes like this pattern that they kind of like, pick up on, and it’s like, wait, wait, wait. We don’t want to do that.
Zeba McGibbon [00:16:35]:
So when you’re teaching letter sounds and things, are you talking to your kids about this is a continuous sound or this is a stop sound, or, like, is there language that you use about that?
Heidi [00:16:47]:
Yeah. So I found it really helpful. And, you know, people might think, again, this is too much for kids. But I did it with my 4k students. I found it really helpful to let them know those things I did talk about. Let’s see if our voice box is on. Put your hand on your throat and now say, and you can feel there’s a vibration there. Now let’s put our hand on our voice box again, and let’s say, I don’t feel anything.
Heidi [00:17:13]:
That means my voice box is off. And people love learning about those things. You can talk about touching your nose when they say, or to feel it because it’s a nasal, and you don’t have to tell them that’s a nasal, but you can. The sound comes through their nose, and they can feel that vibration there. And so for some dialects, that’s helpful because some dialects, instead of like, can they, like, can’t. It’s like that whiny A they call it. And that’s because the M and the N are coming through our nose. So those are things that you definitely.
Heidi [00:17:44]:
And then you could say, oh, look at this sound. Let’s see how long we can hold it. Right. Let’s hold it as long as we can. And then go with the students and just let them know that’s a continuous. You can say continuous or you can come up with a vocabulary that works for you. But yeah, you can definitely. I think the more that you teach them about the letters.
Heidi [00:18:03]:
That’s why teacher knowledge is so important. Those stop sounds, the voice box, these things I didn’t know about before.
Zeba McGibbon [00:18:09]:
Yeah, you know, I didn’t know.
Heidi [00:18:11]:
Yeah. Now that you know about them, then you can teach it to your kids. And then the more they know about a letter, the better. It’s just more.
Zeba McGibbon [00:18:18]:
No, the one letter sound that I worried that I add the extra sound to, but I’m confused about myself is why.
Heidi [00:18:28]:
Yeah. So why are I hear about a lot?
Zeba McGibbon [00:18:32]:
Because, like, for RR is true. Yeah.
Heidi [00:18:34]:
It is tricky. And you. It’s. It takes practice for us as teachers and parents, too, because we’re so used to like or ra. But it’s not either of those. What I started doing is say rabbit, but I don’t say abbott. I tell my kids that, too. It’s just, like, going to say rabbit, but don’t say abbott.
Heidi [00:18:54]:
We’re going to hold the R ready, like, and then they just kind of get that it’s a continuous sound. And the same with Y. It is a continuous sound, too. And so if we say Y, or it’s more like the E almost sounds like E. Right. But what I do is say yellow without ello. So E L. So even if you try it, you’re like, it does sound like E, you know?
Zeba McGibbon [00:19:21]:
Yeah, that’s thinking about it.
Heidi [00:19:22]:
You should try it.
Zeba McGibbon [00:19:23]:
Well, I think I know E. It sounds like E, but that’s not the sound that you make. So yellow. Yeah. I think in general, like, that’s a good tip, is if you’re trying to remember the isolated sound, because you want to say it really accurately, is to say that keyword without the word like. Say it in your head. Because I do that with apple. Because I want to make sure I’m saying the correct.
Zeba McGibbon [00:19:46]:
Like, because there’s so many A sounds, but I want to make sure I’m really isolating the short A sound. So I say apple, like, every time I’m trying to, like, say the A1.
Heidi [00:19:56]:
Yeah. I think that’s so helpful, because even, you know, if I’m saying it in isolation, I notice a lot of times I do still say it wrong. And I’m like, okay, let me go back. I’m going to say my word, and then I’m going to say the rest of the word, and it’s just so, so helpful. And the good thing about that R and the Y is that they are continuous sounds, so you can hold them, which makes it a little bit easier for the tricky sounds like that.
Zeba McGibbon [00:20:17]:
I’m gonna remember that this year. I’m gonna do it differently this year. Are there keywords? I know I’ve seen keywords that bother me. Are there keywords that you’ve seen that bother you?
Heidi [00:20:27]:
For sure.
Zeba McGibbon [00:20:28]:
Ones to avoid.
Heidi [00:20:29]:
Yeah. And I never thought about these things before either. Like elephant. I’m like, what’s wrong with elephant? But like, l kids are the name of the letter L. Instead of being able to really isolate that short E. Xylophone is the worst one. Owl is horrible. I’ve even seen chicken for C.
Heidi [00:20:50]:
I’m like, what are we doing? I know. Yeah.
Zeba McGibbon [00:20:54]:
So I know why those bother me. Trying to tell people why those are horrible.
Heidi [00:20:59]:
Yeah. So it’s just. You really want kids to Be able to isolate and hear the sound that you’re trying to teach. So I will see people say I is not for ice cream. Well, it is if you’re teaching the long. I can isolate that very easily. I scream. I can hear that long I.
Heidi [00:21:18]:
And when people say that, they’re really just talking about. Because usually we teach the short sound first. But I can still be for ice cream. You just like elephant. A better keyword would be echo or edge, because there you can really isolate that sound and really hear that short E. So X is tricky because no words start with the X making the X sound. So it’s always going to be at the end. Like, a good keyword will have that sound at the end, like X or fox or something like that.
Heidi [00:21:52]:
So that way you can hear the true sound that the letter typically represents.
Zeba McGibbon [00:21:58]:
Right. So I see a lot of times I’ll see, like a soft gift for a G sound, which, like you said, if you’re teaching the soft G, fine. But if this is the first introduction, you’re probably starting with that hard G sound. And so you don’t want, like, giraffe to be your keyword.
Heidi [00:22:16]:
Correct. So in my mnemonic Alphabet, I have both. I have a long vowel sound, I have a short vowel sound. I have soft C, hard C, soft G, hard G. Because the I mean. And it’s sometimes in kindergarten we do introduce that. I always expose our students to that. So when I see people say G is not for giraffe, it is just not at.
Heidi [00:22:37]:
Maybe not at this point in the school year for you. Right? It’s not. But it is a rare sound.
Zeba McGibbon [00:22:42]:
I think, in that exposing thing is, I do that all the time. Because if they say, if we’re coming up with words or whatever, and it just naturally comes up where they’ll say, like giraffe or whatever the example is. But I’ll say, oh, that’s a soft G sound. We haven’t learned that yet. But, like, sometimes G says, and that’s the soft G sound. So it’s just a quick. I’m acknowledging that, like, you’re not wrong if you’re saying, like, G words. But they are.
Zeba McGibbon [00:23:07]:
Some of them are ready to get that first exposure to those phonics topics and skills and then know that they’ll get it for the next couple of years in school.
Heidi [00:23:19]:
And I think that exposure really helps kids to not feel so confused later on when they encounter those words. Then they start to think those are tricky words or those words aren’t supposed to be spelled like that when they actually are regular, regularly spelled words. Just having that exposure, I think is so helpful.
Zeba McGibbon [00:23:38]:
We talk about this, I think in our last podcast about like high frequency words or trick words or whatever you want to call it. But teaching the pattern, even if you’re not teaching the phonics pattern in kindergarten, you can still teach them like, this is an AI sound that’s going to say A and you’ll learn that. But it helps them to be like, there are reasons why the letters might sound different than the way I’m taught them in kindergarten. And that’s important because they will be reading a book that’s not a hundred percent decodable or doing an assessment or something that’s not a hundred percent decodable. And they’ll be frustrated because they’re trying to sound out the word with the letter sounds exactly the way you taught them the letter sounds. And they’re going to be frustrated. So it’s important to expose them to the fact that not all words are sounding with the short vowel sounds that.
Heidi [00:24:26]:
We taught them that letters represent more than one sound almost all the time. And so that’s actually one other thing that I changed. It’s super simple and people kind of sometimes think it’s dumb because it’s so minor, but I think it makes such a difference. So instead of saying like G says G, I started saying G spells or G represents or can represent G because G also represents other sounds as well. And so just knowing that G doesn’t just say G and you’ll learn. I mean, I’m not teaching that to them right now, but I’m at least letting them know that most of these letters are going to spell other sounds too later on. So these are the first sounds that we’re learning. These are their main sounds.
Heidi [00:25:11]:
Right. The ones that we see the most often. But all of these letters are also going to represent some other sounds later on. So that’s one small change, one small thing that I started doing that I feel like helped my students to know. Because in first grade they just think that everything is so crazy. English is by first grade. They’re like, oh my gosh, English doesn’t make any sense. And honestly, I used to say that too.
Heidi [00:25:34]:
But the more you know.
Zeba McGibbon [00:25:36]:
So, yeah, what are some other small shifts that teachers listening could make when they’re teaching letters this year?
Heidi [00:25:43]:
Yeah. So again, that teaching what your mouth does, that’s one of the six things I talked about. But we didn’t go into detail with it. But that was something that made such a Difference for my students, especially, the trickier sounds like that are made in the back of the mouth and talking about what my tongue is doing. I mean, in the classroom, you can go around and kind of show your students what your mouth is doing. If they can’t see you, have them have these little mirrors or practice with the partner and just watching. What is their lips doing? What are their lips doing? What is their tongue doing? What is it our mouth? Is their mouth open, closed? That type of thing really, really made a difference in my kids. Learning their letter sounds, for sure.
Zeba McGibbon [00:26:24]:
Yeah, I definitely try to, but I. I could do more of an effort with that. But the time of the year when it always comes out, when I’m making a very big deal about what our mouth is doing is teaching the difference between th and F. Because when we’re introducing that diagram, they think, like, every word. They’re just. They aren’t developmentally saying the th sound yet, and, like, they hear it as f. So I’m very big about, like, is your tongue sticking out or is your teeth, like, hitting your lips? You know, like, for the f. So that’s one that I definitely talk about a lot.
Heidi [00:27:00]:
I think it can make a really big difference, especially if students are getting stuck on sounds and especially sounds that are like sister sounds. They sometimes call them like B and P. It made exactly the same. The only difference there is my voice box on or off, and same with T and D. So those kinds of things can be really helpful. Teaching about the voice box and showing your mouth what it’s doing for sounds like that can be really helpful, too.
Zeba McGibbon [00:27:26]:
Are there resources on your website or that you know of for people to go learn how to talk about the way our mouth is a shape being shaped when we make the letter sounds?
Heidi [00:27:37]:
Right. So I do have mouth pictures, so little pictures that kind of show what your mouth should look like when you’re making the sound. So I do have that, but I don’t know if there’s any, you know, that tells you exactly, like, what to say or how to teach that. I just. What I would do is just pay attention to what my mouth is doing and hold that letter, if it’s a continuous sound, and then pay attention. Like, what is my tongue doing? What is like for? I’m like, okay, what is my mouth doing? So I look at myself, and I’m like, okay, my mouth is slightly open, and my tongue is, like, touching the back of the roof of my mouth and just kind of like, explain that. How I can think of to explain It I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way when you’re making the letter sound. Just watch what your mouth is doing.
Heidi [00:28:21]:
So maybe practice in the mirror the night before you’re going to do that one. And then, you know, just tell your kids what’s going on with that when and see if they can do it and then show your partner you can do it.
Zeba McGibbon [00:28:31]:
And that’s good. That’s basically how I did it so far. So I’m on the right track. Yeah, you are. A lot of phonics curriculums have different orders for the letters. Or like that’s a question I get a lot of like, well, what’s the order you teach the letters? And you know, I have a certain curriculum, so I follow that curriculum. But is there a right or wrong order to teaching the letters?
Heidi [00:28:51]:
There’s not. So earlier we kind of touched on like, oh, when you teach the letters again. So there’s a study that they did that showed really good results for kindergarten students who instead of a letter of the week, they were taught a letter each day. And so like the first 26 school days they were taught the Alphabet in like say the ABC order. They say they just started with the order. Then after that 26 school days they started over and taught the Alphabet again in a different order. So maybe by like print features, you know, like handwriting without tears or. Yeah, Gordon Gillingham does as well.
Heidi [00:29:31]:
So maybe now you’re gonna teach it in that order. And then they cycled again. And so throughout the year they got like six or seven cycles of teaching the Alphabet. So they got that repeated practice that kids really need. And so there you’re not really worrying about your kids mastering either because yeah, you’re doing a letter of the day that’s you know. And so they did with six or seven different scope and sequences. And so there is no right or wrong. I would say if you can to do a couple own name advantage is one that it can be really helpful especially in the beginning of the year.
Heidi [00:30:04]:
But it would change every year. So you’d have to look at your roster and I don’t know about you but like whenever I would get my class list I’m like, oh, I have a lot of J names this year or a lot of right it always.
Zeba McGibbon [00:30:15]:
All A and E this year, A.
Heidi [00:30:16]:
And E. So those are tricky ones to start with your Alphabet sequence. But you kind of go through and look at the letters that are most prevalent in your students names and make your scope and sequence that way. Those are the Letters that they’re focusing on right now anyways on that in pre K. So. And they love to learn about their names and their friends names and then you can incorporate that. So that could even be another scope and sequence. Another scope and sequence that I’ve seen is teaching the letters first that have the sound in the letter name and moving through to the ones that don’t like.
Heidi [00:30:49]:
So B would be early in the scope and sequence, but H would be like way at the end because there’s sound information you don’t hear in the when we say H. So there’s a lot of different orders that you could teach the Alphabet in. And if you can get those cycles in throughout the year, I would just change the order each time.
Zeba McGibbon [00:31:09]:
What do you think about, like, ABC order?
Heidi [00:31:12]:
I think it’s perfectly fine. I know that there’s some people saying that you can’t teach ABC order if it’s the only order that you’re ever teaching. I think that might not be as effective because you want your kids to know that these letters exist outside of the Alphabet song or outside of this order. Right. But developmentally it can be helpful, especially in 4K and kindergarten, because they’ve learned that song, they know that song, and that can, you know, give them confidence going through learning the Alphabet in ABC order. I still think it’s a scope and sequence that we can use. I just don’t think it should be the only one.
Zeba McGibbon [00:31:48]:
Okay. I love that. Yeah. I. This is a cautionary tale if you are going to do the Alphabet order. This is back when I wasn’t like, explicitly teaching sounds like I was like you said it was like, it’s the Alphabet. We’ll teach it. And then also we’ll go on to other things.
Zeba McGibbon [00:32:01]:
Towards the end of the year, I was doing like an assessment and I discovered one boy. I wanted them to write a letter of the Alphabet in each box. And he’s like, there’s enough room in this box. I was like, what are you talking about? And he wrote lmno, like in one box as like one letter. And I was like, oh, gosh. So cautionary. If you are going to do the order like that, make sure to distinguish those are different letters. Because in the song they jumble together.
Heidi [00:32:28]:
They do. And I’ve seen teachers now where they go l, M, N, O. So they kind of stop and own and chant or cheers to split that up. Because, yeah, kids can sing that for a little while when they’re just learning the song. But then like, when you’re. If you’re going to go over it in your classroom and do the song or go over the Alphabet in ABC order. Slowing it down and chanting that part out can be really helpful, too, because different. Kiss my hair like Eminem or, you.
Zeba McGibbon [00:32:56]:
Know, that’s a great shift. Easy to do. You touched on this real quick about, like, letter a day, letter a week. I know there’s a whole philosophy around a letter a week. You want to talk about that A week of. What is it called?
Heidi [00:33:11]:
Letter of the week.
Zeba McGibbon [00:33:11]:
The letter of the week. I just sounded weird when I said that. The letter of the week. Like, I’ve heard it many times, but so letter of the week thoughts.
Heidi [00:33:19]:
I know. And I. I’m always like when I talk about this, because a lot I know from a teaching standpoint, teaching a letter of the week. And for those who have been doing it for a while, this is hard because, like, for me, I have my bins and I have everything ready for that week to teach that letter. And I put it all out and we do it for a week, and it’s great. And, you know, thinking about just doing the letter of the day, do you know how much, like, more work that is? Like, if I’m putting stuff in centers or putting stuff over here, Like, I know it can be a lot. So just knowing that from a teacher standpoint, I know that this can be a little, like, overwhelming sometimes to hear, but the letter of the week really is just more of a tradition, and there’s no real research supporting it. The research shows, like, cognitive research shows that kids need that repeated practice over time.
Heidi [00:34:14]:
And then a lot of other research shows that teaching a letter of A of the day or even a couple letters a week is a more efficient way for teaching the Alphabet versus just the letter of the week. Yeah.
Zeba McGibbon [00:34:28]:
I mean, if you just think about it, that’s 26 weeks of school before you get to the full Alphabet. So that’s where I think about it, of why it makes more sense. So my curriculum does two to three letters a week, and. And they get that repeated practice throughout the whole time of all the letters we’ve previously learned.
Heidi [00:34:46]:
Yeah. And that is one of the points that they make in the research is because it takes that 26 weeks just to get through. And then think about your kids who already know the letter B and spending a whole nother week on it. And even the kids who don’t, they spend a week on the letter B. And I’m not saying that you never talk about B again, but now you’re moved on to this letter. And it takes too long to really come back to the letter B, especially if you’re touching, you know, the writing of it, having the, the mouth position, all these different things. Yeah, it just takes too long to come back to it. And you can get a lot done in actually, in this research study they did, it was just 10 to 15 minute lessons with students.
Heidi [00:35:26]:
It was 10 to 15 minutes a day, the letter of the day. And then they did another letter and they went through. And then they did this cycle six to seven times throughout the year. So, yeah, I think about 26 weeks. How many times can you cycle through the Alphabet? Honestly?
Zeba McGibbon [00:35:39]:
Right, exactly. Yeah, I think like a lot of times I get the feeling teachers, they worry about having that repetition over and over again about it getting boring for the kids. Of like, okay, we’re gonna read through all the letter names every, that we’ve learned every day and by that’s gonna get super boring for the kids. But actually they don’t get bored and they really need that repeated practice and they benefit from it. And so I don’t know where I was going with that, but no, I.
Heidi [00:36:08]:
Think that, I think that you don’t even have. If you’re doing like a letter of the day or a letter of the week, you don’t even necessarily have to do that because you’re going to come back to that letter in a little. You’re going to come back to that letter in less than a month, honestly, you know, like, so. And you’re going to hit it a couple more times anyways throughout the school year. So if you’re doing a system like that, then you don’t really even necessarily have to go through because again, you’re not working towards mastery right now towards like after the third cycle, then maybe you’re looking for more of that with some of your students, but it’s more of like an introduction exposure the first one or two cycles.
Zeba McGibbon [00:36:44]:
And just to be clear for everyone, when you’re doing letter sounds and focusing on that, what else in the realm of like phonics are you doing, like phonological awareness kind of activities? Like, you’re not only focusing on letter sounds at that time, right? Well, maybe not that time, but like throughout the day, I mean.
Heidi [00:37:01]:
Right, so that’s a really good point because you can bring in. So if you’re teaching like the sound of the letter B or you’re teaching the letter B even you get to the sound of the letter B, you can bring in that phonemic awareness. And now, okay, now let’s think of words that start with the B sound, right? And. Or say words. And where do you hear the B sound? Sound you hear at the beginning, do you hear at the end? Things like that, different things to bring in that phonemic awareness. Because when you do that and you connect your phonemic awareness and your phonics or your letter knowledge, you’re just fast tracking those connections that kids need in their brains to become successful readers. So I know we talked about this last time, but like my ideal kindergarten would be just that and letter knowledge and just spend the whole year doing that. And as a first grade teacher, if you did that, I know that my kids would come to me so prepared and ready to read.
Heidi [00:37:58]:
And you would probably have them reading by second semester anyways if you did that all of first semester. So, yeah, you can definitely bring in that phonemic awareness into your letter lessons too. If, or, you know, if that day is the letter B, then bring that in throughout the day as you’re teaching your other things. And I love phonemic awareness because you can do it anytime. You know, you can do it in wrath. Get out your books. You know, like it’s so easy to. Once you have the knowledge of it.
Heidi [00:38:27]:
Because I used to have to put a little reminder on my schedule. Cause I would forget when I was first learning about it to incorporate it all the time. But once you get in the habit of doing that, it’s so easy.
Zeba McGibbon [00:38:38]:
Yeah, it’s a great time filler. We have a couple minutes transitioning.
Heidi [00:38:41]:
It’s perfect time.
Zeba McGibbon [00:38:43]:
Yeah.
Heidi [00:38:43]:
Yep.
Zeba McGibbon [00:38:44]:
Well, I mean, I could just like keep talking your ear off, but I. I’m gonna end it here so we don’t keep going forever and ever. But I’m so glad you came back on the podcast. And a reminder that if you haven’t heard that first episode, definitely worth listening to with Heidi. But Heidi, where can people find you if they want more information or they want to follow along like I do for. What’s the latest research coming out that we can use in our classrooms?
Heidi [00:39:10]:
Yeah, I didn’t even get to talk about the embedded mnemonics. Cause there’s research on that. But I have all that.
Zeba McGibbon [00:39:14]:
I’m sorry.
Heidi [00:39:14]:
No, it’s. No, because there’s so much to talk about with the Alphabet. We will never cover all of it, I don’t think in a, in an hour or however long episode. But I do have that information and that research and the things that I talked about today too on my website. So I believe that you’ll link to that below in the episode. And then on social media, it’s drop a knowledge with Heidi on all platforms. So I would love to connect with you and yeah, leave me comments, send me an email if you have any questions. But there’s a lot more information I get, like I said, resources and research on my website too.
Zeba McGibbon [00:39:49]:
Awesome. Thanks so much, Heidi.
Heidi [00:39:50]:
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Zeba McGibbon [00:39:52]:
Okay, if you’re like me and you couldn’t stop thinking about what Heidi was going to tell us about embedded mnemonics, I brought her back on for a quick little postscript here. Psych. Heidi, take it away.
Heidi [00:40:02]:
Yes. P.S. we were just having the best conversation about it. And so I think it’s helpful for everybody to know. I was just telling you that we. I was actually trying to do some research about having multiple target pictures with a letter. Because if kids just think A is for Apple, you know, we want them to know that A, that short a sound is heard in a lot of different words. Anyways, I was doing the research on that and I found research on embedded mnemonics.
Heidi [00:40:28]:
So embedded mnemonics is a picture in the shape of the letter that also represents that letter’s sound. And there is research supporting embedded mnemonics. They found that kids learned their letters and sounds faster when they were taught with embedded mnemonics and that they less often forgot them and that they less often confused them with other letters and sounds. And so once I learned that, I quickly found myself an illustrator and put together a mnemonic Alphabet with correct keywords because it didn’t exist. I looked it up and it didn’t exist. And so what else was I, did I say about that?
Zeba McGibbon [00:41:07]:
We’ll talk about your book and the. And your cards that are on your website. Okay.
Heidi [00:41:11]:
So I ended up self publishing a book on Amazon. It’s called P is for Paint. It has the alpha, the embedded Alphabet mnemonics on there. And then also on my website, there’s I, there’s flashcards, there’s posters, there’s handwriting sheets. Just because like I said, if kids are presented with that picture in the shape of the letter representing that letter sound, they just can learn their letters and sounds faster. And so one thing that we also talked about was that, you know, sometimes you might see the letter T with a tiger stripe design or like a tiger standing behind it. And that’s not really necessarily a true embedded mnemonic. You would really want to try to find something that’s more in the shape of that letter.
Heidi [00:41:55]:
So unless that tiger is doing some gymnastics and standing to make the letter T, that could work a little bit better. But when kids see those pictures, they can also see those letters and then also get that sound information as well.
Zeba McGibbon [00:42:09]:
And the other thing we said when I stopped recording, which I wish we hadn’t done that, so that’s why we’re back on here, was you were giving me a really helpful tip of something I can do with my class tomorrow. Switching the order of the keyword and the sound.
Heidi [00:42:24]:
Yes. So we talked about that. Some programs or some teachers may teach a Apple app. Well, what. What happens sometimes is that keyword should be a scaffold, and we should be able to drop that off. And when it’s in the middle, it’s really hard to drop off. And I was telling you that I’ve had first graders who, you know, have memorized these things, so when they’re trying to sound out a word, they’re going through that whole chant. So they’re going bab A, apple, A T tumped.
Heidi [00:42:53]:
And then they forgot what they’re even doing because they had to go through all of that. So putting that keyword at the end makes it easier for them to drop that off eventually, because we don’t want that forever. That’s just a scaffold. That’s to know initially that A as in apple, but A is also says at in a lot of other words as well. Just making that teeny. That teeny switch can be really helpful, too.
Zeba McGibbon [00:43:20]:
And I was saying, I’ve seen it with my students where they. It’s almost like they’ve memorized the whole. Whole chain there, the whole chant, because they, like you almost feel like they can’t identify which one is the name, which one is the sound, which one is the keyword. It’s like all together in one thing. And so I think that one shift could really help with those kids, because at least, like you said, they’ll have the letter name and the sound so close together that they might not need that keyword eventually.
Heidi [00:43:47]:
Yeah, they shouldn’t need that keyword eventually. You really want to be able to drop that off. And we want them to be able. We want them to know these things, not to memorize the chant, but to be able to apply that knowledge.
Zeba McGibbon [00:43:57]:
Right.
Heidi [00:43:58]:
So I think that just makes it easier for them to be able to do that when that keyword is at the end and can come off later on.
Zeba McGibbon [00:44:05]:
Okay, well, sorry, everyone, that we came back on, but it was worth it. And I’m going to stop recording, and then we’re going to stop talking so we don’t keep having more things that we need to tell the world about.
Heidi [00:44:14]:
All right, thanks so much.
Zeba McGibbon [00:44:22]:
Thanks so much for listening to the Kindergarten Cafe podcast. Be sure to check out the show notes for more information and resources, or just head straight to kindergartencafe.org for all of the goodies. If you liked this episode, the best ways to show your support are to subscribe, leave a review, or send it to a friend. I’ll be back next week with even more Kindergarten tips. See you then.