Learn the Alphabet
The child needs to build alphabet knowledge, which is a part of the building blocks to learn how to read. The concepts included in this knowledge are:
recognizing and identifying the fingerspelled letters
letter shapes (recognizing it’s visual features such as direction, curves, and lines for both UPPER and lowercase letters)
letter names (printed)
letter writing
making connections between fingerspelled letters and printed letters
Develop the alphabet knowledge through fingerspelling, tracing, writing, and reading letters. Using the alphabet awareness as a building block, the child can then develop phonological awareness through handshapes, fingerspelled and printed words and decode them when learning new vocabulary words. Activities below involve fingerspelling, tracing, writing, and reading letters and words.
VL2 studies show that children can be ready to write letters as early as three years old when they are consistently exposed to both sign language, fingerspelled words and book/prints early regardless of parents’ hearing ability or sign proficiency. Download those cards, charts, and worksheets, and keep reading books, talk about prints in the environment. Follow their pace and most of all, enjoy your time with your child.
Activity ideaS
Flashcards:
Cut them up. Glue the ASL and English alphabet together and use them as flash cards.
Matching:
Place the cards face up in a random order, and have the child choose the card that matches. Glue them side by side on the paper.
Match the uppercase and lowercase letters
Match the ASL alphabet with the English alphabet
Memory game:
Place the cards face down and flip the card over. Find the cards that matches.
Match the uppercase and lowercase alphabet
Match ASL alphabet with English alphabet.
(Tip: use 5 letters at a time. Switch up letters every time they play.)
Activity Worksheets
Make a Booklet
Create a booklet by downloading the title page and the rest of the pages. Print those worksheets out and begin practicing those alphabets by seeing it in ASL, reading it in English, tracing it, and writing it out!
More Practices
These are various activities to build letter recognition and to reinforce your child’s phonological awareness: matching fingerspelled words with printed letters, matching uppercase and lowercase letters, crossing off incorrect letters, filling in the blanks, and more. This will help build the foundational skills.