9 Fun & Easy Letter Recognition Activities

A multisensory learning approach

If you are preparing to help your little one with letter recognition what better way than to incorporate a multisensory learning approach.  

When we think of building foundation literacy skills, having a variety of multisensory activities in your tool kit will make learning more effective and engaging for child and parent!  Giving your child fun and hands-on activities is a great way to learn how to identify letters, associate sounds and practice letter formation.

Why learn letter recognition?

Learning to read and write are complex skills.  Being able to identify a letter from a group of letters, and recognising the specific charactistics of each letter, are the key stones for literacy. It’s a big concept to grasp, that this formation of lines and shapes represents a particular sound and when combined with other letters can create an array of sounds.

The first step for letter recognition is print awareness. This process usually begins in the home.  Each time we read a bedtime story we are helping our little one to develop an awareness of letters in the context of the alphabet.

From print awareness, a child starts to identify a letter, giving it a name and being able to articulate its sound. It’s important that a child can identify a letter and say the sound in any print context. The goal is to learn it quickly and accurately. 

As they start to develop these skills, they will also begin investigating how to form their own written letters.  You can read our article on how writing develops in early childhood for more on this.

How to teach letter recognition

Your little one will need lots of exposure to the alphabet. Although it will happen indirectly through everyday activities, such as reading that bedtime story or singing the alphabet song, they will need direct instruction.

A child will need to see each letter in multiple fonts, both in an isolated context but also with-in text if they are to:

1. Recognise the letter

2. Name the letter

3. Sound the letter

4. Form the letter

With direct instruction, they can learn to name letters, match upper and lowercase, and differentiate between letters that look quite similar b and d.

Why are multisensory activities great for early literacy skills?

Your child is growing and learning in a multisensory environment, naturally using all their senses as they explore the world around them.  A baby will use multiple senses to investigate an object; they see the object, grasp it in their hands, squeeze it to make a sound and put it to their mouths.

Multisensory learning simply encourages your child to use more than one of their five senses when taking in new information.  The key is to use two or more senses at the same time. 

When introducing a letter, combining visual, tactile, and auditory activities is common and provides three ways for a child to make connections; I see this shape is A, I feel this shape is A, and I hear how A sounds. This approach results in children being able to associate letters and sounds faster.

1. Better learning outcomes

Research shows that when learning involves different parts of the brain, learners are provided with more than one pathway to make connections allowing knowledge to be categorised and stored in several places ready for easier retrieval (Shams et. Al. (2008). 

A recent study used MRI imaging to show that students with the strongest literacy skills had the greatest interactivity between different sections of the brain. This suggests literacy is a whole-brain skill that benefits from a multisensory approach to learning.

2. Learning Styles for All

Each child is unique and responds differently to a range of learning stimuli. Some children may struggle with auditory processing but may engage fully if the same concept is presented visually and through touch.  Multisensory learning opportunities provide a child the chance to connect to the strategy that works best for them.  It allows a child to to support their areas of weakness with their areas of strength.

3. Engagement and motivation

Young learners struggle to sustain their attention on a task for long periods of time and any task that creates frustration or boredom will be reduced in effectiveness. Using multiple senses gives children opportunities to connect with their learning in engaging and fun ways that boost motivation.  Learning doesn’t have to be boring!

9 Letter Recognition Activities

Below is a list of great hands on activities for your young multisensory learner to connect with the alphabet.  Although these are letter recognition tasks, they provide a good foundation for supporting your child to learn how to form their letters, and a good start for developing their writing skills. They can be used for number recognition too. Using all the senses will really get the kids involved and is lots of fun!

Play dough letters

Playdough Alphabet Letter Recognition Activity

Play dough is a fabulous material for small hands to manipulate into shapes. For the younger learner, let them squish playdough onto a printout or hand drawn letter template.  Have them sound out the letter as they push the playdough into shape.  To make it more exciting, once the letter is formed, they can push sequins, buttons, or beads into the playdough.

 For older learners, have them manipulate the playdough into free-form letters. This is a little more challenging but for those that know their letters can match their work to a letter template.

Sensory writing Tray

This is a great activity for little hands that are not quite ready to hold a writing tool but also fun for those that can.

 You will need:

• Shallow baking tray or container

• layer of baking paper

• layer of salt, rice, sand, cornmeal, beans, baking soda, or shaving foam

• Alphabet cards for letter reference

Kids will have a lot of fun using their finger to form lines, shapes, letters, or words. It’s a low stress exercise that allows them the sensory joy of trailing their finger through the material while practicing their letters.  Have them sound out the letter and encourage them to follow correct stroke order.

To erase simply shake the tray from side-to-side.

To make it more interesting you might consider:

• Putting some colorful or patterned paper underneath your material of choice.

• Adding some food coloring to the mix

• Adding some sequence, shells, beads or glitter

• Add some herbs or a touch of spice to the mix for a lovely smell

• Let them try an array of writing tools like a popsicle stick, paintbrush, or a stick.

Tactile letters and numbers

Tactile Letter Cards Letter Recogntion Activity

These are a fantastic resource for learning letter recognition, stroke order, alphabet sequencing and even word formation. You can purchase tactile letters, but to save on expense you can either make your own set or turn this into a craft project and make them with your kid!  There is so much you can do with this activity, and it provides a lot of joy to little ones who can see their efforts on display.

For those who love a simple DYI project you’ll need:

• Laminate

• Felt alphabet stickers

• Card stock or thick paper

All you need to do is cut your card to size, laminate and attach the alphabet sticker.  

But if you want to get creative, use a range of materials and textures.  You’ll need:

• Laminate

• Card stock or thick paper

• Alphabet letter or number templates (you can access free templates here)

• An assortment of materials – let your imagination run wild but consider wool/yarn, beads, beans, rice, glitter, small shells, torn up pieces paper, small uncooked pasta shells, sequence, small pom poms, pipe cleaners, ribbon, buttons

How to use these cards:

• letter recognition

o   Create a card each time you are introducing a new letter of the alphabet (or a new number) and have your child trace the letter and sound it out.

o   Go on a letter hunt and call out the letter for your child to find

o   Have your child find the letters of their own name

• Letter formation

o   Follow correct stroke order as they trace the letter with their finger

• Alphabet sequencing

o   Have your child place the cards in alphabetical order

Magnetic Letters

 Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash

Magnetic letters are a staple for any sensory learning experience. This simple letter matching activity will also encourage fine motor development as your child manipulates the magnetic letters into place.

You’ll need:

• A flat surface that will attract the magnet letters - magnetic board / dry erase board, cookie or baking sheet or tray (or use your fridge if it will attract the magnetic letters)

• Letter templates

• Alphabet or number magnets

Use tape to stick the letter template to the tray and have your child match the magnetic letter to the template. To save you time, download a free template here.

You can enhance this activity for the older child by asking them to select uppercase letters and match them to a lowercase letter template, then reverse the activity to match lowercase letters to an uppercase letter template.

Sensory Bin

Sensory Bin Letter Recognition Activity

A sensory bin is terrific fun and tends to hold a little one’s focus for quite some time.  Sensory bins are easy to make and can be filled with a range of letters and numbers of different materials.  

You’ll need:

• A high sided container such as a plastic storage tub

• Rice, beads, sand, pasta shells or any material that can hide objects but easy to manipulate

• Range of letters of the alphabet (or numbers) - magnets, felt letters, wooden letters, letter cards, even small stones or pasta shells with letters painted on them

• Letter template or any alphabet letter cards

• Markers, crayons, bingo dauber, counters or stickers

Fill the container with your material of choice and add an assortment of letters.  The joy is in the digging, and this can be done by hand to offer a wonderful sensory experience, or with a plastic shovel, spoon or scoop.  

Ask your child to match the letter to the letter template or letter cards. You can extend this activity by asking them to sound out the letter and trace it with their finger.

To make this more interesting you can add food coloring to your material if appropriate, or sprinkle sequins and beads throughout.  You can appeal to your child’s interests and add cars, dinosaurs or even farm animals to play with later.

Magnetic Letter Sensory Bin

This is a fun activity that allows your little one to hunt for magnetic letters hidden in rice, sand, or beads.  

Follow the how-to instructions listed for the sensory bin.  Add the magnetic letters and using the wand, have them swirl through the material until they find a magnetic letter.  Have them pull it out, trace the letter with their finger and sound it out.  Once they have found a letter, they can match it to the letter template or letter cards.   

Alphabet grab bag

You can use any of your materials from tactile cards to magnets or wooden letters for this activity.  Put the letters into a bag or container and encourage your child to pull out one letter at a time.  Have them name it, trace it with their finger tip, and sound it out. 

For the older child, once all the letters are out, have them form an alphabet train and put the letters in alphabetical order.  Have them sing the alphabet song as they touch each letter.

Alphabet Bingo

Alphabet Bingo Letter Recognition Activity

Alphabet bingo is a simple but fun activity for kids who are learning how to recognise letters.  You can build their excitement as they anticipate finding letters and filling in their card. They’ll need to listen, look and record their letter. 

You’ll need:

• Alphabet bingo cards (uppercase and lowercase letters)

• Calling cards for each letter of the alphabet

• Bingo dauber, counters or crayons and markers

You can make your bingo cards by drawing grids of 4 x 4, or  5 x 5 and though you won’t be able to fit all letters on the card, if you make a selection of cards each letter will be represented.  You can glue them to cardstock and laminate for repeat use.  To help you along, we’ve created some basic templates for you to print and laminate which you can download here.

 Your kid can record the letter by coloring it in, using a bingo dauber or placing a counter on top. 

 It can be very exciting for your kid to pull the letters from a bag/container themselves. For those who are more comfortable with letter recognition they may enjoy calling out the letter.  

Letter Match Template

Image by Freepik

It doesn’t get much easier than this. A simple letter recognition activity that requires nothing more than a alphabet template and letter cards. A simple matching exercise placing letter cards over the template letters. As your child develops their letter recognition skills, use cards with different fonts or presented in different forms such as wooden blocks, or magnetic letters.

The final word…

This is not an exhaustive list of multisensory learning activities, but it may provide inspiration for you to think about opportunities to incorporate a multisensory approach when teaching your young learner letter recognition, alphabet sequencing or sounds and words.

To help with letter recognition and formation, try our Letter Tracing Alphabet Workbook for Kids!