In my last post, I shared with you the set of Case Match Cards that I made to help my student recognise letter shapes. Around the same time, I also created a set of single-letter cards.
Mini Letter Cards Design
At the beginning of the term last year, the teacher I was working with pulled out a lovely set of hand-coloured A4 letter cards. During our term, she displayed them on the classroom wall for the students to view and trace with their fingers. When I asked her about these cards, she told me that her students from the previous year had made them. They treasured them because they made them.
I liked the idea of students being able to trace the shape of the letters with their fingers and colour them in. So I built my own set to fit my teaching style. I prefer smaller cards, as I like students to come up and use them, play with them, and interact with the cards. Big cards with small students can be fun, but for these cards, I knew I wanted the kids to match up the cases and possibly use them to build CVC words. I wanted the students to be able to hold them.
These cards follow the same design language as the Case Match Cards —a simple bubble letter in the centre of the card. The bubble letter keeps the cards looking clear, but also allows students to trace the shapes with their fingers or colour them in.
Teaching with the Mini Letter Cards
When using these cards with younger students who are just learning the shapes, we often teach one or two letters at a time to get them accustomed to the shape and sound before moving on.
Find Me
This is a simple movement game. Place the letter of the day card somewhere in the classroom. I like the students to see me do it. I will pretend that I don’t want them to cheat, but the end goal is for them to use English or recognise the letter. When I say go, they should go and find the letter and bring it back. When they bring it back, they should say the letter or trace the shape with their finger. This is very simple for adults, but I have found that the young children love to run off and bring back the card
Trace the Shape
Because the letters are in a bubble font, you can use your finger to trace the shape of the letter. You can also add these letters to a PDF or PPT, and use software to draw on the board. If you laminate the letters, you can also draw on them with a broad pen.
Print out the letters and let the students colour them in, this is great practice, they might not be learning the stroke order for how to write the letter, but if you have spent some time teaching the letter “e” for example, when the sit down and colour it in they will be spending time with the shape and it will become familar to them.
Find my Friend
For this game, I like to use the Case Match Cards. This is probably because they are the biggest letter cards that I have. The students will need to know a few letters before they play it. I enjoy playing this game with four-letter words.
Place four uppercase letters on one side of the classroom, and place their lowercase version on the other side of the classroom. The teacher calls up two students and explains that one student needs to find and bring back the Uppercase letter, and the other needs to find and bring back the lowercase one. The teacher then holds up a card and says the letter. The students will then run off to their sides, collect the correct letter and bring it back to the teacher. The reason I like the Case Match Cards for this is that they have both uppercase and lowercase letters on the top section.
Match Case
Let’s use the Uppercase set for this example. Lay the entire alphabet out on the floor in a single line. You can shorten it to as many letters as you need or as space allows. We don’t want any dead air time, so ask the students to say the letters as you put them down, and ask them what the next letter is before you show it.
Once you have the desired number of letters laid out, start handing out the lowercase letters to random students one at a time, asking them to match the letter you gave them with their uppercase friend on the floor. It’s more fun if the lowercase letters you’re handing out are shuffled.
You can also play this game in reverse: place the lowercase letters on the floor and hand out the uppercase letters.
Download Mini Letter Cards
If you would like to try out my Mini letter cards, you can download them here:
Other Types of Letter Cards
I believe that every teacher who teaches young learners should have a set of alphabet cards in their toolbox. You don’t have to create your own; many sets are available online. While researching this post to share with you some options, I found that some are free, while others require a fee. I have two sets of cards that I used before I built my own. One is a small set of cards that Case Match Cardsare about the size of playing cards and have a lowercase letter in the centre, with the border made up of the corresponding uppercase letter. The set I used the most was a lovely A5 set of lowercase letters from Super Simple, which I used for many years. The nearest I can find on their website now is this set:
They offer a variety of free flashcard sets. Check them out.
Many of the card sets I have seen are designed to look beautiful, but from my experience in the classroom, students either get distracted by them or only learn the letter by the colour or the pattern on the card. I have kept my Mini cards simple so that the students focus on learning the shape rather than learning the colour.