Alphabet letter cards are useful for building words!

Small alphabet letter cards for individual/ pair use are an essential tool in the early childhood classroom. They give young learners the opportunity to use a kinaesthetic approach to learning by handling the letters and physically placing them in order to make words. Please find a free downloadable printable set of alphabet letter cards for your use below.

It’s our intention to support and encourage busy teachers by providing them with free downloadable printable resources for use in their classrooms. We’ve been featuring the use of flashcards in recent weeks, and we’ve provided you with resources including:

• Word/ vocabulary flash cards for all of the Sunrise Readers
• Character picture cards and names for Sunrise Readers Books 1 – 3.
• Alphabet Cards – Classroom Set including pictures
• Alphabet Charts for individual use
• Now – small individual letters of the alphabet for word building.

How to use these letters: 

Please note – the vowels are red.

1. Print and laminate the letters.  Ideally, one set per child.
2.  Cut the letters out. (Some teachers get the children to cut them out, with rather messy results! But it’s a useful dexterity/ fine motor control activity and the children are “handling” the letters.)
3. However, if resources are limited, you can:
4. Print 1 set to be used in pairs or even threes.
5. Arrange group work in your class, with one group of 4 – 6 children making words with letters (each having a set of letters – so 4 – 6 sets would be needed.) Other groups would be doing different activities – like flashcard recognition, matching characters to name cards etc. Then rotate the groups.
6. Store the sets of letters in envelopes or small box/ container of some kind. Take care of these and they will last a long time.

There are many ways to use these cards. Please share your ideas by contacting us or adding comments on this site.

1. Letter recognition (as per alphabet charts):

• Lay the letters out. Make a pile of the same letters – the vowels.
• “Everyone, find me an o. Good! Now point to an s.” etc.
• Teacher holds up a letter card from the Classroom Set – “Everyone, find me this letter. Hold it up!”
• Matching the letter cards to their alphabet charts. Lay the letter cards on the correct letter on the alphabet chart.

2. Word building

• The most common use is word building. e.g.
• Can you build hat for me? Say hat. “Hat.” Sound it out. “h-a-t.”  hat. Now build it. You go around and check. You may then write it on the board for the children to look and check.
• See how many words you can build today with your letters.