Teaching Guide
Letter Recognition
produced by
ANNETTE ROBINSON
Web Institute for Teachers, Summer, 2001
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Aim
Introduction
In our State Prekindergarten program we have a special activity area
in the classroom where the children are beginning to develop computer skills
simultaneously with an awareness of alphabet/letter recognition.
Aim
Our aim is to introduce children properly to computers, computer hardware
and software. By providing children with some initial directions
for operating the equipment, we can give them confidence to eventually
use the area independently.
Rationale
Computers can provide highly effective learning opportunities for children.
Including computers as an interest area is an important step in ensuring
opportunities for all children to become comfortable with computer technology
as they learn. As we know, alphabet recognition is one of the initial
steps of the Language Arts program. The students will work on letter
recognition as we introduce them to computers. They will learn to
identify the letter by using computer sites that show the configuration
of each letter.
Goals and Objectives
By the end of this unit students will be able to recognize the mentioned
alphabet letters with 90% accuracy. Given prekindergarten sites with
alphabet letters the students will begin to develop mental images
of the letters identified in the daily lesson plans.
Audience
This lesson is designed for the prekindergarten children ages three to
five.
Prerequisites
Prior to these lessons the teachers will walk the children through the
use of a simple program that uses a mouse and has a printout feature.
Students must know how to left click the mouse and how to drag and drop
with the mouse.
Subject-Matter
Alphabet recognition and the age appropriate use of computers.
Instructional Plan
The teacher will engage students in conversation about the purpose of knowing
the alphabet and elicit prior knowledge from each small group. Teacher
will download the program and install it. There are three levels
of tutorials from easy to difficult. The teacher will guide
and direct small groups of children through the first two levels of the
learning activities. With the guidance of the teacher, teacher assistant,
or volunteer tutor an appropriate learning level is selected for
each student to begin the lessons.
Materials
Materials needed are computers, computer printer, plain paper, animal pictures
with corresponding initial letter and access to the web site: (http://www.snowcrest.net/kitty/hpages/zkids.html),
(http://www.yourchildlearns.com/)
(http://www.lessonplanspage,com/LALearnSayMakeLowerCaseLettersP.htm)
Assessment and Evaluation
Teacher will guide and direct small groups of children through the first
two levels of the learning activity. The teacher will observe the children
as they wo in the level 3 activity.
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