How I taught my 2 year old her ABC's

Mellissa McNaughton
May 5, 2021
4 min read

The first very important step in any child learning to read is to begin to recognise letters. My daughter Willow could recognise her upper and lower case letters and recite her alphabet by the time she turned two years old. If you would like to know what we did to teach her this at such a young age then read on for all my hints and tricks on how I taught my 2 year old her ABC's.

Learn by Repetition

The first thing I did with my daughter was to pick up some flashcards like the ones below.

I found that nice simple cards with easy pictured and large letters were the type she responded to the best. The first thing I made sure of was that she knew all of the words on the cards by recognising the pictures. Once she knew all the words then I moved on to the letters themselves. Willow really responds well to music and songs so I would sing her a little song for each card. It was nothing fancy at all I just sang A for apple ah ah apple, B for ball bu bu ball and so on. This way I was reinforcing the words, the uppercase letters and the start of phonics as well.

We would play this as a little game around once a day and she didn't even realise she was learning. The cards are available on Amazon Here.

Make screen time about learning

We all give our children some screen time from time to time and I think it's unavoidable as they grow to be a great tool for learning along with other forms so I would like to let you know about a couple of things that I found worked really well to reinforce what I was already teaching.

Firstly a little app that Willow still loves to this day is called Meet the Alphablocks. Is a Free app that is available in the App Store. Children tap there was through the letters and they sing them some pretty funny songs while teaching them. It's really good. They have a TV show too but Willow didn't really get it, she much preferred the app.

Another thing that Willow responded to really well was alphabet songs on Youtube. There is a Peppa Pig one that she absolutely loved and wanted to watch over and over again. It taught her the alphabet song as well as reinforcing her visual letters.

Learning Through Play

Once Willow was at the stage that she knew the letters on the flashcards I began devising little tests for her to see if she knew them out of order and upper and lower case so every chance I got I would write letters on her blackboard in chalk or on her colouring pages or even on writing them on the ground outside with pavement chalk. She would constantly ask me to 'do ABC's' and loved showing them off with grandparents.

Praise Praise Praise

When you are trying to teach your child anything I cannot stress enough how important praise is. A child will get on board with learning pretty much anything if by doing so they feel worthwhile and like they are doing a good job or making you proud. So every time you see them really try, tell them how amazing they are and that they are clever and working hard. If a child grows up hearing that they are clever they will believe it and be capable of anything at all.

Patience

All children are different and will come to things in their own time so just because one child could do all of this by the time they were 2 does not mean every child can. If you start to try and teach your child some of this and they show no interest at all they may not be ready but persevere you will be surprised how much they are taking in when you don't even think they are. When We began with my daughter's flashcard journey she would only get about a third of the way through before losing interest but I kept on trying the next day in a very calm and fun way and she came around. I never pushed her or got irritated if she wasn't in the mood but always praised her when she tried or listened. Within a matter of a month or so she was going through the whole pack of cards and asking to do it again and again so it really works.

Some other tips for teaching ABC's

Create a scavenger hunt with letters or pictures and letters and when they find them reinforce the letters. It's fun and educational.
Get some alphabet fridge magnets and help them to organise and play.
Get hold of some alphabet board books
Sing the alphabet song again and again they will know it soon enough.
Try some sensory activities, bury letters in some sand to dig up or freeze them into ice cubes and help them melt.
Try an alphabet sorting puzzle if you have a little puzzler in your life.
Bake cookies and top them with Alphabet icing.