Originally Posted by Hartingirl:
Good evening!
I feel like I'm at a loss. I have mostly 3 and 4 year olds and run preschool hours in the afternoon. I feel pretty good about everything, our units, etc. and I really feel like the children are learning so much.
However, I'm really stuck with regard to teaching the alphabet, letter recognition, phonics, etc. I've been researching and it seems like there are so many methods. I would love any advice with regard to 1) the order of skills I should focus on, 2) materials and/or resources. I feel like I'm lacking with materials (real objects, etc.) and I just feel overwhelmed with where to start.
I've been introducing a new letter every week, focusing on letter recognition, and then we do a craft, but my children are just not retaining the information. 
Please tell me what you do. I would love a standardized system for how to do this, but I'm in my first year, and struggling with hands-on materials. I'm not a worksheet kinda gal.
Thanks SO MUCH for any advice you can provide!
Not sure if others have suggested this... I personally don’t like letter of the week. I like to start with children’s names and the names of people they love/their friends. I start with just the initial sounds/letters of the names, then when they show an interest and start to recognize a few letters I teach them all the letters in their name. Don’t forget to play lots of rhyming games and alliteration (first sounds of the word) games. And before writing they should feel good about making pre-writing sorts of lines/drawing more then scribbles, etc. My own daughter was hesitant to start writing her name even though she knew the letters and their sounds, so we made a dry erase mat with her name and made playdough letter and then traced them... then SHE asked to write it by tracing with dry erase marker. I never push early learning skills down their throats, just make it available and jump on it when they take an interest.