i agree that baking is a good one...i do parent rota for our local pre school and i did baking and they had to do letters in their name.  I have also bought child's scrabble, although i don't play it like scrabble i tip the letters out and DD puts them back.  They can only go in the correct slot and are colour co-ordinated.  also bath alphabet toys are good, you can get them like a jigsaw.

I was going o suggest everything that has just been suggested below.

In addition, when you are out and about, look for familiar signs, McDonalds, BHS, M&S, Asda, Tesco and/or shops your child is intrested in. ask him to copy them, sound out letters, start looking for similar letters in other words.  Use road signs, posters, anything that is away from "formal learning" and make it a game.

eg, I can see a T, can you see an E, what comes next.

what other words can you make with the letter T, E, ..... etc

Writing letters in sand /mud/paint is a good way to start, - basically going back to basics.  look at childrens dictionaries (v basic) and look at all the letters that start with a, c, etc.

How is your sons speech? is he learning verbally to communicate?

how is his sight and hearing - have they both been checked?

ask him to draw the pictures of whatever words you are describing, and check his understanding.

look at the bbc website, there is loads of learning info, starting at foundation level that will give you loads and loads of ideas of games etc.

Learning is being taught more and  more through practical learning rather than by rote, and by making it fun to do,

must go, but if i think of anything else will come back to you

heidih

I would have thought that you need to have strategies to make learning fun. Is it the writing or sounding of the letters that you are most worried about? Simple games of I Spy help children to listen to sounds and you can try "I spy something that ends with ee" and give clues until he says "tree". Making biscuits in different shapes (perhaps his name?) and only allowing them to be eaten if he can give you an animal begining with each letter. What about chalk or water to write on the pavement outside?

I would also ask the school if they will give you suggestions such as the scheme that they use so you don't confuse him by trying something very different. They may also recomend websites to play letter games.

My children were a bit younger when they wrote labels for everything around the house and attached them with bluetack. The bed still has the word "bed" above the headboard.

If you read the same stories over and over, most children will "read" them to you long before they have mastered the words. If this is a fun game, trying to read the real words soon becomes fun too.

Have fun! Lucy xx

I have made children alphabet cards with the Upper case on one side and the lower case on the other. I just gave them a few cards at a time, for eg my youngest has had a,e,i,o,u,t,h,j,m. As he recognised the sound and the name for the letter as in the sound is 'a' and its name is A i gave him another card. He now has enough cards to be able to make simple words by the sound, like c a t and t o p. This has worked well for all my children, also when reading aloud i would ask them to make the initial letter sound which helped as well.

i'm trying to teach my 6 year old ds his abc's. I'm really struggling as he has a very short attention span and really struggles to concentrate. He is behind in school and has to have extra support to help otherwise he would take over the class. he doesn't mix well with other children according to the teachers and i'm at my wits end. Everytime i go to parents evening they tell me he's doing well but i get letters from the support staff saying he's struggling, i don't know what to believe. Any suggestions about teaching the abc's would be greatly appreciated, as my task this 6 weeks hols is to teach him them so he remembers them for school in september.

thanx kelly