Sharing Alphabet Books in Early Childhood Classrooms

• Published in: The Reading teacher Vol. 60; no. 5; pp. 452 - 463
• Main Authors: Bradley, Barbara A., Jones, Jennifer
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.02.2007; International Reading Association
• Subjects: Alphabet books; Alphabetic letters; Alphabets; Childhood; Children; childrens; Childrens literature; Classroom Techniques; decoding; early childhood; Early childhood education; Early Reading; Emergent Literacy; evidence; genre; instructional; Kindergarten; Learning; Literacy; Literary genres; literature; methodology; Orthographic Symbols; Phoneme Grapheme Correspondence; Phonemic Awareness; phonics; Phonological Awareness; Preschool education; Reading; Reading Achievement; Reading Aloud to Others; Reading teachers; Representation letters; Spelling; strategies; Teachers; Teaching methods; Young Children; New York; United States > US
• ISSN: 0034-0561; 1936-2714
• DOI: 10.1598/RT.60.5.5

To achieve academically, young children need a strong foundation in literacy. Alphabet knowledge is one aspect of early literacy. This article presents the importance of and the components of alphabet knowledge. An exploratory study in which prekindergarten and kindergarten teachers read aloud three different alphabet books to their students in a whole‐class setting is described. Results indicate that teachers do talk about letters when reading alphabet books, but they emphasize letter names over letter–sound knowledge. Further, text features influenced what aspect of the alphabet teachers emphasized, resulting in relatively little talk about letters for one of the alphabet books. Finally, this article describes how various alphabet books may be used to introduce and to teach young children about literacy.