10 Easy Alphabet Intervention Activities and How To Organize Them!

Alphabet recognition is expected at the beginning of kindergarten in many areas. The days of kindergarten being about abc's and 123's are gone. It has been replaced by more rigorous standards that often leave kids feeling overwhelmed and defeated--before they even begin! There is no time for a letter of the week approach, not to mention research shows it isn't effective in the first place! So how do we do it? How do we ensure that all of our children develop a level of alphabet understanding that allows for application? Here is how we organize our alphabet intervention program so that all of our kids are feeling successful, happy, and empowered to tackle the more rigorous standards to come.

Easy ABC Interventions

Here's how you play Roll It! Lay the cards on a flat surface. Model how to take a piece of the dough and make a long rope or “snake” by rolling it on a flat surface like a table or desk. Then show how to take the snake and form the letter on the card by manipulating it and laying it on the card. You can pull off a piece of the snake to form the straight, connecting lines of some letters. After the letter is made, show how to trace over the letter with your finger while saying both the letter name and the sound it makes.



Here's how to play Clip It! Show the student one of the letter cards. Let him or her know that all the cards feature one letter- the letter in the middle that the child is holding. Let the student know that he or she will place a clip on the matching letter. Tell the student that they will need to listen to see which type of letter you want them to clip- uppercase, lowercase, or both. Show them the three choices on the side of the card. Model how to place the clip on the card.

Here's how to play Build It! Lay one letter card on a flat surface and model how to use the building pieces to build a letter.

Afterward point to the letter and say the letter name, the name of the picture on the card, and the sound the letter makes. Now ask the student to do this with the letters he or she is working on.

Here's how to play Maze It! Show the student the letter at the top of the page and the picture in the center of the maze. Show the student how to start at the uppercase letter and then find their way to the picture in the center by following all the matching upper and lowercase letters.  After the center picture is reached, take your finger and trace back over the line you made and say the letter each time you touch it, finishing in the middle of the maze by saying the name of the picture and the beginning letter sound.

Here's how to play Find It! Choose a card and show it to the student. Ask the child to tell you what letter is in the upper left-hand corner and what sound that letter makes. Then ask the student to look at all the letters on the card. Some of them are written in fancy ways! Tell the student that their job is to find all the letters that match the one in the upper corner of the page. Show the student how to say the name of each letter and decide if the letter matches the letter that is in the upper corner of the page. Show the child how to mark each letter that matches.

Here's how to play Find It-Pictures! Choose a card and show it to the student. Ask the child to tell you what letter is in the upper left-hand corner and what sound that letter makes. Then ask the student to tell you the name of all the pictures on the card. Be sure the student knows what all the pictures are. This is a good opportunity to build vocabulary as well! Show the student how to say the name of each picture and decide if the picture starts with the same letter that is in the upper corner of the page. Show the child how to mark each picture that matches the letter.

Here's how to play Trace It!Show one letter card to the student. Identify the letter on the card and ask the student to notice that there are rows of uppercase letters and lowercase letters. What sound does this letter make? Tell the student that today they will get a chance to practice writing with a magic pen! Show the student the object you have chosen for them to trace with (finger/chopstick, etc...). This is a magic pen because it writes with invisible ink. Tell the student that they will be tracing over the letters today. Remind him or her that we always write letters from the top down. Model how to trace the letter using the correct letter formation strokes. As you trace over the letters say the letter name and sound aloud. 

Here's how to play Trace It! Show one letter card to the student. Identify the letter on the card and ask the student to notice that there are both uppercase letters and lowercase letters on the sheet. What sound does this letter make? Tell the student that today they will get a chance to practice writing the letters they are learning. Show the students the writing implement he or she will be using. Remind the student that we always write letters from the top down. Model how to write the letter using the correct letter formation strokes. As you write the letters say the letter name and sound aloud. 

Lay the letter cards on a flat surface. Model how to take pipe cleaners to form the letter on the card by bending them and laying them on the card. You can use a shorter piece of pipe cleaner to form the straight, connecting lines of some letters. After the letter is made, show how to carefully trace over the letter with your finger while saying both the letter name and the sound it makes.

Storage and Management

Here's how Michele and I organized the interventions. We purchased a hanging file folder box. (Yeah, I found this one in a clearance bin!) Make a hanging file folder for each letter. We made these letters tags and glued them to the folder.

Reproduce the intervention cards. Since I want to have several sets of the "b" interventions, I ran each set on a different color of paper. That makes it easy to keep them organized inside the "Bb" folder.

Make a folder for each child to hold the alphabet intervention cards. Place a green dot on one side and a red dot on the other. As the child completes the activity, they move the card from the green side to the red side.

Make a pencil bag for each child. The bag should hold all of the supplies they need to do the interventions.

Store the folder and the pencil bag inside of a 2 gallon zip-top bag labeled with their name.

Assessment and RTI

Ask students to read the letters on each row from left to right. You should point to each letter and ask them to say the letter name or sound. Use a plain piece of paper under each row to keep a student’s focus on the row you are asking them to say and to keep them from becoming confused by all the letters on the page. After assessing a student on the uppercase and lowercase letters, use the lowercase grid to test students on letter sounds. Point to each letter and ask, “What sound does this letter make?”

Record the results of each assessment on the teacher recording form. You will use the results of this assessment to determine which letters your students will need to work on.

Look across the grids on the teacher recording page to decide which letters to target. If a student correctly identifies the uppercase and lowercase letter and the sound it makes, no intervention will be necessary. If a student missed one of these things, that letter will need to be targeted for intervention. Choose no more than 5 letters to target at one time. Record these letters on the first chart on the Student Response to Intervention Data sheet. Work with a student on these letter and sounds for a two-week period and then assess and record the data on this sheet.

Another alternative, is to use ESGI’s alphabet recognition test.

  Assess each child on the alphabet simply by clicking yes or no as you show them the letters on the screen.

After the assessment, you can easily see how the child preformed.

You can also administer a subtest. This allows you to determine which 5 letters you wish to work on. Return to the testing menu.

Click on the “run a subtest” tab.

Click on the letters you wish to use for your subtest. You can use this assessment after administering the interventions to check to see which letters the child mastered and which ones need to be carried over for more practice.

The activities and paper pencil assessments are included in this unit. You can try ESGI for FREE by clicking the image below.!