Alphabet boxes for toddlers and preschoolers | RaisedGrounded

The basic idea of alphabet boxes is to have a bag, box, tray, or drawer that is labeled with a letter and has things that start with that letter in it ^{1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 13, 18}. For instance, depending on the size of your box/ bag and how many items you want, for “d” you could have

• a toy dump truck,
• a dreidel,
• toys, pictures, or puzzle pieces featuring animals such as a duck, dog, dolphin, deer, donkey, or dove,
• a drum,
• an oversized dice,
• a diaper,
• pieces from a large domino,
• a doll, etc.
• ‘d’ letters the child can touch (e.g., sandpaper letters, letters made from wood or felt)
• and maybe even a coloring page (for scribbling) or some picture flashcards.
• photos from people in the child’s world whose title (daddy) or name (like David, Daniel, Dina,…) start with d are also a good addition, as talking about family photos is e.g. part of PA’s toddler learning standards.

There are tons of ideas on how to make alphabet boxes on the web. They are also called for instance ‘Montessori alphabet boxes’, ‘beginning sound object boxes’, ‘alphabet sound boxes’, ‘sound/ letter boxes’, ‘initial sound boxes’, ‘sound trays’, ‘sound boxes’, ‘sound cabinets’, or ‘letters and phonics sound boxes’. Many sites focus more on older preschoolers (e.g., they have lots of small parts that are choking hazards)^{1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 13, 18}. But there are also ideas to make boxes for 12- to 18-month-old toddlers to explore⁸.

Alphabet boxes for toddlers vs. for older children

For toddlers, alphabet boxes can be part of a toy rotation and part of a print-rich environment. Basically, it’s giving them a few new objects to explore at regular intervals. The letter organizes these objects and helps build awareness of beginning sounds.

Having an alphabet box can also help to point out things in the environment, whether at home (e.g., the dryer) or when taking a walk (e.g., daisies), as the parents naturally look for things starting with that letter more during that time.

For older children, alphabet boxes can be part of learning the letters of the alphabet.

One box per letter vs. one box for the whole alphabet

There are different options for alphabet boxes. Some people have a big box with a set of drawers so that all the letters are accessible to the child at the same time^{5,1, 6,7, 21}. Others focus on one letter for a specific amount of time, such as a week, and then go to the next one¹⁰. They may use two (or more) of the individual alphabet boxes for matching/ sorting activities, but only once the child has an understanding of both individually (e.g., what goes in the ‘d’ box and what goes in the ‘m’ box?)^{13, 10} . Another option is to go by sets of letters, with the letters/objects of one set being mixed in one box/bag to be sorted from the start^{2, 20}.

Having an overview of the whole alphabet somewhere (like an alphabet poster or puzzle) can be helpful. But starting with individual letter boxes instead of having all of the letters out at once seems like a good idea, especially for younger children. It allows for bigger objects. It is less overwhelming, not just because of the letters. Just think about it – even just having 2 to 4 objects per letter in the English alphabet would mean 52 to 104 objects to put away if all of the drawers get dumped out. Having individual boxes also means that it’s easier to have them as part of a toy rotation. 

Alphabet boxes vs. sound boxes

Montessori doesn’t use letter names when introducing letters, but the sound the letter makes^{10, 12, 13, 14, 24}. So d not diː, for instance. Montessori teachers “start with the more common sound” for the letter name^{14, also 16} if a letter can be pronounced more than one way. So for instance, the letter i can be ɪ as in igloo (ˈɪɡluː), insect (ˈɪnsɛkt), or iguana (ɪˈɡwɑnə). It can also be aɪ as in ice (aɪs). The letter can also be i, for instance, some Americans pronounce ink as iŋk (other Americans, as well as people from Great Britain, pronounce it ɪŋk)¹⁵. A video from the Global Montessori Network chooses ɪ as the sound when introducing the letter i¹⁷.

Outside of Montessori, there’s quite a debate whether to teach sounds of the letters first (‘This is d’), teach letter names first (‘This is the letter ‘di’) or teach letter sounds and letter names at the same time (‘This is the letter ‘di’. It makes a d sound’) ²³. Montessori and some others say teaching the sounds helps with sounding out words^{23, 24}. But others argue that one letter can look different (upper or lowercase) and sound different (as in the i, ɪ and aɪ example above) so having the (unchanging) letter name helps children ^{23, 30}. They also mention research that shows that knowing letter names is an important predictor for reading success²³ and “that learning the names of letters can” make it easier to learn the “letter sounds”, especially in English³⁰. Some research found “that teaching letter names together with letter sounds led to improved letter sound learning when compared to just teaching the sounds alone”³¹. A fourth opinion – which is based on a study with French-speaking children, however, is to start with syllables (e.g., “pi” is pronounced /pi/) instead of individual phonemes/ letters¹⁹. So based on what I‘ve read so far, a combination of letter names and sounds seems like a good idea. 

Many of the ideas for alphabet boxes on the web come from a Montessori background. But neither the Montessori-focused websites nor other sites that I’ve seen so far specifically discuss how to deal with letters that can be pronounced differently when filling the box. One site that clearly shows what is in their ‘i’ drawer only includes the ɪ sound with a toy igloo⁵. Some sites only focus on the aɪ-sound using ice (symbolized by a snowflake)³ or an ice cube and ice cream ²¹. But other sites mix the different sounds, e.g. an iguana and igloo with an ice cube⁴; infant and ice¹ or ice mixed with iron and ivy¹⁸. So basically, the question becomes is it a sound box or a letter box? If you’re going with teaching letters and sounds at the same time, going with a letter box makes sense.

What can be put into the box for each letter? Help, I need ideas.

As a busy parent, it can help to just read through a list of things that start with the letter. This makes it so much easier to remember what kind of things you have already in your home. It can also provide you with words to search for e.g. in your library catalog. Depending on your local library system, the library can be a great resource to find things that either can be put into the box for your child to explore or can be shown as another example under close supervision.

Click on the links below to find ideas for each letter, sorted by category.

Some general notes:

• For animals, it could be e.g. wooden animal figures, stuffed animals, finger puppets, puzzle pieces, etc. 3D objects are better than just flat objects, as they provide more sensory input.
• The box shouldn’t only contain flashcards/ photos, but you can include some of those, too. This can be especially helpful for things like colors, people in the child’s life, and hard-to-find in object form things. You can also use flashcards to train object-picture matching.
• Not all things might fit into the box. Many xylophones, for instance, won’t fit into an alphabet box.
• Each idea list also has things on it that might be hard to find in a form that is safe for an alphabet box (independent discovery). However, the ideas can help you get started in pointing out objects (e.g., around the house) that start with the letter of the week.

Ideas for Letter A

Ideas for Letter B

Ideas for Letter C

Ideas for Letter D

Ideas for Letter E

Ideas for Letter F

Ideas for Letter G

Ideas for Letter H

Ideas for Letter I

Ideas for Letter J

Ideas for Letter K

Ideas for Letter L

Ideas for Letter M

Ideas for Letter N

Ideas for Letter O

Ideas for Letter P

Ideas for Letter Q

Ideas for Letter R

Ideas for Letter S

Ideas for Letter T

Ideas for Letter U

Ideas for Letter V

Ideas for Letter W

Ideas for Letter X

Ideas for Letter Y

Ideas for Letter Z

How do alphabet boxes work for bilingual or multilingual children?

None of the sites I‘ve read so far specifically addresses how to make alphabet boxes for bilingual or multilingual children. There are different options:

• Each language gets its own box. So you might have a red box for English that has a toy dolphin, drum, and duck. And a yellow box for German that has a Delfin (dolphin), Dachs (badger), and Deckel (lid). That is, if you want to do the same letter/sound. You could also do a different sound in each of the languages. Moreover, some sounds or letters might not exist in all of the child‘s languages. For instance, there is no ü (pronounced yː or ʏ)35 in American English. So if you’re doing the ü in German for one week, in that week the English box would be empty.
• Each letter gets its own box. Basically, going by what looks the same. So for a child learning English and German, the d – box would have objects from both English and German. One would need to point out that duck starts with d in English but that the German word for duck, Ente, doesn’t. For languages that have a different alphabet (such as Hebrew; a ד (dalet) and a d don’t look the same) that would mean they get their own box. The ד box might have a דֶּגֶל (degel – flag) and a דָּג (dag – fish), for instance.
• If you’re doing sound boxes, not letter boxes, each sound could get a box – so one might find a דָּג thrown in with the duck and the Dachs. (But: ice and insect would be in separate boxes).

Which of these options is best? I haven’t found any research that specifically addresses that question yet. In general, materials for raising bilingual or multilingual children encourage parents to either

• have certain people associated with the language (such as one parent only speaking German, the other only speaking English) or
• to have certain ‘domains of use’ for a language (certain times/ places, such as during breakfast or on weekend afternoons, or when going to the playground, etc.)²⁵.

Either approach is probably easier when there is a separate box for each language.

For young toddlers, if more than one box is out, their contents will likely get mixed. So one option is to just have one box out at a time until the children are old enough to engage in sorting activities.

Is using alphabet boxes effective for children, whether they are monolingual, bilingual, or multilingual?

And for that question, there is no easy research-based answer. At least I haven’t found a study that specifically addresses alphabet boxes yet.

That said, there is other research that can give us some clues.

First of all, research says that unstructured play is very important²⁶ for young children.

However, research in math shows that math talk and diverse number activities are good predictors of early math skills²⁷ . Moreover, studies show again and again that what researchers call the ‘home literacy environment’ is very important for children’s language development (e.g., vocabulary) and learning to read (e.g., letter knowledge, phoneme awareness, decoding skills)²⁸.

Two particularly relevant examples of research: One²⁹ study found that how much parents talk with their preschoolers has a big impact on “the number of words they know when they enter school”. But: the easier it was to guess the words the parents were saying to their 14- to 18-month-old child on a muted video (based just on e.g. the visual context), the better the “children’s vocabulary 3 y[ears] later, even after controlling for” how much the parents spoke (quantity)²⁹. Similarly, a second study with two-year-old toddlers compared using flashcards that have the word, the first letter in a face that makes the sound the word starts with as well as “a picture showing the word’s meaning” and flashcards that only show the word. When tested, the toddlers recognized those words they learned with the visually supported flash cards more often “than those learned as print only”.³²

Alphabet boxes offer a chance to talk to your toddler, and the objects provide a powerful visual clue. So they seem like a good tool to support your toddler’s or preschooler’s language development.

What are other ways to help children link beginning sounds to real objects and build phonemic awareness?

Alphabet boxes are not the only way to help children link beginning sounds to real objects, build vocabulary, and start building sound-letter associations. For instance, you can enrich whatever you’re focusing on in the alphabet box at the time by also including some of the following activities, depending on the age of your child:

• Read to your child.
• Take photos of real objects and print them out. Have the child match the real object to the photo.³³ Later (because it is more difficult) you can try matching the real object to drawings, such as matching animal toy figures to drawings of animals. Write the name of the animal underneath the drawing. For bilingual or multilingual children, you can do that in all of the child’s languages.³⁶
• Play a variant of ‘I spy’ or similar games with ‘I spy something that starts with d’ etc. ^{9,10, 13}. This can be made easier at the beginning by having a tray with just a few items on it. Later it can also be used around the house and outside^{10, 13}. Another option is to have cards with the letter and photo and have the child go and touch the appropriate card¹⁰.
• One can also go on a hunt around the house to find objects that start with a sound⁹. If the items fit in the box, they can even go into the alphabet box!²² Making the sound(s) of the box (e.g., “d-d-d”), pronouncing the word of the object that the child picked up (e.g. “dump truck”) and asking the child whether it starts with the sound can help (yes – put in the box, no, move on to the next letter)²².
• Or ask children to ‘Please hand me something that starts with d’ and so on (e.g., in the kitchen, in a play store, …)¹⁰. Or go for specifics, such as “a color that begins with p”.¹⁶
• Play with puzzles such as two-piece puzzles that feature the letter on one piece and a picture of something that starts with it on the other piece (e.g. D d – dog)².
• Enrich reading with specific activities. For instance, some parents make ‘mini books’ that focus on one specific letter¹⁰. David Perlmutter recommends enriching reading with real objects (e.g., if the story has a banana, bring out a real banana)¹¹. He also has a reading activity where the child gets “a letter to hold and they would identify that letter in the book and make the sound of the letter”¹¹. Kelli Johnson suggests an activity where one focuses on a specific sound in a book. For instance, if the book has the word ‘fish’ in it a lot, then focus on the f sound. Then “[o]utside of story time, try pointing out other words that start with the /fffff/ sound, just like in the book”³⁴.
• Another option is a mystery bag. A few objects that are easy to distinguish by touch are put in a bag. The child feels around in the bag and is asked to pull out the object that starts with a sound by touch alone^11,13.
• Another activity is to have sock puppets that like to “eat” objects (or photos of objects) that start with a certain sound. So one puppet likes words that start with ‘d’, another words that start with ‘i’, etc. The child then ““feed[s]” the puppet different objects or pictures that start with that sound”³⁴.
• Odd-one-out with 3 objects (2 starting with the same letter, 1 starting with a different letter such as deer, duck, and fish) is another game that utilizes beginning sounds^10.
• Talking about beginning sounds can even be incorporated into food preparation, such as making a soup with beans, barley, and broccoli ¹⁰.

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References:
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