![The Turn-Around Upside-Down Alphabet Book, Lisa Campell Ernst [Simon & Schuster, 2004]](http://images.suite101.com/849139_com_turnaround.jpg "The Turn-Around Upside-Down Alphabet Book, Lisa Campell Ernst [Simon & Schuster, 2004]")
Alphabet books help children identify letters, learn sound-symbol relationships, recognize alphabetical order, and differentiate letters from words. They are staples in the preschool classroom and countless choices abound. This article examines a few books that go beyond the standard “A is for apple” fare to invite children to interact with letters and the words they can create.
Identifying Letters through Alphabet Books
Much more fun and effective than flash cards or repetitive drills, alphabet books can help teach the ABCs. The best examples do more than simply expose young children to the letters of the alphabet. They encourage children to consider letter shapes, foster curiosity about letters and words, and hold interest over repeated readings.
The Turn-Around, Upside-Down Alphabet Book, by Lisa Campbell Ernst [Simon & Schuster, 2004] encourages readers to think about the shapes of letters. Each letter of the alphabet dreams of being something else. When the book is turned, these dreams are revealed. For example, the letter B becomes goggles when the book is turned ninety degrees clockwise. Another ninety degree turn and B is half of a butterfly. A final turn and B is two windows in a castle. Children will be inspired to create their own letter pictures.
In David Pelletier’s The Graphic Alphabet [Scholastic, 1996] letters actually become words. Each page displays a full-page letter and one word beginning with that letter. Pelletier says that his goal was to represent each letter in a way that retained its natural shape while also demonstrating the meaning of the word, so that a crumbling A stands for “avalanche,” B “bounces,” C spins in “circles,” and so on. The book challenges even those who already know their letters to think about the transformative power of the alphabet.
Stephen T. Johnson finds letters in unexpected places in Alphabet City [Puffin, 1999]. His realistic paintings depict letters occurring naturally in New York City. For example, looking closely at the side of a construction sawhorse reveals the letter "A," and an "R" can be imagined in the cracks of a sidewalk. After reading the book, children may want to search for letters in the classroom or in nature.
Learning Sound-Symbol Relationships
Alphabet books help children connect letters to the sounds that they make. In some cases, alliteration and rhyme focus attention on a particular sound. In other cases, books become guessing games where the first letter – and the sound it makes – is a clue to what will be found on the next page.
The Hidden Alphabet, by Laura Vaccaro Seeger [Roaring Brook Press, 2003] features a lift-the-flap approach that encourages children to guess the objects and the letters found beneath each flap. For example, on one page two balloons are framed by a black mat. Lifting the flap reveals that the balloons are the negative space in the middle of a capital B. Some of the pictures are obvious before lifting the flaps, while others require children to use the first letter to help determine what the object will be.
Silly rhymes fill the pages of A Was Once an Apple Pie, by Edward Lear [Orchard Books, 2005]. The child-friendly poetry and word play (“P was once a little pig, piggy, wiggy, jiggy, piggy, plump and biggy, little pig!”) will have children chanting along when the book is read aloud.
Alphabetical Order
Because of their basic organizational premise, alphabet books are perfect for learning alphabetical order. Younger children can use these books, along with the traditional alphabet song, to recognize the importance of letters. Older children can use the predictable structure of the books to help them guess what will happen next.
Max’s ABC, by Rosemary Wells [Puffin, 2008] is an alphabet book with a plot. When Max’s ants escape from their ant farm, Max and his sister Ruby need to think of clever ways to get them off of Max’s sticky clothing and back into their farm. Each page features a different letter of the alphabet which is highlighted in bold color on the page and repeated throughout the text. Children will relate to both messy toddler Max and helpful older sister Ruby.
In Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault [Beach Lane Books, 2000] the lowercase letters challenge each other to race up a coconut tree. It’s all fun and games until the letters fall down and their uppercase “mamas and papas and uncles and aunts” come to their rescue. The rhymes and repetitive chant of “chicka chicka boom boom” encourage interaction.
In The Alphabet Adventure, by Audrey Wood [Blue Sky Press, 2001] the “i” discovers that her dot is missing. The other lowercase letters search for the dot and finally trick it out of hiding. Children will have fun locating the dot on every page and reordering the letters who fall out of alphabetical order near the end of the book. They may even want to play hide and seek with the magnetic letters in the classroom!
Alphabet books such as the ones summarized here can jumpstart a child's interest in letters and reading. Here is a closer look at these and other alphabet books on Amazon.
![The Turn-Around Upside-Down Alphabet Book, Lisa Campell Ernst [Simon & Schuster, 2004]](http://images.suite101.com/849162_com_turnaround.jpg "The Turn-Around Upside-Down Alphabet Book, Lisa Campell Ernst [Simon & Schuster, 2004]") |
