Letter of the Day Lesson Plans – Habitat Unit Week 1 – Farm Week (Written Order) EXCLUSIVE

One letter a week is not meeting the varied needs of young students (Bowman and Treiman 2004; Piasta and Wagner 2010). In practical application it makes little sense to expect students to be proficient in a skill (i.e. the letter a by name, sound, and shape) when it has been twenty-six weeks since the student has last seen that letter. Through the cycles of enhanced alphabetic knowledge instruction letters will be taught through multiple, distributed instructional cycles. This allows for letters to be introduced, practiced, and revisited several times, as needed, (Jones and Reutzel, 2012). This cycle follows a carefully planned letter formation sequence based on the way letters are written. Rather than teaching letters in alphabetical order, letters are introduced in a sequence that allows children to notice similarities in how letters are formed and build on previously learned skills.