Why we teach letters through play

Parents sometimes ask why our LKG children are not filling worksheets every day. The answer is that young children learn letters best with their hands and their voices before a pencil.

We start with sounds, not names. Children learn that “s” says “sss” through songs and objects in a basket, so they can hear the sound at the start of words. Only then do they meet the letter shape.

The shapes come next, in sand trays, with fingers on rough sandpaper letters and with clay. Tracing a letter large and slow builds the movement that a pencil needs later. Children also build letters from sticks and leaves in the garden, which they find very funny.

Pencil work begins once their grip is ready, usually in the second half of LKG. By then many children already know most sounds and can blend them into short words.

Worksheets have a place in UKG, for practice. But a child who loves letters reads earlier and more happily than one who has been drilled.