Your child may be a little immature for her age. With experience working with preschoolers I find many four year olds are not ready. You can’t be to pushy or it turns them off. Here is what I do and it seems to work. With no tv or any other interruptions ask your child if she wants to play a game with you. Take just three of your flash cards A B and C. Ask her if she knows what the letters are one at a time. Then turn them face down so they can’t see the letters. Let them pick up a card and see if they can remember the name of the letter. If they can’t then keep it face up on the table so they can see it. If they know it then have them start a stack of cards next to them. You go next and pick a different letter not the one that is face up. Say the correct name and say you get to keep the card. Place next to you face up. Now tell your child it is her turn and ask her to see if they can get a card. If they didn’t get it right the first time they should go to the one they first picked up the face up card that they didn’t know before. They should now know what it is. Hopefully they will know and start a stack. When you have done all three cards hold them up one at a time and ask what they are and say lets play again. Repeat. When they have mastered all three cards add the next three in the alphabet. So now they are working with 6 cards. Only take about 15 min. at a time if she seems bored. If she is getting into it then continue. If she doesn’t understand the concept that you are playing a game and you want to see who gets the most cards, or they are not getting any cards right they are just not ready. After they have mastered all the letters then work on the sounds the same way. Be patient they will get it.

All the suggestions people have written so far are great and will probably work well for your daughter. But don’t overlook plain old reading. Reading to your child is by far the best thing you can do. If you do it regularly she should pick up on a lot of that stuff, plus lots more that is also equally important (reading from right to left and top to bottom, differentiating between letters/words/sentences, expression, etc.). You can find some great alphabet books at book stores and the library.

The Leap Frog company (that made Leap Pad) has a few DVDs that are great for teaching kids their letters, sounds and beginning reading. They are called The Letter Factory, The Talking Words Factory and The Complex Word Complex. They also have one for numbers and simple addition/subtraction but I can’t remember the name. They are available at WalMart/Target etc for around $10 each. They also have magnet sets that have letter sets that you can use that actually sing the letter song for each letter (“The A says ahhh, the A says ahhh, every letter makes a sound the A says ahhhh).

Here is their website http://www.leapfrog.com/LeapFrog/index.jsp

Once she learns her letters and sounds and is ready for beginning reading you can try the Scholastic “Bob” Books. They are perfect for learning how to read with short 3 letter words that get progressively harder.

Well, you could let her grow up a little first since she just turned four, but if you really want to teach her now try focusing on just one letter a week. Put a magnetic upper and lower case letter on the fridge and throughout the week center activities around that letter.

For example

Monday, form the letter with glue and have her sprinkle glitter on it. (upper and lower case)

Tuesday, have her look at and touch her glitter letter and say the letter name and sound.

Wednesday, make the letter out of play dough and talk about its name and sound. (upper and lower case)

Thursday, get out paints and paint the letter.

Friday, do a coloring page from an alphabet coloring book.

Every day: Read to the child, see if she can point to that week’s letter in the book you are reading, if not point it out to her and talk about it.

Look for that week’s letter in everyday situations. For instance on cans, road signs, cereal boxes, etc.

Review a few of the letters done in past weeks, divide them up by the number of days you work on them so she doesn’t end up doing a review of 26 letters all in one day.

Add to these fun activities with other fun activities that come to mind.

Limit T.V. time.

Give her alphabet based toys and games.

There is also a really fun alphabet computer game called Living Letters by Larken Software. It is available from http://www.rainbowresource.com

READ READ READ

To foster interest, read to her. It’s by far the best tool. Both of my children were reading at age 4. But, both learned a different way. My oldest just got it, but wasn’t interested in phonetics. She learned from memorization. My youngest, didn’t know or recognize all her letters when she turned 4. But , before she turned 5 (3 months ago) she started reading.

I had tried flash card etc. No interest. She learned letter sounds before letter names. Now she understands word families, silent e, can pronounce words by sounding them out (even if she sounds out incorrectly she usually figures it out) and I think a better reader than my oldest at the same age. She also took a great interest in numbers and now does basic addition and subtraction problems.

So just keep reading to her, she is taking in more than you realize.

Check out the program Between the Lions on PBS. Your local library should have VHS tapes on this program. Very catchy.

Not a video per se that teaches them specifically. I think the Barney and Dora programs and DVDs are helpful. Make it routine and don’t use pressure. You can point out letters on the cereal box or the billboards as you are driving and so forth. Oh, how could I forget Sesame Street on public televising.

I love the bk “Reading Magic” by Mem Fox. I’ll bet it’s at u’re local library. Check that out for great tips. Also my boys really love Sesame Street’s “Learning About Letters” DVD

try these 2 things there’s a avideo at the libary on letters, i think it’s called letter town., also make these letters a pictures that goes with it and that might help her alot too, for example a is for apple , then show her an an apple.. good luck

Use this website, it is really helpful

www.starfall.com