Painless Ways To Teach Your Baby Numbers And The Alphabet

The first question, though, is why should you teach the alphabet and numbers to your baby? They’ll teach it in preschool anyway. Besides, isn’t it bad for the child’s brain to be overloaded so early with so much school stuff?

Well, it IS too early to formally teach your child anything. Children learn best through fun activities. But when the learning process is fun, you’d be amazed at how much a baby’s brain can easily absorb, and the more it is stimulated in the right way, the better your child’s brain develops.

Now, why teach letters and numbers? Because, other than pictures, those are the things he will see in books. If your child sees letters and numbers in books and considers them familiar friends, he will enjoy books more.

So, finally, here are our tips for painlessly teaching numbers and the alphabet to your baby:

Get A Wall Chart Or Play Mat With Letters And Numbers

The goal is exposure. If your baby sees his letters and numbers often, he will be more motivated to learn their names. You don’t have to do anything at all, except name them for him when he points at them. By the way, make sure the chart is at his eye level, not yours.

Use It As A Lullaby

After all, almost any song can be a lullaby if you sing it really slowly and softly. Anyway, it’s a good idea to sing the alphabet song very slowly to your baby because that will let him hear the separate letters very clearly. As for the numbers, you can sing them to the tune of “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt.”

Oh, and you can sing the songs in the bath too, and during playtime, just do a livelier version.

Choose His Books

Choose board books with only one picture and letter or number per page. This keeps your child from being distracted by too many things to see. Teach letter and number names the same way you teach object names. For example, if you teach the child what an apple is by pointing to a picture of an apple and saying, “apple,” you also teach letters and numbers by pointing to them and saying their names. There’s no difference.

Sing His Books

Sing the alphabet song or the number song while you point to the letters and numbers in his books. You can also sing your number song while counting the objects pictured in his number books. When your baby can talk and seems familiar with the songs, make pauses in your song but point at the letter and number that should be sung and give your child a chance to sing it himself. Don’t force him, though, if he doesn’t say anything. Eventually, he will.

Sign His Songs

It is very easy to learn the hand signs for letters and numbers. Learn them from a book or website, and when you are singing your alphabet and number lullaby, sign the letters clearly in front of your baby while you sing. He will be fascinated by your hand movements, and eventually, he will try to do them himself. The hand shapes are also good cues to help him remember the letter and number sequence.