Navigating the Alphabet: How To Teach ABC Order to the First Letter

Learning the alphabet is a fundamental milestone for students, and mastering ABC order is a crucial skill that lays the foundation for language development and future learning such as dictionary skills. In this blog post, I’ll walk you through exactly how to teach ABC order to the first letter to & hopefully give you some ideas & strategies you can utilize in your classroom! This process outlined below is about 1 week of reading lessons in my classroom & then the activities could be used in small group and reading centers after! Be sure you make it all the way down to grab SEVEN freebies to use in your classroom for ABC order!

How to Teach ABC Order: Starting Out

I love to start out by reviewing the order of the alphabet. We start out cheesy by singing the ABC’s and then I have them tell me everywhere in our room they can find the alphabet in order (word wall, their name plates, etc.) I like to do this so they remember once again the resources they can use to help when they are trying to put words in ABC order later on.

Give Students Practice with an Alphabet Arc

I pass out an alphabet arc to each student. (Included in the FREE download below) I have it laminated so they can draw on it with a dry erase marker. We start by discussing the halfway point in the alphabet, which is between M/N. I have them take a marker and draw a line down the middle of the paper between those two letters. Then our alphabet arc is divided into the first half of the alphabet and the second half of the alphabet.

While there are lots of great uses for alphabet arcs in your classroom and small groups, I barely scratch the surface with them. To start out easy, I call out a letter in the alphabet and have them point to that letter on their alphabet arc. Once students get the hang of it, I will ask them to point to the letter BEFORE C or the letter AFTER R. This challenges students a bit more, but it’s important for them to understand before and after in order to put words into ABC order.

We tend to spend a day or two on this, and I also have 2 activities students do to really show and solidify their understanding of the order of the alphabet. (Both included in the FREE download below)

Activity #1: Write the Room- Missing Letters (Students go around the room with a recording sheet and write the missing letter down. This gives students practice recalling the order of the alphabet, and I encourage them to use any visual aids, if needed)

Activity #2: ABC Letter Order Boom Cards (This one is a little trickier, but I have students take the letters at the bottom of each slide and drag them in ABC order on the bubbles. Students might have to shift them around as they problem-solve, but this helps students to really think critically of which letter comes first and last on each card.)

Connect Concept of ABC Order to Read-Aloud & Dictionaries

This is probably my favorite part! There is a lot to this so you can definitely split this up over more than one lesson, or combine into a longer one!

We start by reading The Mixed-Up Alphabet by Steve Metzger. It’s a cute story and helps to reinforce why the alphabet is in a certain order. We do dictionary skills the week after ABC Order, so I start by showing a dictionary and asking students if they know what it is. I explain it tells us what words mean and that the words are in alphabetical order.

I have students turn & talk about why it’s important the words are in ABC order and we relate it back to our read-aloud (so we know where to find them!) We even go over how if I want to find a word that starts with C, I can use my knowledge of the alphabet and look towards the beginning of the dictionary since I know it’s in the first half of the alphabet (and early on, too).

We then go over a few real-world examples of how ABC Order is used (class roster that determines their number for class, books in the library are alphabetized by the author’s last name, etc.) After students have a pretty good grasp on how we use ABC order and why it’s important, we move on to actually trying it!

How to Teach ABC Order with an Alphabet Strip

My biggest tip for how to teach ABC order is to use an alphabet strip! I really emphasize using this strategy until they’ve really got it down. I display an alphabet strip on the board & then three words NOT in alphabetical order. For the example below, I used feet, day, & coat (we are typically learning vowel teams during this time!) I model how I underline the first letter of each word and then find it and underline it on the alphabet strip. After underlining all three, I can start my finger at A and move it across, stopping at each underlined letter to show me the order of the words (coat, day, feet).

I do 1-2 more examples of me modeling the strategy and then I have students practice with me some. You could easily do this on a PowerPoint and then have students practice on a whiteboard. I like utilizing Nearpod for this lesson. I included the slides I utilize in the FREE download below if you’d like to use it with your class (you could upload them to Nearpod, Seesaw, or your own PowerPoint/Google Slides presentation)!

Partner/Group Practice with ABC Order to the First Letter

Another activity students can practice ABC order with a little support is using popsicle sticks! This takes a little prep (not much, though) and can be used for centers and in years to come after. Decide if you want students to work in groups of 2 or 3, and make however many sets per group you have. I pick between 12-15 sight words that start with different letters and write each one on a popsicle stick. They then go in a snack baggie (this is ONE set).

Each pair/group then gets an ordering mat (included in the FREE download below) where after pulling 6 sticks out, they have to work together to arrange it in order. I pass out alphabet strips (included in the FREE download below) that students can underline and use to help alphabetize the words. When they’re done with those 6 sticks, they put it back in the baggie/pile, mix the sticks up a bit, and pick 6 new sticks. They might draw one or two of the same sticks, but each time there will be a different combination of the words they have to put in order.

Independent Practice for ABC Order to the First Letter

After students have had enough practice with a partner, I end up finally assessing students’ individual grasp of the concept. You could create a paper assessment, Seesaw activity, or whatever method you prefer. Now that Boom Cards have an ink feature, I’ve made a few decks that come with a alphabet strip so that students can practice underlining the first letter of the words on the card and then dragging them into the correct order. I’m even sharing with you below a FREE deck of 5 task cards you can use as a quick check to see who’s got the concept down & who needs extra support!

Ongoing Practice with ABC Order to the First Letter

This is a great skill for students to practice all year long, both in centers and small group. You can use the popsicle activity and change out the popsicle sticks/words throughout the year for an easy, hands-on center activity. I also have made a seasonal bundle of Boom Cards for students to practice putting words into ABC order. Remind your students to use that Boom Ink/drawing feature, and they’ll have practice with putting words into ABC order all year long!

FREE Resources for Teaching ABC Order to the First Letter

You can get all of the free activities from this post delivered straight to your inbox! What’s included?

• Alphabet Arc [letter size]
• Write the Room: Missing Letters
• ABC Letter Order Boom Cards
• Lesson Slides for how to teach ABC order to the first letter
• Ordering Mat for Popsicle Activity
• Alphabet Strip
• ABC Order to the First Letter Boom Cards [Quick Check]

Just let me know where to send them!

I hope this post helps you feel more confident in how to teach ABC Order to the first letter. It’s one of my favorite skills to teach & one that the students really enjoy doing as well. If you haven’t already, don’t forget to grab the SEVEN FREE RESOURCES you can use with your class to teach this skill!

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