Learning the alphabet and its sounds can be a real hurdle for some children, and we need to find activities to motivate our young learners. For this reason, 3D alphabet letters were printed by our school's 3D printer to help our first graders practise spelling, reading and writing. 3D letters can be a flexible and engaging tool to be used in the classroom. The purpose of making them was to have students practise the sounds of the letters and not to ask them to memorize how to spell the new words we learn.

Different types of activities were created for our students to work on either collaboratively or individually. For instance, letters of a word were given to students to put them in the correct order, a word was given with some letters missing in order for them to fill in its gaps, or a word was given to them to form the plural. Such activities can promote visual and kinaesthetic learning and enhance students' motivation. They are fun, dynamic and teach spelling through play.

Our 3D alphabet letters were also used with our kindergartners to practise letter recognition through play. Learning the letters and the letter sounds has turned into an enjoyable experience for our preschoolers.

What a fun way to work on spelling words!