My preschooler loves drawing, coloring and listening to stories, but he doesn't write alphabet letters like the rest of his classmates. What would you suggest?


If your son really enjoys being creative, try to introduce letter-writing activities that build on his love of drawing and coloring. Invite him to make animals or other fun drawings from basic letter shapes. For example, after he writes an uppercase B, encourage him to add black and yellow stripes and a pair of wings to turn that B into a bumble bee. Or, help him create an ABC book that has a page for each letter. After he writes the uppercase and lowercase letter on the top of a page, he can draw pictures of things that begin with that letter sound. For example, on the Kk page, he might have a picture of a kangaroo flying a kite. You can spice up opportunities for even more letter-writing practice by making letters with sidewalk chalk, painting letters on chart paper, or writing letters with crayons, markers or colored pencils. He can have fun making an alphabet rainbow using an array of bright colors for all the letters.  

Carolyn James, Ph.D.

LeapFrog Literacy Expert

As the literacy development expert on LeapFrog’s Learning Team, Carolyn ensures that the curricular design in LeapFrog products is grounded in the latest educational research. Before joining LeapFrog, Carolyn was a reading professor at Sacramento State University, a curriculum developer for the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley, and a teacher in the San Francisco bay area. She earned her doctorate in educational psychology at Michigan State University.