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Alphabet Poster? #82

Open nelsonic opened 12 months ago

nelsonic commented 12 months ago

A and I are learning the alphabet together using our "Letters Book" 📘 It's ok. But I feel that a poster with all the letters and familiar pictures would be way better. I've looked through the first few pages of results on Amazon UK for "Alphabet Poster" https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=alphabet+poster None of them is particularly good. They have pictures of things we would have to explain to our child; they aren't in his existing vocabulary. Sure the upside he might learn new words ... but I'd much rather have pictures that are already familiar.

This Vinyl decal would be the closest thing, but it's very much a "fallback" option: https://www.amazon.co.uk/DECOWALL-Alphabet-Educational-Classroom-Decorations/dp/B0B2JF265M/?th=1

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@iteles have you thought of custom-making an Alphabet Poster with familiar images the way you did with the Magnets?

iteles commented 12 months ago

The problem I've found with EVERY alphabet poster I've seen is that there are certain letters that are always wrong phonetically incorrect. So yes, I have been thinking of making a custom version, but two things below:

Phonetically incorrect letter representations

The biggest issue is the letter X. When used in a word, for the vast majority of words we use this as a ks sound, so this is what kids should learn (box, axel, exit, exhibit, axe, etc).

BUT this is most often depicted by xylophone, which betrays a z sound or in some cases an x-ray which is closer but still an éks instead of just ks.

Another example is I, which is usually depicted by ice cream when really you want the sharp ì sound like in the word igloo ❄️

I've searched Amazon, Google and Etsy (where I thought for sure i would find something) for a phonetically correct Alphabet poster and nothing.

All phonetic based teachers tend to use fox as the word for X because kids all know the animal, it's easy to say, spell and memorable - you can really hit the ks sound hard.

Putting one together

Recently, Project Based Primary who incidentally also makes the Raising Little Readers program we have been looked at for #76, put out a 'letter mega pack' for $10.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/No-Prep-Letter-of-the-Day-Mega-Pack-9272050

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It looked good so I just nabbed it. I won't link here obviously as I don't want to give out her work for free but here are examples of what's included that we could use to put together a poster: IMG_1539 IMG_1538

Montessori style

The above letters are very cool BUT we can also put together a 'Montessori' version with real photos, using real and simple photos of relatable things to kids. The key would be to keep it clean, no background like in the below example which is just a random image of something I have saved on etsy:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/978230393/phonetic-letter-mats-montessori-language

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nelsonic commented 12 months ago

Agree that nothing on Amazon is ideal. Hence opening the issue.

That's an obnoxious copyright on each card ...

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These people really don't understand the internet ... 😕 Also, why use a strange font that isn't anything like what the child will see in the books they will read? 🤷‍♂️

The notion of this being "Montessori Style" is kinda nonsensical. Maria Montessori died in 1952 looooong before realistic photos were regularly printed in books or index cards. And they definitely weren't high resolution / photo-realistic in a full 4-color process. They would have been lithographed ...

Saying something is "Montessori" when it's very clearly not is such fail.

nelsonic commented 7 months ago

Not having this poster even home-printed is holding our child back at this point ... 😢 What is the hold up? ⏳ 🤷‍♂️

iteles commented 7 months ago

Your last response shed no light on your preferred option.

I have this in hand. Need to open an issue on printing on getting our Canon printer set up as the epson doesn't seem to want to print on thicker paper stock.

nelsonic commented 7 months ago

@iteles my "last response" was related to the copyright on the cards above. That isn't a blocker to progress. All we need is something.