Recognizing Upper and Lowercase Letters

Explicit instruction/Teacher modeling

• Load the Lowercase Letters Cloud Catcher game on the interactive whiteboard.
• Demonstrate how to play the game.
• Invite students to the board to tap the correct letters.
• Load the Alphabet Hopper game and repeat the above procedure.

Guided practice/Interactive modeling

• Take your students to a computer lab or supply them with individual laptops. It is fine for two or three students to share a computer while playing the games.
• Help your students find the games online.
• After ten minutes of playing Lowercase Letters Cloud Catcher, instruct your students to switch to Alphabet Hopper.

Independent working time

• Bring your students back to the interactive whiteboard.
• Display one of the ABC mazes.
• Tell your students that they will be coloring the letters that follow the alphabetical path out of the maze.
• When they reach a dead end, they can draw an x to show where the wrong path ended.
• This should be done with colored pencils or highlighters so that the letters will show through the coloring.
• Model how to carefully color the letters on the maze.
• Demonstrate how to go back and retry if you hit a dead end.
• Tell your students that there are two versions of the maze.
• They may pick the one they want to work on.
• Ask your students if they have questions about the task.
• Dismiss your students to begin their work.

• Enrichment: Above level students may enjoy creating their own ABC maze with this Maze Generator.
• Support: Some students may need to use an alphabet chart as a visual guide.

• Observe your students as they play the computer games.
• They should remain on task and progressively increase in skill as they play.
• Observe your students as they work on the maze.
• Look for students who are following directions and finding the path easily.
• Check all work to make sure every student finished correctly.

• Invite your students to show their mazes to each other.
• Display the mazes on the interactive whiteboard.
• Invite the students to make corrections if they need to.
• Ask your students what they liked about the lesson.
• Ask your students to think of other ways to practice recognizing letters.