Letter V

Teaching The Letter V

Start by helping your child pronounce the letter V. To do this, ask your child to press their top front teeth against their bottom lip. When air is expelled they will be able to make the letter V sound.

Here are some words that start with V that your child can practice with:

Van

Vet

Vase

Video

Vest

Vanilla

When you are teaching the letter V to your toddler remember to be consistent. Make a point of reading to them every day. There are dedicated letter V books that you can purchase from stores or online. It may be possible to borrow these books from your library too. Try to find books that have funny illustrations and nursery rhymes in them, as this will help your child to learn more easily. Always show patience when your child is learning.

If your toddler has the letter V in their name, you can use toy letters to spell out the letters. Be sure to point out where the letter V is situated in their name. If the letter V is not present in their name, look for other names that start with V. These could be members of the family or even TV characters that your child knows. Spell out the names and show your child that they start with a V.

Here are a few names starting with V that your child might already be aware of:

Val

Vera

Victor

Victoria

Verity

Vikki

Some more complex names that start with the letter V are:

Vanessa

Violet

Veronica

Vincent

Virginia

Vivian

Teaching The Letter V Needs To Be Fun For Your Child

If you want to get the best results, then have fun teaching the letter V. Young children enjoy fun things, and linking learning with fun should be encouraged at all times. If it is boring then your child will not want to learn. There are some great letter V activities to be found later on in this article. One of the best ways to start is by using letter V worksheets. You can find these online, and make sure that you choose worksheets that have fun illustrations in them so your child will be entertained.

Now for some real fun! Look for letter V songs that you and your child can learn and then sing together. Kids love singing songs and it is a great way to learn. You will find that there are a lot of V songs available. At the same time you can search for letter V videos to entertain your toddler. Below is a good example of a letter V song in video format.

Singing the letter V song together is very important. Your child will love the attention that you are giving them, and will probably want to repeat this singing many times. Show patience here, and sing with them as much as you can. Also watch videos together so that you create an important bond.

Some More Entertaining Letter V Activities For Preschool Kids

So we have discussed worksheets, learning and singing letter V songs and watching letter V videos. Now you can:

Play The Animals That Start With V Game

Kids just love animals, and they will enjoy discovering animals that begin with the letter V with you. There are not very many of these, so to help you there is the vulture, vampire bat, velvet monkey, vicuna, vixen and viper. Show your child images of these animals, and write out their names so that your child can see that they all have the letter V at the beginning.

Are there many animals that have the letter V in their name but not at the beginning? In truth there are not that many, but it is still fun to look for them. There is the Tasmanian devil, the serval, the weaver and the dove. Some of these may not be familiar at all, so show your child pictures, and spell out the letters of their names so your child can see where the letter V appears.

Search For Things That Start With V At Home

While you are at home with your child you can look for things that start with the letter V. It is unlikely that you will find that many, but you will have some, so give it a go. To help you look for vacuum cleaner, vanilla, vase, vegetables, a vest, videos, vinegar and a violin. Whatever objects that you find, be sure to show them to your child and spell out the letters in the words to confirm that they begin with letter V.

Try to think about other “V words” that your child may have heard spoken around the home. This could be by members of the family or even what they have heard on the TV. Think about violet, Valentine, very, vague, vain, vanity, valley, vine, visor, volcano, volleyball and volunteer. If you need to explain the meaning of any words, use pictures or real life examples. As always, spell out the words to your toddler.

Time to think about words with V in them but exclude words starting with V. There are quite a few of these so this should be easier for you. There is love, dove, move, live, five, seven, November, leave, heave, hive, woven, rove, reveal, trove, ever, even, event and prove. Again if you need to explain the meanings then use real life examples and pictures. Spell out the letters in each word, and ask your child where the letter V is situated.

You can do these fun letter V activities outside too. If you are in a store or restaurant with your child, look for words that begin with V or words with V in them. You should come up with quite a number. When you are in the car, you can look for road signs that contain the letter V. Make a note of all of these words and spell them out when you get home.

What About Capital Letter V And Lower Case V?

It is never too early to introduce the concept of capital letters to your child. The best way to do this is with pictures of the letter V in the big letter V (capital letter V) and small letter V (lower case V) formats. Tell your child that capital letters are necessary, and that they are used at the beginning of people’s names.

You can find pictures of the letter V in both formats online. Choose large letters, as you will want to print these out. As an alternative, you can use your word processing software to type the upper and lower case letter V. Make the font really big and print this out for your toddler. Ask your child to trace these two formats so that they get used to the differences.

Letter V Phonics Are Really Important

Every letter of the alphabet has a unique sound and this is called a phoneme. Some letters combined together produce phonemes as well. If you want your child to be a fluent reader, they must understand and master phonics. They will be much better readers once they have been taught how to read in this way. More information about letter V sounds can be found below.

English Alphabet LETTER V SOUNDS:

V  /v/:

The 22nd letter in the alphabet is V and it is a voiced consonant. The letter sound for V is /v/. The name of the letter V is also the long sound “Vee”.

Making the V sound requires your top teeth to touch your bottom lip producing the voiced sound of /vvv/ that comes from the vocal cords.

When you compare the V sound with the F sound, you will notice that the position of the lips is similar. The F sound is unvoiced coming from the air passing through the mouth whereas the V sound is voiced and comes from the vocal cords.

Examples:

VAN: /v /a/ /n/

VAST: /v/ /a/ /s/ /t/

VICTOR: /v/ /i/ /c/ /t/ /o/ /r/

Exercises for /u/

1. Remember to print a piece of paper for the Letter V/v/
2. Also print a your favorite V words or use our words for V:
   VAN
   VET
   VEST
   WAVE

VEAL
VANILLA

1. Show your child the Letter on the index card or paper and repeat the letter sound several times: V/vvv/
2. Take time with your child to be sure the /v/ sound is pronounced correctly as /vvv/
3. Listen carefully as your child repeats the sound after you
4. Ask your child if different words have the /v/ sound and wait to see the response. Always repeat the word using the letter sound to be sure your child knows the sound
5. Continue to repeat other short sound I words such as VAIL, VIGOR, VALLEY, VALUE
6. Try a asking your child to replace a letter in one of the words to make a different word:
   1. Ask what sound would VAN be if you replace the /v/ with a /c/? [CAN]
   2. What if you replace the /v/ with an /n/ in the word VET? [NET]
   3. How will WAVE sound if you replace the /w/ with a /s/? [SAVE]
   4. What sound will you make if you replace the /s/ in SAVE with a /c/? [CAVE]
7. Finalize the lesson by asking your child what sound the V makes

How You Can Get Expert Help With Teaching Your Child To Read

Many parents dream about teaching their kids how to read at home but do not believe that they can do it. It is true that most parents will need some help with this, and that is where high quality reading programs come in. With a proven reading program, you will be taught how to teach your child to read, and be provided with all of the necessary materials.

There are a few reading programs available, and some of them cost hundreds of dollars. There is no need for you to pay this kind of money. Jim Yang is the creator of the Children Learning Reading program, and he used the methods in his program to teach his 3 kids to read when they were only 2 years old. Jim’s program is very inexpensive, but it is very effective, and many parents have been delighted with how the program has helped them teach their children how to read. Find out more about Children Learning Reading here.

We have some great ideas for you to teach the letter W in the next part of this alphabet teaching series so please click here.