Letter I

Teaching The Letter I

The letter I has two sounds which your child will need to learn. There is the short sound of I, which sounds a bit like “ee” in words like tin and win. Then there is the long sound of I, which is used in words like tie and pie.

Here are some words that start with I that your child may already know:

Ink

Ice

Ill

If

Is

It

You will need to be both patient and consistent when you are teaching the letter I to your toddler. They will make a few mistakes, so be prepared for this. Letter I books are available to help you teach your child. You can get these online, in stores or borrow them from your library. Be sure to choose books with fun illustrations in them and nursery rhymes too. This will help with the learning process.

If your child’s name has the letter I in it then you can have some real fun with this. Use plastic or magnetic letters to spell their name out and show them where I occurs. If your child’s name doesn’t have the letter I in it then use a member of the family, or even a character from the TV.

There are not too many names that start with the letter I but here are a few that your child may know:

Ian

Ivy

Ike

Ida

Igor

Irene

These names begin with I but are a bit more challenging for your child:

Imogene

Indra

Irena

Idelle

Ingrid

Iggy

Always Have Fun Teaching The Letter I To Your Child

Linking fun to learning will help to motivate your child to learn the letter I, and all of the other letters of the alphabet. If it is fun for both of you then this will really help to achieve good results. There are ideas to help you make teaching the letter I fun below, but for now we will look at letter I worksheets. These worksheets are available online, and always choose those that have fun illustrations included.

Another fun thing to do is to learn letter I songs together and sing them on a regular basis. You will find that your child enjoys watching letter I videos as well. It is not difficult to find a letter I song in video format and there is a great example below.

This is all about together time. Your child will love learning the letter I songs with you and then singing them together. They will never forget an experience like this and you will need to be willing to do this often as they will want to repeat the experience.

Some More Fun Letter I Activities You Can Do with Your Child

Finding Letter I Animals

Your child will probably love animals, so you can play a fun game by showing them pictures of animals. It can be quite a challenge to find animals that begin with the letter I, but there is the ibis, the iguana and the impala. You can also use insect, Indian elephant and Irish wolfhound.

An easier task is to identify animals that have the letter I in their name but not at the start. Here you have pig, tiger, dolphin, fish, chinchilla, cricket, giraffe and squirrel. When you are talking about these animals, it is a good idea to show your child pictures and spell out the names of each animal, so that your child is aware of the position of the letter I.

Things That Start With The Letter I At Home

There will be more things that start with the letter I in your home than you think. You can have fun with your child finding these things. Think about ice, ice cream, ink, icing for cakes, ice skates, an iron and an ironing board. You can show your child all of these objects that start with I and spell the words out for them.

Other common words starting with I that your child has heard you say or another member of the family can include itch, ill, into, instrument, indicate, improve, illusion, illustrate, inch, idea and infant. It is important that your child see pictures or examples of these words and their spellings, so they can see the letter I at the start.

Now you can play the “I words” game. This is where you look for words that have the letter I in them but do not begin with I. There are many words that contain the letter I, so start with the easy ones first. These could be tie, pie, pin, bin, did, hid, kid, lid, win, tin, this, thin, sink, sign and dinner. As always spell the words out so that your child can see where the letter I appears in each word.

You can play this “words with I” game anywhere. When you are outside with your toddler look for signs with I words. These can start with I or contain the letter I. In the store you can point out items that contain I, and after a while your child will find them before you do.

Teach Them About Capital Letter I And Lowercase Letter I

Show your child pictures of the letter I in the capital letter I format (big letter I) and the lowercase letter I format (small letter I). Tell them that all names will start with a capital letter and stress the importance of the difference between the two formats.

You can get pictures of the letter I in both formats online and print them out for your child, or you can simply write these formats on a piece of paper for them. Let them trace these formats and then practice writing them for themselves.

The Importance Of Letter I Phonics

Learning about letter phonics is the best way for your child to learn to read. Each letter of the alphabet, including the letter I, have unique sounds known as phonemes. The combination of some letters creates phonemes as well. When your child knows all of the phoneme sounds they will be able to create complete words from these. Find out more about the letter I sounds below.

English Alphabet LETTER I  SOUNDS:

I  /i/:

The 9th letter in the alphabet is I. This is the third vowel in the alphabet and it has a short sound “ih” and a long sound that is the same as its letter name “I” as in “eye”. It is a voiced sound.

The short sound of this letter “ih” is very similar to the short sound of E or “eh” so you may want to take extra time with those two vowels to be sure your child is clear about the sounds.

Making the /i/ sound requires that your tongue lightly touches your bottom teeth and at the same time the middle part of your tongue pushes upward toward the roof of your mouth.

Examples:

IF: /i/ /f/

IN: /i/ /n/

BIT: /b/ /i/ /t/

Exercises for /i/

1. Before you begin, print a piece of paper for the Letter I and i
2. Also print a piece of paper with the following words for I:
   IT
   HIM
   HILL
   HIS

FIT
INCH

1. Show your child the Letter on the index card or paper and repeat the letter sound several times: I
2. Note: Be sure to pronounce I as the short sound of “ih” at this point, later you will teach the long I sound “eye”
3. Listen carefully as your child repeats the sound after you
4. Ask your child if different words have the /i/ 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 HIT, HIM, GIVE, HISS
6. Finalize the lesson by asking your child to tell you the sound of the letters

Teaching Your Child To Read Can Be Difficult Without The Right Help

If you are thinking that it would be impossible for you to teach your child to read at home then please think again. You will need help with this but you can do it. In fact all it takes is 15 minutes per day of teaching your child to read. You can get all the help that you need to do this from a proven, high quality reading program.

There are some very expensive reading programs around, but there is no need for you to spend a lot of money. Jim Yang taught his three kids to read when they were only 2 years old. He has created a reading program called Children Learning Reading which many other parents have used to teach their children to read at a very young age. It is not expensive and you can find out more about it here.

Have fun teaching the letter J to your child with the great ideas that can be found in the next section.