Alphabet Books Featuring Letter Form

Since I work with children who often have difficulty learning to identify letters, I look for books that focus on the shapes of letters in a way that may help kids remember them. These alphabet books encourage the reader to linger on the pictured letter to see in the letter what the author/illustrator sees.

The Human Alphabet
Pilobolus Dance Company
Photographs by John Kane

At first I thought this book might kind of creepy, but when I began to examine it, I found it fascinatingly beautiful. Each letter of the alphabet (capitals only) is illustrated in the corner of its page with dancers in solid color leotards. The main photograph on the page shows dancers positioned to illustrate an animal or object that begins with the letter. It takes a moment of study to determine what the object is. The photographs are delightful and much fun to figure out. My favorites include the octopus made up of four dancers in various gradients of pink and purple, eight legs flowing out from the head, and the dinosaur, a T-Rex to be exact, created from a carefully balanced group of dancers in harlequin-type costumes. See how long it takes you to figure out the illustration for M! Use pipe cleaners for children to create their own letters.


The Turn-Around, Upside-Down Alphabet Book
by Lisa Campbell Ernst

The brilliantly colored block letters and their backgrounds in this book are the inspiration for what letters look like when turned upside down or sideways. "B masquerades as a pair of goggles, half a butterfly, two windows in a castle tower." The words are written on all sides of the graphic, oriented so the reader sees each incarnation. Children love this kind of visual game, and will be delighted by the references: C as macaroni and cheese, O as a fried egg, Y as a garden snake's open mouth. Stamps or stencils on colorful squares of paper can inspire kids to make their own designs from letters. Or let them try drawing special alphabet letters that look like bones, sticks or lightning bolts using the "Awesome Alphabets" book below.

Tangram Alphabet: Building Letters With Tangrams
by Janis Poe

Tangrams are puzzle pieces that form a square when put together one way, and offer thousands of other possibilities when assembled other ways. The goal is to use all seven of the pieces to create a picture of an animal, person, object, or, of course, a letter of the alphabet. This book is not a story, but a puzzle book. Each letter is shown as a blank outline that the tangram pieces can fit into if placed a certain way; the next page shows the solution. This very hands-on alphabet book will be challenging for older or more able children, while using the solution page to place the tangrams makes the task accessible for children who aren't ready to figure it out on their own yet.


Story Props for Alphabet Books Featuring Letter Forms

"Grandma's Button Box" and "The Button Box"

Grandma's Button Box (Math Matters)
by Linda Williams Aber
Illustrated by Page Eastburn O'Rourke

Playing with Grandma's buttons, a girl drops the button box and spills them all over the floor. Her brothers help her to retrieve them to put them back, but how were they organized? The children sort and resort them before putting them carefully into the compartments of her button box so that Grandma will not be unhappy with the disorder. When Grandma arrives, she is pleased to find them organized because they were in a "big jumble" before, and she could never find the buttons she wanted. The story is well-written and provides an excellent stimulus for sorting and categorizing objects, an essential mathematics skill for children that is also enjoyable.


The Button Box
by Margaret S. Reid
Illustrated by Sarah Chamberlain

This is the original story about a child exploring his grandma's button box. The boy and his grandma think about each button's characteristics and where it might have come from. Although there isn't much of a plot, it provokes thoughtful consideration of attributes of objects, an important math skill for young children. Most children love sorting small objects like buttons, and with a little guidance from an adult, can learn to see more than just color or size as attributes.


Story Props for "Grandma's Button Box" and "The Button Box"

"Two of Everything" and "One Potato, Two Potato"

Two of Everything: A Chinese Folktale
by Lily Toy Hong
An elderly Chinese couple, Mr. and Mrs. Haktak, live in poverty until they unearth a large pot from their garden. When Mrs. Haktak drops a hairpin into the pot, she reaches in to get it and finds two at the bottom. When she drops her purse containing five gold coins into the pot, it becomes two purses, each with five gold coins. The story gets really interesting when Mrs. Haktak falls in. Mr. Haktak frantically reaches for her, and pulls out two Mrs. Haktaks. An excellent resource for teaching doubles addition or multiplying by two, it is also simply a very good story that sparks the imagination of children. What would they do with a pot that doubled whatever was put in it?

One Potato, Two Potato
by Cynthia DeFelice
Pictures by Andrea U'ren
This is a later (2006) version of the same story as "Two of Everything." The pictures are very effective and this telling is more compelling somehow. Once again, the characters discover a magic pot that doubles anything placed inside. The ending is a little different: the couple decides to rebury the pot for someone else to find. These two books can be compared to develop text-to-text reading comprehension skills.

Story Props for "Two of Everything" and "One Potato, Two Potato"

"Five Little Ducks" and "10 Little Rubber Ducks"

Five Little Ducks (Raffi Songs to Read)
by Raffi
Five little ducks went out one day, over the hill and far away; When Mama duck said "Quack quack quack quack"; Four little ducks came running back. On the story-song goes until all five ducklings are missing. All then return to their mother in the end. A very popular song with young children, it is also an easy book to learn to read because of the song's familiarity. It lends itself also to teaching the concept of subtraction.


10 Little Rubber Ducks
by Eric Carle
In 1992, a ship from China lost part of its cargo in the Pacific Ocean. Colorful plastic ducks were among 29,000 bathtub toys lost at sea. The little ducks began to appear all over the world, some many years later. This incident inspired Eric Carle's vibrantly illustrated story about the imagined travels of 10 of those toy ducks. The story is a delightful tale on its own, but also is useful for teaching counting skills and the ordinal numbers: 1st, 2nd, 3rd and so on. Story props: 10 yellow rubber ducks, optionally toy cargo ship


Books and Story Props for "Five Little Ducks" and "10 Little Rubber Ducks"

"There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly"

There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly (Caldecott Honor Book)
by Simms Tabeck
A classic sequencing story, this version of the swallowing old lady is expressively illustrated and whimsically colorful. There are holes in the pages to show the stomach contents as it fills with the animals, who get larger with each course until she unfortunately swallows a horse. In the end she does die from her poor menu choices, but the story is so silly and cheerful that it does not leave the reader feeling that a tragedy has occurred. Teachable skills include sequencing as well as size comparisons. There are many versions of this folk tale, some of which are offered below.



Book and Story Props for "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly"

"Rooster's Off to See the World" and "The Midnight Farm"

Rooster's Off to See the World (Aladdin Picture Books)
by Eric Carle
Rooster begins a journey and invites groups of animals he meets along the way: 2 cats, 3 frogs, 4 turtles, and 5 fish. As the day fades, each group of animals decides to head for home, leaving Rooster alone once more. This book provides excellent opportunities to teach counting on, addition, and subtraction accompanied by the visual treat of Eric Carle's vibrant illustrations.


The Midnight Farm (Picture Puffins)
By Reeve Lindberg
This is a beautiful counting book that presents farm and woodland animals at night for counting (1-10) all in rhyme. The illustrations are richly colored and detailed and make darkness seem soft and cozy rather than scary.


Story Props for "Rooster's Off to See the World" and The "Midnight Farm"

"Jack the Builder" and "98,99,100, Ready or Not, Here I Come!"

Jack the Builder (MathStart 1) by Stuart Murphy
Jack is a boy playing with blocks and counting them as he builds. Instead of starting from the beginning to count how many blocks are in his construction, Jack "counts on" beginning where he left off, which can be a difficult concept for young children. Counting on is essential for efficient addition. Kids love to build and will enjoy this math lesson.


98, 99, 100! Ready or Not, Here I Come! (Hello Reader! Math, Level 2)
by Teddy Slater
Hide-and-Seek is still a popular game for children, and it presents an ideal opportunity to apply counting skills. In this story, the youngest child slowly counts to 100, and while waiting for her to get there, the older children play "speed" hide-and-seek by counting by 2's, by 5's and finally by 10's. On each page, numbers show where Maggie is on her way to 100, illustrating "counting on". No props are needed to play hide-and-seek and practice oral counting.


Story Props for "Jack the Builder" and "98,99,100 Ready or Not, Here I Come!"

"Mouse Count" and "Mouse Paint"

Mouse Count is a simple but pleasing story that lends itself to teaching counting forward and backward and counting on for addition with numbers 1-10. It can also be used to practice number word reading. Ten mice, a jar and a hungry snake interact to create the plot. Use an empty clear plastic food jar, 10 furry mice and a hungry snake for the retelling.


Mouse Paint, another story involving mice by the same author, follows the exploration of 3 white mice into the world of color as they dip into paint cans and dance in paint puddles. With 3 empty cans or cups to represent paint cans, 3 white mice, and 3 mice in primary colors, the tale can begin. You may want 3 more mice in purple, orange, and green to tell the rest of the story. Oh, and did I mention that there was a black cat?


Books and Story props for "Mouse Count" and "Mouse Paint":