How to Introduce the First Consonant: a Tutorial Based on Guidance

from The Roadmap to Literacy*

Don’t forget to work on helping your students develop their phonological awareness
and Theory of Word, while beginning to introduce the consonants. You can use the
following activities for this task:
Reading preparation for working with non-symbol activities (See chapter 3.3)
a. Play rhyming word games (e.g., “I say “fig” you say ? pig, twig, rig…)
b. Students count how many words they hear in a sentence: The cat was sleeping on
the chair. (7)
c. Counting how many sound chunks a word has (syllables) ba/na/na (3)
d. Moving from a word to its separate sounds (phonemes) dog: /d/ /o/ /g/ (3)

The Introduction of the Alphabet

a. Consonants- First choose those that are easy to ‘find’ the letter in the form:

M (mountain, mouth), D (door-rounded edges), W (wave) T (tower, toadstool, one-

legged table) F (fish, fire flame in shape of f), H (hut, house, horse-tail arched up
high), B (bear, bee, butterfly, beaver), S (seal, seahorse, snake, swan), V (valley), G
(goose), L (lit candle in a holder that has a base/handle to the right), K king (body
as the straight line and an arm and leg extending out), N needle (thread to form
the right two lines of the letter N)

b. Present these through stories setting the image.

Note: The following does not exactly follow the guidance given in Roadmap, but
rather offers some variations to consider.

Day 1 (Monday) Introduction of First Consonant letter (Letter B is used as the

example letter)
1. Because you are not formally introducing a new concept on Day 1, extend the
Skills review time to include:
• Memory Reading activities using the ABC Song (pp.347-8),

Copyright 2021 by Janet Langley

 • Introduce a poem or tongue twister featuring the letter B (e.g., “A
big brown bug bit a big black bear.”)
• Practice drawing the straight line and curve using a variety of
activities
• Doing various phonological development activities (Ch. 3.3)
2. Tell the story that will provide the letter image. (In the example below, I
used Grimm’s Snow White and Rose Red, as the vehicle for introducing
the word/image BEAR and the letter Bb.)
3. ML Bookwork: Lead students in a drawing from the story…a forest setting
with some bushes… but don’t draw in the featured image (bear)… leave this
for tomorrow. (Basically, focus on how to draw the landscape, background,
setting.)

Day 2- First Letter (from Day 2 forward, I do not refer to the ‘Skills Review’
segment although it should certainly be incorporated into your daily plans.

1. Review the story from the day before, emphasizing the role/character of the
image word. (Bear)
2. After the review, write and then read a sentence based on the story with the
targeted image word in it. (Read it to the students pointing to each word.)
Example: The Bear was kind to Snow White and Rose Red.
3. Then underline the image word The Bear was kind to Snow White and Rose
Red.
4. Tell the students that when adults want to write the word “Bear”, this is how
they do it and write the word Bear. (Don’t worry that you have capitalized
the word Bear… the students won’t know this aspect of language mechanics
yet-doing so won’t confuse them.)
5. Ask students to say the very first sound in the word Bear /b/. Make sure
they isolate the /b/ sound and not say /b-uh/. Then highlight the letter B in
the written word “Bear” with another color of chalk (Bear) and tell them
that when adults want to write the letter that makes the /b/ sound, they
write this letter, which they call “B” and write the letter on the board. B
6. Follow this up with asking if any students have a first name that begins with
the /b/ sound (skip if there are none). Have each of those students come up

Copyright 2021 by Janet Langley

 and write their name on the board - show them where to do this and don’t
worry about how they form the letter B at this point- that comes tomorrow.
7. Then ask the class to come up with additional words that begin with the /b/
sound. Write these words on the board. (ball, basket, baby, etc.)
8. Complete the activity by instructing students to get up and find items in the
classroom that begin with the /b/ sound. (Make sure you have scattered
numerous objects around the room that begin with /b/!)
Note: Items must be able to fit on top of their desk! Share/say what they
have found. Note: This also gets them up and moving- what we call
“purposeful movement.” (Also, to avoid chaos, be sure to give them guidance
on how you would like this search to be done… ‘guiet as mice’ for example… or
do you want them only to find one item, etc.)
9. For bookwork: Open page to yesterday’s drawing and begin by talking about
how the early morning forest in the story looked like this (what they have
already drawn) and then came the bear (complete the drawing started the
day before by drawing in the bear). Optional: After the bear is drawn, you
could tell them that a bird alighted on a branch to see what the bear was
doing (draw bird on a tree) and then a bunny hopped out from behind a bush
(draw a little bunny by a bush). You could add these words to the /b/ words
you already have written on the board (bird, bush, bunny- avoid ‘branch’ as
that is a blend). It is important to approach the addition of the image into
the picture as a continuation of the story, rather than just “plopping it in
there.”
10. On the opposite page draw a large yellow circle and (in a different color)
lead them in drawing the letter B with their block or stick crayon. (This is an
artistic rendering of the letter, not handwriting practice. Steiner actually
talked about painting the letter- if desired, you could do that instead and
glue it into the book - just cut paper to size in advance.) Point out the
direction top-down, left to right as you draw it… this will be emphasized
tomorrow. This is the only letter that you will draw, without also adding the
lower case letter. You will see why in a moment.

Copyright 2021 by Janet Langley

 If you also wish for the students to write the sentence: “The Bear was kind
to Snow White and Rose Red.” on the bottom of the drawing, you could
certainly do this (but not necessary). It doesn’t matter that the students
have not learned how to form all of the letters correctly, writing this
sentence will not harm them, as you will show them how to write each letter
correctly over time. You could also add this sentence in during a practice
period, if time is tight in main lesson.

Day 3- First letter

1. Continue to work with the tongue twister (A big brown bug bit a big black
bear.”) or “B” poem during skills practice time.
2. Review yesterday’s B sentence, word, sound, letter (B) and “officially”
introduce how to ‘write’ it by introducing the concept of top-down, left to
right- using whatever terminology you have –heavens, sky, ground, etc., as
you write the letter on the board. (See Chapter 3.2, pp. 111-13 in The
Roadmap to Literacy* for guidance at this point.)
3. Have students practice drawing the letter on each other’s backs, on their
desk, with a wet paint brush on the blackboard, form it with their bodies (3
children lie on floor- the 4th child, the writer, moves them until they form a
letter B), draw it with chalk outside on sidewalk, trace it on the floor in
carpet with their toes, in a sandbox (large sturdy pizza boxes filled with
clean sand is good for this) with toes or fingers, etc. Each time they form
the letter, have them say out loud some form of the directions for writing
the letter: (example dialogue)

“From Heaven to Earth, I draw a line.

Back to the top, I curve right to the middle.
Then on I go, forming another curve below.”

(Note: if you have students repeat instructions out loud, it will take far
fewer times for them to learn something than if you say it over and over.
That is true for about every instruction you give them.)

Copyright 2021 by Janet Langley

 ** If you have students, who are still learning right from left, they can tie a
red ribbon on their right wrist to remind them which is their right or you
can put a bright red circle on the right wall to remind them. If using the
latter, do point out that this only works if facing the front of the room. (It
is a good phonological awareness activity to have them practice matching the
/r/ sound of “red” to the /r/ sound of “right.”)
4. After many opportunities forming the letter B, handout a sheet of dotted
midline paper that has a model B written on the top line. (Have them write
their name in the bottom left hand corner.)
5. Draw 2 firm lines and a dotted mid-line on the board and demonstrate how
to use these lines as a guide for writing the letter B. After you have done
this several times, ask them to write their own B next to the model B on
their paper, remembering to whisper the way to write it. (See poem
above.) Let them write a few more, while you walk around looking at their
work and guiding them, as needed.
Note: Be sure, as you walk around observing their work, that you point it out when
a child has formed the letter particularly well- in a way that you would want them
to repeat. Place a star above the letter or circle it so the student can refer to it
as a proper guide for future letter formations. This is much more effective than
saying, “Nice work or good job.” (You can also ask the student to point out which of
the letters they have written they view as the best one.)

6. After they have written 4-6 Bs, ask them to look up at the letter B in the
alphabet display above the board (or wherever you have it) and see if they
can see what is missing? Lead them to the fact that there are both an adult
letter B and a child letter b.
7. Tell them the story of how the lower case or ‘child letters’ came to be. (See
"Introducing Lower Case Letters" in this section for inspiration.)
8. Follow this story up with adding the lower case b beside the upper case B on
the board. Again, speak out loud how you are forming each aspect of the
letter. Write several of them on the board, and have students identify what
is the same about the child letter b and what is different from the Adult B.

Copyright 2021 by Janet Langley

 9. Have the students stand and ‘air write’ the lower case b, while repeating the
instructions on how to write it correctly, as they make the line and the
curve. Have them do this at least 3 times,
10. Then ask them to sit and very carefully write a ‘little b’ on the lines
underneath the Adult B softly saying the instructions for writing it out loud.
After forming a line of lower case bs the lesson is completed,
11. Tell the story for the next letter.
12. Lead them in a drawing (the setting) for the next letter, as you did in Day 1
#3.
Day 4 – First letter
1. Now the instruction for letter Bb (or whichever letter you just finished
introducing) falls into the “Skills Review” segment of your main lesson. You
are going to 1) Review writing the graphemes (letters Bb). In this first block,
be sure you allow the students 10-15 minutes during each skills practice class
to work on handwriting. Also, you should review the phoneme (sound of /b/)
using various activities to help the students match the letter to the sound
and the sound to objects that begin or end with that sound, etc.
2. Refer to Chapter 3.1 of The Roadmap to Literacy* for more instruction and
ideas for teaching the alphabet. (This includes how to introduce the Vowels,
which are done completely differently.) Also, consult Chapter 3.2 for
further guidance on handwriting.
Note: On Day 4, the students can stop ‘whispering’ how to form the letter, as they
should have it mastered by then… and it will be time to focus on the
formation of the next letter!

*The Roadmap to Literacy: A Guide to Teaching Language Arts in Waldorf

Grades 1 through 3, by Janet Langley and Jennifer Militzer-Kopperl. 2018.
Mill City Press.

Copyright 2021 by Janet Langley