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Hands on Letter Recognition and Formation: Salt Dough Letters

Phonics

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Who doesn’t love a bit of salt dough fun? We certainly do here at Homework Hub.

Letter formation comes with practise. Your child will become familiar with the letter shapes the more they practise looking at them as well as forming them too!

This activity is a very hands-on one, which helps child recognise the letters, sound out words and build the word up to help with both reading and spelling.

The best bit is, your salt dough can be ready in minutes! Let’s get baking with our Salt Dough Letters!

making salt dough letters to use at home to support learning to read and write

Materials Needed:

We have included links to the products we have used to create this activity. If you purchase via the links we may earn a small commission.

Plain Flour

Salt

Water

Mixing bowl

Spoon

Rolling Pin

Lowercase letter cookie cutters (or UPPER case letter cookie cutters)

Baking paper or microwavable plate

Microwave

How to Create Your Own Salt Dough Letters

making salt dough letters for learning to read-8

 

 

Click here for this super quick salt dough recipe that means your letters will be dry in minutes, rather than hours. This is great for getting your child involved in making their own alphabet as well as the kneading being good for developing muscles in the hands for writing.

Make sure that you make extra of the common letters and vowels so that you can make plenty of words.

equipment needed for making salt dough letters with your child

  1. Head over to the link above and measure out the recipe.
  2. In a bowl mix together the ingredients.equipment needed for making salt dough letters with your child
  3. Knead your dough so that it is smooth.salt dough letter making
  4. Then using a rolling pin roll out to about 1/2cm thick.rolling out salt dough to make a set of salt dough letters
  5. Use the cookie cutters to cut out your alphabet.
  6. Place on a microwaveable plate.
  7. Follow the instructions for drying the letters in the microwave carefully in the link above.
  8. Let cool and then use.

making salt dough letters to use at home to support learning to read and write

Alternative Salt Dough Letters without Cookie Cutters.

You could also use the salt dough to roll out the letters and make them yourselves.

making salt dough letters without cookie cutters

This method is better to dry in the oven -> check out the instructions for a Classic Salt Dough Recipe which is dried in the oven. These can also be left for a couple of days to air dry without any problems.

salt dough letters made by a child leave to dry over night

How do I use my Salt Dough Alphabet?

hands on activities for kids using Salt Dough Letters to learn to read and write

There are lots of ways that you can use the letters that you have created.

Draw starting point dots on your letters.

help with letter formation by drawing starting points on the letters

With your child’s finger on the starting point, your child can trace over the word to practise their letter formation.

Drawing on the letters.

draw the full directions of the letters that you would follow with a pen to write on salt dough letters

Your child will not often come across letters in the bulky form of these dough creations BUT if they draw the letter lines on top of the dough shape, they can see it in a more familiar way as well as practise their own formation in the process.

Drawing around the letters like a stencil.

drawing around salt dough letters

Once they or you have drawn around the letters, it leaves a great outline of your letter.

making words with outlines of letters created by drawing around salt dough letters

Again, add a starting point dot (and direction arrows if you wish) and your child can follow the arrows with their finger to practise that important letter formation.

adding letter formation instructions about outline letters to support a child learning to write correctly

This way, you can use the letters again and again.

Play a matching game.

Write a combination of letters on a piece of paper and your child must match the correct salt dough letter to the one written on the paper.

matching letters for children learning to read using DIY salt dough letters

This helps them recognise the letters in different representations. You can extend this further by writing capital letters on the paper, so your child begins to make those links between the UPPER and lower case versions of letters.

Play an initial sound game.

Find different objects from around the house with the initial (starting) sounds that match the sounds you wish to focus on. For example a bell and box for ‘b’, cuddly toy dog for ‘d’ etc.

You child must match the object to the correct dough letter.

Beyond Letter Recognition

This activity can be used to build words or even sentences. Keep your eyes peeled for future posts on how to use them in this more advanced way.

What words can I create?

For ideas on the words you can create with the letters we’ve learned so far, please look at our word lists.

Why not try our Sensory Rock Salt Letters Activity?