Great Books for Teaching the ABCs

My daughter is in preschool and we have noticed that she is having some trouble with a few of her letters. We have several alphabet books in our collection, but I thought it would be nice to branch out. Finding some variety has helped so much. We practice several times a day, and having different books to look at have kept the task from getting boring.

After reading so many different books, I thought I would share some of our favorites. Each link will take you to Amazon(referral links) so you can read more about the book, and most of them will let you see a few pages too.

Aster Aardvark’s Alphabet Adventure by Steven Kellogg: This book is a real tongue twister. It has tons of alliteration and uses a much larger vocabulary than your average ABC book. Here’s an example: “Desperate for dinner after a day of digging up dinosaurs in the desert, Dr. Delphius Dog and a dozen dedicated disciples dined on delicious delicacies delivered by a duo of distinguished ducks dangling from a dirigible. “

Curious George Learns the Alphabet by H.A. Rey: This book was a no brainer to include in the round-up. I mean, who doesn’t love Curious George? Each letter of the alphabet is drawn into the picture. You can see in the cover photo that the lion is made up of an L. All the letters are illustrated in the same fashion. In addition to teaching the alphabet, there is a real story line with George getting into some of his usual antics.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Fishes by Brian P. Cleary: This one is probably my favorite based on the illustrations. They are bright, colorful, and fun. I just really love the style. My daughter really liked it because each page has the letter included throughout the illustrations. So the J page and at least one J hidden in the illustration. My daughter loved finding all the letters throughout the book.

Little Bitty Mousie by Jim Aylesworth: This story is about a little mouse that explores a kitchen. Along the way she finds something from every letter of the alphabet. I liked how this book had a story intertwined with the alphabet practice. The end is cute and funny.

Into the A, B, Sea: An Ocean Alphabet Book : This is another book that I just loved the illustrations. This book uses alliteration to tell about different sea creatures using every letter of the alphabet. My 7 year old son really enjoyed this book because at the end of the book it included more in-depth information about each of the sea creatures in the book.

Richard Scarry’s Find Your ABC’s: We love Busytown Mysteries at our house, and this book utilizes the same illustrations. The familiarity really helped draw my daughter in. In this book, two detectives dress in disguise to find all the letters of the alphabet. The end of the book reveals that they needed the letters to make alphabet soup.

Puddle’s ABC by Holly Hobbie: This book is a part of the Toot and Puddle picture book series. The story is about Puddle the pig teaching Otto the turtle to write his name. Otto doesn’t know what letters are so Puddle decides to teach him. The meat of the book is illustrations of the letters and some words that start with those letters. The letter illustrations reminded me of flashcards. In the end Otto learns to write his name. I like how the story is so well incorporated into teaching the letters.

Dr. Seuss’s ABC: An Amazing Alphabet Book: You can’t go wrong with Dr. Seuss. We have had this book and loved it since my oldest was a baby. This is another book littered with alliteration. My kids love the silly made up words and creatures in this book.

What are your favorite ABC books? Do you love any that I didn’t include in this list? Please leave me a comment, I would love to check them out!