Learning abc in italy

Scuola primaria “4Martiri” - 10° ISC di Padova

marjorie crivelli 2012

This is a short presentation of the first months of school. From September to December children learn to

read and write the letters of the alphabet. Italian letters can be read always in the same way or at least

almost all the times. So children build syllables with consonants and vowels , then they build words with

various combination of syllables.

Some years ago, some teachers used an other way: they start from a sentence to arrive at the letter . This

was called global method, today the syllabic method is preferred.

From January they begin to study some special letters such as C, G and their different sounds.

They study also some difficulties such as GLI, GN, CQ, QU, CU, SC…

Usually in these first months of school we use only capital letters, until all the children have learned the

reading and writing basic skills, then we present Upper and Lower letters. Finally they learn the join hand

writing.

Learning ABC in Italy

Our text book or how we teach

reading and writing

The 5 vowels

From letters to syllables



This is the cover of our text book “Giro giro mondo”

or “ turn turn world”



This is the index of contents



Before starting with teaching reading and writing the alphabet, we check the literacy level .

When children arrive at the primary school they are often at different literacy levels.

Here are some of the tests.



istening skills: circle the words with the same beginning or ending sound



Read and draw or read and choose



Writing skills



First we present the vowels, children learn to identify them, to write them and to read them.

Here are some pages for the vowel A.

The five vowels





After the vowels there are some pages of review.





Then we begin with consonants. Children learn to build plain syllables such as MA ME MI MO MU

and changing the order of the letters AM EM IM OM UM. More letters they know, more syllables

they have so they can build the first words (MAM+MA = MAMMA or MUM) they begin to write

them under dictation and to practice first reading.

From letters to syllables





When a group of consonants is finished there are some pages of review.

We use also photocopied sheets form other books or sheets that we prepare by ourselves.

Education

Learning abc in italy