Music is one of the best ways to get children speaking your target language. My son, William, is going through a rare music phase so I’m fitting in as many learning opportunities as I can. Funny enough he’s learned most of the Portuguese ABC’s on his own (while I’m playing catchup). He gets stuck about halfway through so I put together this activity to help him with the rest.
We listen to a lot of Galinha Pintadinha in the car, and William has their app on his tablet, so this is the version we are going with. You can download the lyrics and activity at the end of this page. I have added the pronunciations for each letter as well to help out the non-native speakers like myself.
How I teach the alphabet
William already knows the English alphabet so to get him into Portuguese mode we listen to a couple of Portuguese songs and end with the Portuguese ABC song. We usually look over the ABC poster as we are listening to the music. Sometimes William wants me to sing it and other times he wants to sing it by himself. Of course, I prefer he sings it! William loves flash cards so I turned the poster into alphabet flashcards (You can find everything down below). We talk about the objects on the cards and the letters they start with.
I put together a “Find the Letter” activity and a “Trace the Letter” activity. The “Find the Letter” is great for letter recognition and the “Trace the Letter” activity is good for introducing children to writing the letters independently. I laminated the pages so we can do them multiple times. I also find that William enjoys them more when he can use a dry erase marker. The Portuguese alphabet is the same as the English alphabet so William has already mastered his letter recognition and he is currently working on writing his letters.
You can do one letter a day or do as many as you can per day. Being that William is hyperlexic and loves letters, we are doing the whole alphabet at once.
All of my Portuguese ABC resources are at the end of this post.
Do kids confuse the two alphabets?
Nope, kids know they are two separate alphabets. If William forgets a letter in the Portuguese alphabet he won’t substitute the English version of the letter becuase he knows they are different.
Should I teach letter names or letter sounds first?
You should try to teach letter sounds first. This gives them a strong foundation for reading. In english, William learned the letter sounds, letter names, and then the alphabet song. He spontaneously started reading just after he turned three. With Portuguese we are doing the alphabet song first. Since William is neurodivergent he doesn’t necessarily follow the learning path that neurotypical kids follow so we are just following his lead.
BUT, yes, letter sounds should be taught first.
A note about the updated Portuguese Alphabet
In 2009, the alphabet in Brazil was updated to aligned with the European Portuguese alphabet. This update is known as the Portuguese Spelling Agreement. Among other things, the letters k, w, and y were added to the alphabet. Just be aware when you are looking for resources online that some may be outdated.
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