The Aleph Bais Practice Game

If your child is getting stumped or needs extra Aleph Bais practice, this game that encourages repetition of the harder letters, may do the trick.

I remember when the kindergarten teacher of one of my older children told me, “He picks up each letter right away. It’s such a beracha.”

I thought, “It is? What’s the big deal? It’s Aleph Beit. I thought it’s simple.”

Fast forward a bunch of years, and I finally got to experience every type of child. The child that understands it quickly. The child that teaches it to herself when she’s still practically in diapers. The child that struggles just a bit. And, yes, the child that just can’t seem to understand Aleph Bais at all! 

Around Pesach time, my four-year-old’s Morah reminded me that she was still concerned. We practiced and tried to keep pace over the year, but as more Aleph Bais letters were added, it was getting harder and harder for her to internalize each one. 

“What’s this letter?” 

“I forgot.”

No problem! We’d make it fun! I took her to a local Judaica store and stocked up on every Aleph Bais toy imaginable. 

It didn’t really do the job. Not every game teaches so well. Plus, often, the letters that are the hardest–like the dot letters and ende letters–are not represented (sometimes, there’s only one of the dot letters, instead of both).

The other problem with Aleph Bais games out there is that the child gets equal exposure to all letters. I needed my child to get more practice with the letters that were harder for her…not have to get through the easy letters to maybe reach the harder ones, and get bored and quit in the meantime.

I needed her to be able to devote more time to the harder letters without getting discouraged by them. 

Before I share this game, note that I am not a kriah expert, and while this may work with children who simply need more practice, it’s not going to be the solution for every child. Refer to the experts if your child needs more specialized help. 

This game, using simple flashcards, though, worked wonders for us! I started with this Jumbo Set and we played on the floor, then we added a smaller set of flashcards so we could play on a table.

Set all the Aleph Bais cards up on a floor or table. You can start off by putting them in order, then mix them up later on when your child is ready for the challenge.

Put one Winkie on the easy letters, and more Winkies on the harder letters. Let your child decide which letters need more Winkies! The number can be different for every letter!

When your child says the name of the letter and the sound, they pick up the winkie.

When all the winkies of the letter are done, they can pick up the card. They can go in any order they like! 

When a letter has more Winkies, your child is motivated to repeat it again and again. They don’t want to stop after only the easy letters. And it’s not as hard when the letter is said over consecutively. But repetition is the key! It’s fun to finish collecting all the cards. 

As time went on, we tried out more interesting treats. Once it was Skittles and Gushers (she ended the summer with a bag of candy that she barely ate), and for the grand Aleph Bais party, we made a game using S’Mores ingredients!

It happens to be that, while I was picking up the ingredients to make these S’Mores, I discovered Lieber’s Dairy Chocolate Chips and they became our new favorite. I hadn’t known chalav Yisrael milk chocolate chips existed. Since Lieber’s was thrilled when our reader recommended using Lieber’s Duck Sauce for this Chicken Popper recipe, we asked them to sponsor this post so I could honestly share how much we love the chocolate chips. Yes, the fact that they’re dairy has a lot to do with it, but they’re sooo much better than any pareve ones. If you don’t need your S’Mores (or other baked good) to be pareve, don’t get regular chocolate chips, get these! And, yes, their Sour Winkies are better than regular winkies and we used those also when playing this game.

Back to our Aleph Bais S’mores…

My daughter chose what she wanted to put on each letter. Sure, her favorite letters might get a marshmallow, but hard letters needed lots of chocolate chips. 

The more letters she named correctly, the more ingredients we had for the S’Mores party!

When she was all done, we wrapped up the S’mores in silver foil and toasted them in the Betty Crocker.

Yum! It was such a sweet and fun way to end a round of our Aleph Bais practice.

This game led to the breakthrough we were waiting for–because of all the repetition, she finally recognized every letter. It made a huge difference!