 So this is a lesson I like to teach to three and four-year-olds that explains the difference between a letter, a word, and a picture. So I start with three pieces of paper, and on them are different things. So I have the letter. This one's an L, and I'll put it down. And then I have a leaf, the word leaf, and then I have the picture of my word. So I start by explaining to my students that a letter is all alone by itself. But a word has many letter friends. So this is the L, and then you'll see inside there says an L, and then other letters, E, A, F, and that is a word. And this word means leaf. So here's our picture of the word. So then I'll go, and I'll get another example for them, and then I'll show them, and I'll ask them first. Is this a letter or a word? And it might take a minute, so you let them wait, you wait, and you let them think about it. And then pretty soon somebody will probably tell you it's a letter. And you'll be very excited and you'll say, excellent, let's put it in the letter pile. And so we'll put it with the other letters. And this was an S. And then here's another one, and it's a word. And then here's this, and this is a picture, and you're going to ask them which one is the word. And then they'll look at it, and it's kind of easy because this one's pretty and it's a drawing. So then they'll point at the word, or they'll say this is a word, and you'll say fantastic. And you'll put it in the word pile. And then you'll put this one with the other pictures. And hopefully they're catching on, so you can mix these ones up. And you can show them which pile does this go in. I would like you to find me the word. And so I'll have one of my students come and help me, and they'll pick out which one it is, and say, oh, this one has many letters, and these are friends, so this is a word. And then I'll be very excited and tell them congratulations, that is a word. And then somebody else will have to come and help me, and I'll say, can you find the letter? And then it'll be pretty easy again, I hope, because this one's a picture, and then this one's not. So they'll be able to pick out the letter, and again be excited, and then put it in the right pile. And then we'll put this one where it belongs. And we'll do this five, six, maybe seven times until they seem to be understanding the difference between the letter A, the word, which is airplane, and then the picture. You can do this with whatever objects you have, or whatever pictures you can draw. It's very easy to make these separate pieces of paper so that the students can try understanding the difference between a letter, a word, and a picture. This helps them when they see a story understand what they're looking at.