Literacy ability is very important because it can determine academic success. This ability is closely related to how to read and write properly and correctly. The student environment must support the literacy movement of parents, teachers and the community. Literacy can be supported by a literacy environment in the form of playing with block letters, reading fairy tales, watching learning videos, listening to fairy tales, and facilitating interactive learning media for alphabet recognition. The introduction of the alphabet is an introduction to basic literacy for early childhood that emphasizes interactive learning patterns using learning media so that learning is more fun, effective, and efficient. To facilitate the introduction of the alphabet, a group of UNY students designed an alphabet introduction to enhance the creativity of early childhood learning. The introduction of the alphabet is implemented so that it can eradicate illiteracy, develop language intelligence with fun, more effective, children's enthusiasm for learning and learning materials delivered to children easily.
Alif Nurrahman (Educational Technology), Tri Wahyuni (Non-Formal Education), Nawa Prasetyo (Electrical Engineering Education), and Neneng Thoyyibah and Bondan Raharjo (Mechatronic Engineering Education) introduced the alphabet to early childhood students using the Participatory Action Research (PAR) Method. According to Alif Nurrahman, with PAR the learning atmosphere will be more fun and increase the child's enthusiasm for learning to recognize colors, sounds, letters thanks to interesting visualization. In accordance with human nature where the learning process will be easier and faster to learn something in the form of visual-verbal. "Likewise, the game media that we implement are designed attractively by combining learning and playing into one with a touch of technology," said Alif. Thus the material presented will automatically be understood and understood by children. Tri Wahyuni added, this activity was carried out at the TK Islam Al-Qur’an in Sidoharjo village, Madigondo, Samigaluh, Kulon Progo. "The availability learning media are still very minimal" said Tri Wahyuni "We found that some of learning medias have been damaged from long regular use". For this reason it is necessary to plant early learning while playing using modern learning media so learning becomes fun.
According to Nawa Prasetyo, this activity was begun with information session, followed by the introduction of natural materials that can be used for media for the introduction of the alphabet. "Natural materials such as leaves, clay and sticks are used to make the alphabet," said Nawa. The natural media of clay is shaped to resemble animals or fruits. Clay that has been formed is given an alphabet prefix like the example "B" for bananas. To make it more interesting, it can be colored with color paint and given a glitter decorator. Then the introduction of the alphabet with the Alphabet Book Smartkids media. This product was introduced to help teachers introduce the alphabet in early childhood. In the learning media there is an introduction to the alphabet by matching the capital alphabet with small and varied themes of animals, fruit, and objects around. The final stage the students observe and provide assistance in how teachers teach alphabet introduction. The results show that the teacher has been able to apply the training results obtained. This can be seen from the children who enthusiastically followed the introduction of the alphabet with natural media. Children's attention is focused on alphabet learning materials and children show their creativity in forming alphabet made from clay, leaves, sticks with their own imagination.
The work under the guidance of Fitta Ummaya Santi and has been succeeded in gaining Higher Education Funds in the 2019 Student Creativity Program in Community Service. (Dedy)
