As a teacher, one of the most common questions I hear is “how can I help my child learn to read?” There isn’t a magic formula or set of tasks that will make your child a reader. However unless they are exposed to words and letters, they won't be able to identify or read them.
Because we can only use crayons and markers so many times to make letters, I’ve come up with five new and interesting activities to help your preschooler build letter recognition.
1) Cool fun
My favorite go to outdoor activity is writing with ice cubes on the driveway. Really. It’s a little bit messy and a little bit fun and you stay cool while you do it. Use the ice cubes to draw letters and have your kids copy them or trace over what you wrote.
2) Get in the sandbox.
Use a stick (or your finger) to draw and trace letter shapes.
3) Stick to it.
Use sticky notes to label things in your home. Door, wall, chair, stove, table, mirror, fireplace, window, etc. Pick a letter your child can recognize and ask them to tell you all the words that contain the letter. Or just spend some time finding the labels and reading them with your child. This is a PERFECT activity for an older sibling to do with a younger one.
4) Bath time!
Strip your kiddo down to their undies and stick them in the tub with homemade bath paints. Weelife has a great recipe on her blog. They can trace, draw or just have fun while improving hand eye coordination. They might even get clean in the process!
5) Play in the kitchen.
If your home is like mine, you have dozens of those little magnetic letters lying around. Use them to make words and have your child identify letters.
Finally, if you aren’t reading with your child every day, start doing it now. If you are tired of the books your child has, visit the library and get more or talk with other moms about a book swap so you can grow tired of a new favorite book your child requests over and over again.
Photo: Vera Lucksted
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Love this post! Often we make reading more difficult than it needs to be. Simply reading books often (both by ourselves and to our children) is enough!!
Reading is the challenging skill to teach to the kids surely. You have just shared a brilliant idea on it. Thanks for sharing your thoughtful ideas. Toddler Crafts Julie.
I have to say that we also turn on the "Closed Captioning" function on our TV when the kids watch their shows/DVDs/videos. This way they are exposed to the words visually while the action in happening on-screen.
thank you for the responses ladies!
The link in the article is broken, you can find that paint recipe here: http://living.weelife.com/2008/10/more-mad-baths.html
Hey … thanks for the weelife link! I love your site. I hope this summer weather keeps up for a bit because I can't wait to try out your ice cube trick. Nice one!
: )
jackie.