5 Simple Activities To Prepare Your Preschooler for Reading

Enrichment Therapies

June 19, 2024

woman reads to a young preschool girl

By: Bri Hammer, M.A., CCC-SLP

The foundation for successful reading is built in preschool with key skills called “phonological awareness.” Phonological awareness skills help a child notice and work with the sounds that make up words. These skills are crucial for your child to sound out and spell words! The good news is that these skills are easy and fun to work on at home, and many of them require no preparation or materials.

How Phonological Awareness Can Help Your Preschooler

Phonological awareness is a broad set of skills that include the ability to recognize and manipulate parts of oral language. Here are some of the most important phonological awareness skills to teach your preschooler and some ideas for how to practice them in fun ways at home:

Rhyme:

  • Read rhyming books and sing rhyming songs. Point at words that do and do not rhyme. Talk about how words that rhyme sound the same at the end.
  • Practice rhyme identification: “Do ____ and _____ rhyme?”
  • Practice rhyme production: “What’s a word that rhymes with _____?”

You don’t need any materials to practice identifying or producing rhymes – it’s a great game to play at the grocery store, on a walk, during a car ride, etc. Find something in the environment that you see and start a rhyming game. “I see a tree. Do tree and bee rhyme?” ; “I see a tree. Let’s think of a word that rhymes with tree!”

Breaking Words Into Syllables:

  • Clap once for each syllable in a word.
  • Smash a ball of Play-Doh for each syllable in a word.
  • Draw circles on the driveway and hop to a new circle for each syllable in a word.

Blending Syllables Into Words:

  • “What word do these sounds make? Cow …. Boy = cowboy!”

You don’t need any materials for this one – it’s a great game to play at the grocery store, during a car ride, etc.

Alliteration:

  • Sing songs and read books that have alliteration and talk about how you hear the same sound at the beginning of each word. Ask your child: “What sound do you hear at the beginning of each word?”
    • Song ideas: Peter Piper, Green Grass Grew All Around, ABC Mouse letter songs
    • Book idea: Dr. Seuss ABC Living books
  • Make up your own silly song or poem of words that start with the same sound. 
  • Take turns thinking of words that begin with the same sound. Use things you see around you. “I see a ball. Ball starts with ‘b’. What other words start with the ‘b’ sound?”

Letter-Sound Knowledge:

Try to use lowercase letters, because your child will see letters in the lowercase form most often when reading.

Materials: alphabet magnets, flashcards, write letters with sidewalk chalk on the driveway, etc.

  • Identifying letters by name: “Find the letter ____.”
  • Identifying letters by sound: “Find the letter that says ___.” Be sure not to add an “uh” after the letter’s sound! For example, “M” says “mmm” NOT “muh”
  • Labeling letter names: What is this letter’s name? 
  • Stating letter sounds: What sound does this letter make?

Get Assistance in Preparing Your Preschooler for Reading With Enrichment Therapy & Learning Center

At Enrichment Therapies & Learning Center (ETLC), our speech-language specialists work with children of all ages to ensure they have successful communicational growth. We work one-on-one with your child to assess their needs and create a plan that puts them on that path to success. If you are wondering if ETLC is the right fit for you, give us a call! We’d love to talk about how we can make a difference in your child’s life.

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