The best way to fine tune your child’s reading skills is to find time to practice every day. And most kids learn better when they’re doing something they want to do, not because they have to. These kid-approved activities and games are fun and help build reading skills. They’re simple enough to make part of your routine: during playtime, at meals and snacks, or when you’re out and about.
These kid-approved activities and games are fun and help build reading skills. They’re simple enough to make part of your routine: during playtime, at meals and snacks, or when you’re out and about.
Recommended Activities
Infants live in the “here and now” and they learn language and new words by hearing them used in context in their everyday lives. Help your child develop language by using sentences to describe and talk about things as they happen.
As a newborn, your infant’s communication consists mainly of cries and burps! However, it is not long before he starts making noises and sounds that are close to the sounds you make as you talk (coos and oohs). As you react to these sounds your infant makes, you will have your first “conversations” with your little one.
The ability to attend to sounds is a part of phonological awareness. In this activity, your child will watch and hear you produce sounds with your hands, feet and voice and repeat what you’ve done.
In order to be able to play word games, children need to hear the sounds that make up a word. Playing with the sounds in words can help your child understand that words are made up of smaller units of sound.
Playing a simple game like peek-a-boo can form or strengthen amazing numbers of brain cell connections. Music at a young age also influences brain development. This activity of musical peek-a-boo combines both.
Toddlers love simple rhymes, especially ones that end with a kiss!
Help your toddler become aware of the many sounds of nature and the outdoors. You can name the sounds you hear and you might even try to imitate them.
The ability to hear and pay attention to the sounds in our environment and in our language is an important prereading skill. This activity will give your child fun practice in listening to and identifying animal sounds.
Use a baby-safe mirror or even your bathroom mirror to provide a fun time for your baby to see, hear and feel the coos that are coming out of his cute little mouth!
A fun way to see that your toddler really is learning a lot of language is to play games where he can show off all of the words he understands but cannot yet say.
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