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
You have probably noticed that your 24- to 35-month-old loves repetition. If you pronounce a word from a favorite story incorrectly, or inadvertently omit a word or phrase, your child will be sure to let you know. In this activity, you can use this skill, coupled with your child’s love of repetition, to help introduce her to rhyming words.
Before a young child can differentiate between the various sounds in words, he must first be able to recognize similar sounds in the environment and notice when sounds differ. This game will help your toddler develop his budding listening and sound discrimination skills.
Your 3-year-old has gained good control over her large muscles and probably enjoys hopping, running and jumping all over your house. She is also probably able to follow simple two-step instructions. This activity combines these skills in a fun way, allowing your child to practice listening for beginning sounds.
3-year-olds are fascinated by the simple things adults do every day, whether it be laundry, dishes or food shopping. These routine activities provide a perfect way to introduce your child to the concept of beginning sounds.
Learning that words break down into smaller sound units is an important pre-reading skill. You can help your toddler start to listen for the smaller parts, or syllables, in the names of common items from around your home.
By 24-months-old, most toddlers can follow simple two- and three-step directions. This fun activity will give your child that special feeling of having a job to do while building vocabulary and oral language skills.
Your 2-year-old may now be using two or three words in a phrase to talk about and ask for things. When your child does this, you can stretch her phrase into a sentence or two. You will be modeling some important rules of language in this activity.
Around age 2, your child may be starting to say “no” and taking more notice of how you react to her behaviors and actions. Using polite words should be encouraged, especially when someone is asking for and receiving something.
Children usually learn letters in their own names first. This is a great place for you to start talking about letters. In this fun activity, your child will love feeding the letters of his name to the Letter Monster.
Manipulative letters, such as magnetic letters, are important for helping children build letter knowledge at their own pace. This is a fun, active activity where your child will match a magnetic letter to an oversized letter written with sidewalk chalk.
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