5 Ways to Develop Early Literacy Skills in Preschoolers

Learning to read is one of the most rewarding experiences.  No matter what age, we all enjoy learning something new or getting into a good story.  Use these 5 early literacy skills to help your preschoolers discover to joy of learning to read.

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1. On-the-Go Book Baskets for Early Literacy

I love using book baskets in the car.  These are so portable that if they need to go into a grocery cart, doctor’s office, or in a bed at quiet time they go.  I fill the basket with books that are about things they have talked about, are learning about, or books that will build their vocabulary.

What’s in our book basket this week?

The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle

From Head to Toe by Eric Carle

Pajama Time by Sandra Boynton

Sheep in a Jeep by Nancy Shaw

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr.

2. Games for Early Literacy

• Matching Games – Have students match pictures and words of sight words or important words from a sight word story.
• Memory – Use the same matching cards and turn them over and have students try to match the word and corresponding pictures.

3. Sight Word BINGO  (FREE Download)

Get them searching for those sight words with this FREE sight word BINGO game.

 

4. Personalized Books

Kids love to see familiar faces in what they read. Take pictures of events or family members.  Use simple text to write stories using sight words.  You can get the kids involved by having them tell you the words to write on the page.  The pictures below are from our recent Halloween book.

5.  Use Sight Word Stories for Early Literacy

These stories are repetitive and give readers the chance to practice important sight words.  Sight words are so important because they are common words but they are hard to learn because there aren’t visuals to help young readers other than repeatedly seeing the word.  These stories take familiar topics and combine a study of sight words.  Each book has a story, guiding questions for parents and teachers, sight word practice pages, games, and a fluency/accuracy data recording.  Current Sight Word Stories available: Duck Was Hot and I Like the Zoo.  (Just click the blue text to learn more.)

6. Read, Read, Read

Let them read everything.  Go on letter hunts while you are at the grocery store or on trips.  This is a favorite of mine when we are stuck in traffic.  The more chances you give them to find joy in learning and reading the more they will want to learn.

Want to keep those new creations safe and help them last longer.  I use a variety of tools to laminate and protect the pages from preschool fingers.  Want your own, click the links below.  

• laminator and laminating pages
• page protectors

 

Follow me on Pinterest for More Early Literacy Ideas

Happy reading!

Jessica