Early Literacy
Preschoolers: Tips and Activities To Encourage Reading Readiness

• Activity Sheet: Letter Knowledge
  Tips for parents on helping preschoolers develop letter knowledge.
• Reread your child’s favorite books over and over again.
• Visit the library as often as possible. Let your child help you choose books to bring home.
• Talk to your children, using specific vocabulary. The more different words a child hears, the more ready the child will be to read that word when she encounters it later on.
• Incorporate reading into your daily activities. Read labels and signs in your environment.
• Tell stories about your family and culture.
• Encourage your child to tell about her day—a birthday party or a special trip. Ask questions like what happened first? What happened next? What did it look like? What did you like best?
• As your child learns the alphabet, teach him lower case as well as upper case letters. Most written material is in lower case. Start with his name, using upper case for the first letter and lower case for the rest.
• Let your child play with letters cut from newspapers or magazines.
• Play games with the sounds of words and repeating rhymes.
• Read a rhyming poem with your child and let him guess words that rhyme.
• Explain to your child the things you are doing as you are doing them (for example, “Look! I’m answering the phone – let’s see who it is!”). The more you talk with your child, the richer your child's vocabulary will be.