You are your child’s cheerleader!
It has been said that the best indicator of a child’s readiness to read is his/her recognition of letters and knowing the sounds of these letters. Here are a few activities to help your child be well prepared for reading in Grade 1. All the activities should be playful, relaxing, and a time of fun for you and your child!
*** Don’t become frustrated if your child does not recognize as many sounds/letters as you would wish. Encourage them, respond enthusiastically to their attempts to listen for and manipulate sounds, and celebrate with them!
1. Focus on a few letters first - Look at letters in your child’s name and other family members’ names, especially initial letters. Letters within a meaningful context are more easily remembered.
2. Letter Hunts. Look for the Letter of the Week (LoW) on road signs, destination boards, licence plates, storefronts, in the newspaper, in cookbooks, in the telephone book, in books, on cereal boxes, and everywhere else that reading may be! Look for the letters in your child’s name or family members’ names, or look for the alphabet in order. At the grocery store, pick one letter and see how many items on which you can find it! Play “I Spy” and “spy” for objects that begin with a certain sound.
3. Silly Words We love Dr. Seuss, because he makes up many silly words when he is writing! Make up silly rhyming names for your family - Dad bad, Mom come, Joey foey, Mark hark. The students in our class love this game! Later on in the year, change all the names in your family to begin with the same letter. “What would happen if all the names in our family began with the “d” sound?” Danny, Dachel, Dordan, Dalex, etc. You can do the same with other words. Silly words are an important in HEARING language and understanding how different sounds affect words.
4. Writing Reading and writing are complementary. Encourage your child to write as much as possible. Birthday and Christmas wish lists, things to take to a friend’s house, family names, notes to grandparents, etc. Say words s - l- o - w - l - y so that your child can hear the different sounds within a word (phonological awareness). Clap the beats in a word to see if it will be a short word or a long word. Do not be concerned if they do not know all the sounds - celebrate the ones they do know!
Kid writing
Kid writing, with a few sounds Isad
Book writing I see a dog.
Adult writing I see a dog.
They can also copy the alphabet or words that you print for them, if they enjoy doing that. Use smelly markers, pencil crayons, pencils, sidewalk chalk or any other writing utensil you may have around! (Letters written in sand or mud are fun, too - so is
play-doh!)
5. Play alphabet games - commercial or homemade.
6. Keep a close eye on our classcalendar to see what we are studying during the week and reinforce the LoW at home as well. This will convince your child that reading really is found everywhere!
7. Note the “freebie” alphabet letters which have basically the same capital and lowercase shapes - your child will know twice the amount of letters! (Cc, Jj, Kk, Oo, Pp, Ss, Tt, Uu, Vv, Ww, Xx, Zz).
8. Use Hot Wheel cars to trace letters that you have made on 8 ½ x 11 pieces of paper.
9. The internet has a wealth of resources as well. Just type in “Senior Kindergarten Alphabet Activities” and see what comes up! Pinterest is also a wealth of information re: great letter games and activities!
10. Here’s one website to get you started, but nothing beats playing a game with Mom or Dad!
www.abcya.com/kindergarten_computers.htm
You are your child’s cheerleader!