As we all know, early literacy is a vital foundation for a child’s educational journey. At Coogam, we understand the importance of building strong literacy skills early, and we want to share with you three essential areas to focus on in preschool literacy: Print Awareness, Phonological Awareness, and Phonics. Here are some fun, engaging, and educational tips for parents and educators to promote these crucial literacy skills.
1. Support Print Awareness
Print awareness is the first step in helping children understand how written language works. This skill helps kids identify letters, words, and sentences in their everyday surroundings. At Coogam, we believe in using the world around us to build print awareness. Pointing out letters, words, and sentences in books and the environment (like store signs, labels, and logos) gives children the chance to explore and become familiar with the written word.
To make this more fun and interactive, we suggest:
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Reading aloud to your child daily and discussing parts of the book like the title, author, and illustrator.
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Track the words with your finger, moving from left to right, helping them understand the directionality of reading.
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Show them where print is used in real life—menus, calendars, grocery lists, and even maps!
2. Build Phonological Awareness
Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize and manipulate sounds in spoken words, and it plays a major role in early literacy. This skill is fundamental for helping children understand how sounds correlate with letters, which later aids in reading and writing. You can develop this skill through activities that involve rhyming, listening, and sound manipulation.
Try these fun activities at home:
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Sound Games: Have children listen to different sounds (bells, claps, or animal noises) and identify them. You can create sound shakers using water bottles filled with various objects like rice, beans, or sand to make the activity more fun!
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Rhyming Words: Read nursery rhymes and have your child clap, jump, or tap when they hear rhyming words. Make it interactive by having them come up with their own rhymes!
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Alliteration Games: Play games with phrases that start with the same sound, like “silly socks” or “crazy cat,” and let the child repeat or create their own alliterative phrases.
3. Encourage Phonics
Phonics is the skill of matching sounds (phonemes) with letter symbols (graphemes), and it's essential in learning to read and write. By teaching children the relationship between letters and their sounds, you’re setting them up for success in future reading. Start with simple activities that make learning phonics fun and interactive.
Here are some simple ways to get started:
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Matching Games: Use letter cutouts in different materials like sandpaper or construction paper to let kids explore the shape and sound of each letter.
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Keyboard Fun: Use an old keyboard or index cards to let children find the letters as you call them out and say the corresponding sounds.
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Spelling Games: Encourage children to spell their names by matching upper- and lowercase letters.
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Create Word Families: Use letter combinations like “_at” and help children form words such as “cat,” “bat,” and “hat.”
These activities are engaging, interactive, and tailored to a child's developmental stage. They offer a hands-on approach, ensuring that we intentionally nurture the essential literacy skills preschoolers need, laying a strong foundation for their future learning.
