How to Encourage YOur Pre-Schoolers to READ

It does not take lots of money to give your kids a head-start on literacy! Just look around and be resourceful!

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A pair of good scissors
• children's scissors if they are of that age
• a few shoe boxes or baskets to keep supplies in.
• Colored washable markers
• A large pad of plain paper for writing BIG LETTERS(Insides of boxes can be cut down for this)
• Uniform , edible items for counting such as M&Ms, Cheerios, marshmallows etc.
• An optional star chart for rewarding participation

1. The beginning of written language development is recognition of words!
   Using the items that you regularly serve, cut out the name of the items from the boxes. It is best to have more than one of the same word for matching. If one of the words is smaller in size that is good too.

2. Have your children watch you cut out the words and say them with the child.
   Initially, they will be reacting to the colors and the other clues on the labels around the word but they ARE learning to SEE the letter configuration that makes the WORD and identify it.

3. You can play PASS the WORD where you say," This is CHEERIOS..." and then they say CHEERIOS...as they take the word...
   YOU can show them how to match same words to stack them all alike which will eventually lead to counting, "We have 5 Cheerio words but only 2 Apricot words.

4. This will lend itself to: Copying the words using the colored markers;
   lining up different words and saying the name of each, building sentences with the words. This is where YOU come in as the secretary to write out what the child dictates to you using the words and adding their own ideas..

Tips & Warnings

• I used my word box to write a menu for their lunch or breakfast. Sometimes they would find the word in the word box that would match to the menu...other times they would remind me to cut out the new word from the package to add to our word box...
• This is FUN! There should never be any pressure on performance anyone gets frustrated Put all away for another day....
• Most importantly, NEVER USE DIFFERENT COLORS for the different letters in a word...A WORD MUST BE SEEN AS A WHOLE UNIT...KEEPING A SIGLE COLOR WILL ACCOMPLISH THAT GOAL....
• READ TO YOUR KIDS DAILY AND WRITE THEM NOTES AS WELL AS ENCOURAGE THEM TO WRITE NOTES TO OTHER FAMILY MEMBERS...

[MrBrett]

on 7/26/2009 Good people make children great. thx! 5's&rec

[soanyway]

on 7/25/2009 Great first article! Clever! Welcome to eHow. I have recomn'd you. Pay it forward to all! ;-)

[Mitestarossa]

on 7/25/2009 Excellent tips, this is good advice for working with disabled children as well.