Creative Ideas for Teaching Literacy to Pre-K

Pre-K age child

Literacy activities at the Pre-K level will introduce children to letters and the sounds that they make. These skills will build onto other areas of literacy that the children will be introduced to in kindergarten, such as learning how to read. Creative literacy ideas for Pre-K children should involve activities that challenge and engage the children using a variety of materials.

Letter Formation

Hand each child a ball of clay. Show them how to pinch off a small piece of the clay and rub it in between their palms to form thin, long pieces of clay. Hold up a letter card and ask the children that know the name of the letter to shout it out. Have the children make that letter using their pieces of clay.

Alternately, sit children at a table. Spray a small amount of shaving cream in front of each child. Have the children spread their shaving cream out on the table with their hands. Show the children a magnetic letter, tell them the name of the letter and have them draw the letter in their shaving cream.

Letter Matching

Place uppercase letters that are all one color into an empty shoebox. Place lowercase letters that are a different color into another empty shoebox. Have a child pull out an uppercase letter from that shoebox and sort through the other shoebox looking for its lowercase match. When the match is found, tell the child to set the two letters aside and pull out another uppercase letter and look for its match. This idea works best with 1 to 2 children looking for matches at a time.

You might also cut old pieces of newspaper in half until you have 52 pieces. Write a different lowercase or uppercase letter onto each piece of paper using a black marker. Place the uppercase letters in the middle of the classroom or circle time rug with a trash can on one side of them. Assemble the students around the letters. Hold up one of the lowercase letters and have a student try to find the matching uppercase letter in the middle of the room. If he is having difficulty, let him choose another child to help him. Once he finds the right letter, let him crumble up the piece of paper and try to make a "basket" into the garbage can.

Letter Sounds

Place 3 items that start with the same letter in a bag. Sit the children in a circle. Tell them that you have put 3 objects in a bag that start with the same letter, and they have to try to identify what letter the objects start with by listening to the beginning sound of the name of each object. Hand the bag to one of the children and have her pull out each object one at a time and name that object. Ask any of the children if they can guess the letter that the objects start with. Once the letter is guessed, have the children make that letter's sound. Refill the bag with 3 different items that start with the same letter and pick someone else to pull out the objects. Keep refilling the bag and guessing letters until all of the children have had a turn pulling objects out of the bag.

Or, draw a picture on the board that has a lot of details, such as a child playing at the park. Pick one child to come up to the board and have them tell you something that starts with a letter you pick. Tell them the letter's sound if they do not know it. When they are correctly able to identify an object in the picture that starts with that letter, have them erase it. Make sure you draw enough items to erase so that everyone can have a turn.

References

• PreKinders: Literacy Activities