How can you help your preschooler develop letter recognition, an important pre-reading skill? Here are a few fun ways to practise letter recognition without your preschooler even noticing!
Go to a field, the muddier the better, preferably gravel. Snow works too. With a foot or a stick, trace various names or letters of the alphabet in the mud. It’s muddy fun, and it definitely shows the different lines required to create a letter.
Play with your food! Make letter bread, letter pancakes, or letter vegetable and fruit slices. Hint: apples make good “c”s. If you’re feeling brave, get out a tube of icing and make icing letters on toast.
Play eye spy with letters. This is a good game to play as you’re waiting in a lineup. There are ads and signs all around. Look for a particular letter of the alphabet and play eye spy.
Create a mail slot and send your preschooler mail. Have him decipher who the mail might be addressed to or from based on the letters of the names.
Play games as you are walking around the neighborhood. Have your preschooler look for a particular store or a specific street name. Even if she can only recognize one letter, she might be able to determine which street is the correct one.
Look for letter patterns in nature, or make some yourself. Can your preschooler make letters with sticks? Is there a rock at the beach that looks a lot like an “o,” or a shell that looks like a “c”?
Have fun with books that find letters in ordinary things. There are city alphabet books and animal alphabet books. There’s even a book that shows letters in butterfly wings – amazing!
Do you have any fun ways to get your preschooler noticing the letters around her? What do you do?