Preschool Phonics Activities to Build a Solid Reading and Writing Foundation for Your Child
Master phonemic awareness with preschool phonics activities help children learn to read. The ability to understand how word is string up and pronounced is important for preschoolers as it sets the foundation for English language reading and writing.
The basic make up of how a word is pronounced is based on phonics. Kids need to learn how each letter sounds, put the combination of letters together for different sound and finally string them up to form a word.
It all starts with sound. Expose preschoolers to different form of sound by talking, singing and rhyming with them.
Sing Phonics Songs
Phonics song is one of the easiest method to get young kids to learn the sound of each letter. Here is a lyric of a phonic song.
Sing the below based on Skip to My Lou tune....
apple and axe, a a a (say these bits as the sound of the letter)
apple and axe, a a a
apple and axe, a a a
we all know our letters
(Repeat the same tune using the following different alphabets)
baby and ball, b b b
cup and cat, c c c
doctor and dog, d d d
elephant and egg, e e e
fish and fan, f f f
girl and goat, g g g
igloo and ice, i i i
And continue until z.
For effective learning, sing one letter at a time or not more than 3 different letters. Repeat and expand the letters as time goes by.
More Phonics Songs
Extend basic phonemic awareness to recognize similar word and sound pattern recognition with nursery rhyme. Kids learn to listen and see similar words such as cat, pat, hat etc. are made up of adding a different letter to “at” to produce different sound and word.
There are many fun rhyming activities you can do with your preschoolers based on those classic nursery rhymes we all grew up and familiar with.
The ability to recognize sound is not all in language development. Learning alphabet is equally important for letter recognition and association of sound to word. This forms the foundation for spelling and writing.
Use printable alphabets as flashcards to teach our preschoolers is the most common teaching method for most of us. Do include alphabets games and activities for “active” learning. It can yield better result when child is involved.
For kids who already know the basic and able to recognize letters, you can use the following activities with them. Practice makes perfect to master a skill. So…practice, practice and practice with them.
Get some objects around the house and letter symbols matching the first letter of each object. Play the game by saying "I saw something with the sound rrrrr". Let your child put the symbol on the object starting with "r".
Find Your Words
Get a passage from newspaper, magazines or books. Ensure you are alright for the material to be scribble on.
Give the child some time to go through the passage and highlight all the words you want him to find -sh sounds as in shine, shut, shot.
Make it into a competition if you have two or more kids playing this game. The kid who can find the most words in the shortest time is the winner.