Activities To Develop Literacy Skills At Home

I often get asked by parents for practical exercises to do at home with their preschool-aged child to best prepare them for Kindergarten. Particularly by parents whose first child it is that is enrolling in school. These are usually the parents with the most questions and the greatest anxiety. Each year at the Kindergarten Orientation parent sessions I would often present on School Readiness and offer these following tips and suggestions.

It is critical that parents as much as it is possible, provide a safe and stable home environment. Just as important is, both parents making time to interact and connect with their child/ren each day. This time together should be treasured. Parents should keep in mind to be a good role model as developmentally a child at this age copies and learns acceptable and sometimes not so acceptable behaviours from their close environment.

These are things you can together anywhere; home, shops, bath, car, park, or the waiting room to develop your child’s literacy knowledge and skills;

• Read picture books together. Talk about the cover of the book, the title and picture on the front. While you are reading; ask questions about the characters, about what they think might happen next, why they think a character is acting a certain way. Let your child see you reading. They will follow the example you set. Consider having a regular reading time together. This may be after cleaning teeth at night, just after lunch or when dad comes home from work.

• Read nursery rhymes together. Recite them until they know them off by heart. Talk about how words rhyme and play around with different words, starting off with simple words like cat. Find rhyming books to read and get them to predict what the next rhyming word may be.

• Play eye spy. Use examples that are colours, beginning sounds, rhyming words.

• Notice environmental print. Read street signs, shop names and posters at the shops, in the library, on the television.

• Use a variety of mediums. Let children use pencils, pens, crayons, textas, paint under supervision. Use a tray to create a surface to write in sand, dirt, flour, milo, jelly crystals, or shaving cream.

• Write together. Encourage children to make cards, write their name, draw pictures, write a shopping list by copying words from packages.

• Develop fine motor skills. Encourage the use of play dough, pegging the clothes on the line, using chopsticks or tweezers, or cutting paper using scissors.

• Get creative. Use blocks, Lego, or construction materials to encourage creativity and imagination.

What do you recommend to parents asking about preparing their children for school? Can you add to the list above?