Before a child is ready to read, they will need pre-reading skills. These skills are important as they give your child the best foundation they can have before they begin their reading journey. Try these pre-reading activities for preschoolers and then use this simple checklist to ensure that your child has the best possible foundation to prepare for their reading journey.
Learning to read is a mammoth task and can be very complex. By helping our children develop their pre-reading skills first, we give them the best chance at enjoying the process of learning to read.
The easiest way to develop these skills is through a wide range of pre-reading activities. We will keep these activities fun and simple. They should be easy for you to set up, because lets face it Mama, we are all tight on time! There’s a special type of heartbreak when you spend 30 minutes setting up an activity only for our kids to spend all of 3 minutes playing with it!!!
What are Pre-reading Activities for Preschoolers?
Pre-reading activities are tasks that are designed to help develop a child’s pre-reading skills. There are 5 pre-reading skills and all of the activities in this post will help to develop at least one if not more at a time.
Why do Preschoolers need Pre-reading Activities?
I speak at length in this post about the importance of pre-reading skills, what they are and why they are important. Spoiler: They’re super important!!
Since pre-reading skills are super important for your preschooler, then it stands to reason that pre-reading activities would be super helpful! The 5 pre-reading skills; print awareness, phonological awareness, motivation to read, narrative skills and letter awareness can seem very daunting at first.
First, let me tell you, they are not as scary as they sound! And developing them is not difficult, in fact you are probably doing lots of these activities already, well done Mama!!
This post will help you to realise how much you are already doing to get your preschooler reading-ready and hopefully give you some more ideas to get and keep their interest in reading!
Pre-reading Activities for Preschoolers
Here are some of my favourite reading activities. My 4 year old has strong opinions on some of these and insists on playing them regularly!
Daily Reading
This can seem like a really obvious one and one you have probably heard many times. But that is because it is so important. As a teacher, I can tell the kids who are regularly read to at home and the ones that aren’t.
Reading to your child can help to develop all of the pre-reading skills. From pointing out the parts of the book, to tracking the words with your finger, to asking your child questions about the story as you go. The possibilities are endless.
Why not shake things up a little and make it even more fun for your child. Let them choose the book or try putting on funny voices while reading!
Sing Nursery Rhymes and Say Poems
The phonological awareness skills that are developed through rhyme and song are second to none. There is a reason why these nursery rhymes have been around for so long! They truly help to develop a child awareness of sound and the sounds that words and letters make.
Play ‘Spot the Letter’
If you have already introduced your child to the letter names, this is a fun game to play when you’re out and about! Use large signs for this game initially. Outside a row of shops is a great place to play this or somewhere that has big signs in their windows.
The game is super simple, you just name a letter and ask your child to find it. It can take them a little time to get into the game but once they do, they find it so fun! Bonus points if they can find an upper case and lower case letter!
Sequencing
This is where you have pictures from a story and your child has to put the pictures in the correct order to tell the story.
A really fun take on this would be to get some picture books from a local thrift store. Go through the book with your child and tell them a story to go with it. Then take the book apart, separate the pages and ask your child to put them back in order.
To really challenge them, ask them to retell the story while they are sequencing the pictures.
Show Your Child How Useful Reading Is.
As adults, we read so many times during the day. We probably couldn’t name all of the times per day that we read. It can be really useful to point out to our children when we are reading.
Ideally, this would not include scrolling on Social Media! Let your child know if you are reading a road sign or a recipe. Show them when you are sending a text message or an email. Introduce them to the concept of information/ingredients on boxes and signs in shop windows.
With any new skill, particularly a difficult one, we are more likely to put in the effort to do it if we see a need for it.
If you have time, and trust me I know how busy you are, sit and read an actual book for a while in front of your child. Let them see you reading your own books so that they know reading isn’t something that you do solely for them but that you enjoy it too. Try having reading time at home where you sit and read your book and they can sit and look through some of their favourites.
I Spy
What a game! It is so useful for teaching so many skills! When they’re small and it’s “I spy something that is blue” right up to “I spy something beginning with b”. When focusing on our pre-reading skills we should use “I spy something beginning with <insert sound here>” or “I spy something that rhymes with mat”
In doing this we are raising our child’s awareness in sounds, drawing their attention to initial sounds, sounds at the beginning of words, and encouraging them to think of rhyming words.
For a real challenge you could try “I spy something ending in <insert sound here>” but that would be super advanced!
Draw Pictures of Their Favourite Story
Ask your child to choose a story they really liked or a part of a story they really liked and get them to draw it. If they really love drawing they might want to do a whole comic strip sequence of the story.
If you have time, you could sit with them and do one too. This can be a really nice mid afternoon activity to do for some quiet time while the baby naps!
Make Up Stories
You might be wondering why this one is in here since this is about pre-reading activities and it doesn’t involve any actual reading!! Reading comprehension and narrative skills are so important, especially as your child grows older. It will improve their understanding of text and it’s context as well as improve their fluency.
Try to include your child in the stories you make up. Model making up stories first but after a while ask for their ideas. Tell the start of the story and ask them what they think will happen next.
If your child is anything like mine, prepare for some wild and wacky stories!! But also prepare for them to really enjoy it.
You can then work up to your child creating an entire story by themselves. If your child enjoys drawing, why not ask them to draw a picture of their story and tell you about it.
Magnetic letters
These are so great for improving their letter awareness. Having these on your fridge or whiteboard is perfect for teaching them their letters.
Top tips, try not to overcrowd the area, maybe introduce a few at a time. It can be really useful to introduce the letters in your child’s name first and go from there. Introducing letters with a word can be super helpful so ‘M is for Mommy’, ‘A is for Apple’, etc.
Rhyming snap
Ok this one does actually require some preparation on your part, sorry! But once you have it done, you can use it time and time again! Create small flashcards with rhyming words on them. Ensure that you have the pictures on them, the words are optional at this stage but it could be good to include them as it means you’ll be able to use them when your child is older too.
You should have rhyming pairs, e.g., hat and cat, pin and bin, can and pan, etc.
Then you just play snap as normal, except that the snap pairs will be the rhyming words. It’s good practice if each player says the word as they are putting down their cards to make it easier to hear the rhyme. Remember, this is about developing their awareness of sounds.
Conclusion
Pre-reading skills are essential for our children to learn. I hope that these activities will give you some ideas to help develop these skills.
If you can only do one thing, try to read to your child. It will give them print awareness, improve their vocabulary, foster an interest in reading, develop their narrative skills and increase their phonological awareness.
Gauge your child’s pre-reading skills using this checklist. It will tell you how they’re doing and what you need to work on next.
All of the other activities are just bonuses! But hopefully ones that will make your life easier while preparing your little one for their reading journey!
