We have heard the saying; practice makes a man perfect. In early childhood years, ongoing repetition is the foundation for learning. Repetition helps to improves confidence, reinforces learning, and increases the fluency of the child.

At the preschool stage, students learn to speak, read and write. Educators and parents must take every opportunity to develop the child’s language skills in order to help him communicate his thoughts & feelings better.

Complementing preschool studies with fun & games at home is one of the most effective ways of practicing letter sounds, words, syllabus, and much more.

No matter what time of the day it is, your little one will never refuse a game or two. Enlisted here are simple early literacy games that you can design for your children at home without much hassle and get started right away!

Flip Over Cards

Select about five to ten words from a book that your child has just read on the Kutubee app. Write down each word on a piece of card paper and arrange them neatly in a row with the word hidden under. The child flips two cards and reads the words on them. He decides whether the words match or are they different. Continue this activity until the child finds a pair to each of the words. This game is great to boost memory power and improve recognition of word skills.

Sort as per the Letter Sounds

Choose a few letter sounds and write them down on separate flashcards. Write down 5 words along with its corresponding picture, to match each letter sound. Jumble the flashcards and ask the child to sort the words that belong to a particular letter sound. This increases the child’s phonemic awareness as he places an ‘arrow’ card under the /a/ sound.

Rhyming Word Game

Rhyming is an important skill to master for reading. Words like ‘cat’, ‘pat’ and ‘rat’ or ‘cook’, ‘look’ and ‘hook’ can be identified under one rhyming family. The parent can use scrabble pieces and arrange them to form a word. The rhyming sound can be separated from the rest of the word by spacing the pieces of scrabble blocks. For example: J – UMP | L- UMP | B – UMP or L – OVE | D- OVE | GL – OVE. The child follows the pattern and constructs similar words that fall under the word families. This activity will positively lead to reading and writing success. You can also use fill in the blank sentences, such as; The __ is fat. The child fills the blank with rhyming words like ‘cat’ or ‘rat’.

Syllable Counting Game

Syllables are nothing but breaking down the word into ‘chunks’ to help the child pronounce the word correctly and later spell it appropriately. Display a few words from a storybook he has just read on the Kutubee app on a whiteboard and ask the child to break it up as per the syllable. Some words have only one syllable and others may have up to three in them. The words ‘took’ and ‘book’ are examples of single syllable. While words such as; ‘banana’ – ‘ba/na/na’ or ‘bicycle’ – ‘bi/cy/cle’ have three syllables. Play a clapping game with your child and clap out every syllable in the word. In the word ‘picnic’, clap once on ‘pic’ and then clap again while pronouncing ‘nic’. Once the child gains confidence, ask him to look around, shout out words and count the syllables by playing the clapping game.

Magic Letter Tracing

Anything that appears and disappears is magic! How about a letter appearing and disappearing in a tray full of ‘magic sand’? This makes for a great pre-writing activity. The toddler takes a while to develop the ‘pincer grip’ by which he can hold a crayon or a pencil in hand. These fine motor skills slowly start evolving as the child practices writing ‘letters’ in sand or salt and then running a finger over it multiple times to practice the pattern.

So, are you ready to utilize your little one’s energy and leverage it by making ‘play time’ a fun-filled learning experience?

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