How to Support Your Preschooler’s Pre-Literacy Skill Development

A child's literacy journey begins long before they begin kindergarten. Pre-literacy skills are the building blocks that prepare preschoolers for learning to read and write, laying the foundation for future academic and personal success. Parents often aren’t sure where to start when it comes to building these skills, and it is essential to understand how to support your child’s literacy growth in a fun, engaging, and effective way that is also developmentally appropriate. This article will describe some of the key components of pre-literacy, as well as how you can create a literacy-rich environment at home, provide engaging and interactive activities, and easily integrate literacy into daily routines.

Understanding Pre-Literacy Skills

What Are Pre-Literacy Skills?

Pre-literacy skills refer to the abilities that children need to acquire before they learn to read and write. These skills cover a range of competencies, including, but not limited to the following:

Print Awareness: Print awareness includes understanding that printed text carries meaning, knowledge of the basic concepts of print (e.g., we from left to right and top to bottom), and being able to recognize print in the environment (e.g., on stop signs).

Phonological Awareness: Phonological awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate sounds in spoken language. It is an umbrella term which also includes skills like rhyming, alliteration, segmenting syllables, phonemic (or speech sound) awareness, and more!

Vocabulary Development: Vocabulary development is a key pre-literacy skill that simply involves expanding a child’s word knowledge and use. The stronger a child’s vocabulary, the stronger their story/reading comprehension and generation skills!

Narrative Skills: Narrative skills include understanding and retelling events and stories in a clear sequence of events, including key characters, setting, and other essential details necessary for listeners to follow their message.

By nurturing all of these skills at home, we help to prepare children for the more complex stages of reading and writing.

Creating a Literacy-Rich Environment

Choosing the Ideal Materials

A literacy-rich environment starts with choosing materials that will engage and enrich your child’s life. Curate a diverse collection of books that are age-appropriate and reflect a variety of cultures, themes, and interests; this not only helps to expand your child's vocabulary, but also increases their world knowledge, sparking questions and conversation. A combination of board books, picture books, and interactive books (e.g, books with flaps to lift, textures to feel, or sounds to hear) are all excellent choices for preschoolers.

In addition to traditional books, consider incorporating literacy games, puzzles, and educational enrichment programs like Class with Chloe that focus on building foundational school-readiness, including early literacy skills, and feature robust vocabulary. When considering digital activities, we strongly recommend opting for low-stimulation resources that promote playful interaction.

Designing a Literacy-Friendly Space

Designing a dedicated space for reading can make a significant difference, offering an inviting are for your child to explore their personal library. If you have the space, try creating a cozy reading nook with comfortable seating (e.g., bean bags, big pillows, a cozy chair, etc.) and good lighting (twinkle lights are a fun addition!), filled with a variety of books. Displaying books with covers facing out allows children to see all of their options, encouraging them to explore and choose what interests them.

You can also easily make print materials a part of your everyday life (with more ideas below!) by labeling common objects or designated areas to reinforce word/print recognition. For example, create signs using your child’s favorite colors to display around the house, such as “Reading Corner” or “Art Supplies.”

Engaging Activities to Teach Pre-Literacy Skills

Storytime Strategies

Storytime is one of the most effective ways to build overall literacy skills and enhance vocabulary knowledge, and it’s also one of the easiest (and most important!) activities to incorporate into your daily routine.

When reading aloud to children, use expressive voices and gestures to bring the story to life. Encourage your child to interact by commenting and asking questions throughout the story, and pausing frequently to allow them to ask their own questions and make their own observations. For example, you might ask, “What do you think will happen next?” and provide open-ended comments like, “I wonder why he feels sad.”

Try facing your child (instead of holding them in your lap) to allow them to watch your face as you model words and speech sound production, and to allow you to observe their interests and level of engagement.

Incorporating movement into storytime can also enhance engagement and extend your child’s attention span. For instance, if a story mentions animals, encourage children to act out the sounds or movements of those animals (and join them in the fun!). This active participation reinforces comprehension and keeps storytime playful!

Phonological Awareness Games

Phonological awareness is a critical component of pre-literacy skill development. You can introduce fun, simple activities like the following to help children identify and manipulate sounds and words:

Rhyming Games & Activities: Sing songs, read rhyming books, and encourage children to create their own rhymes (e.g., you and your child go back and forth trying to rhyme as many words as possible- even silly nonsense words count!). Check out an example of just one of our rhyming activities, led by 7-year-old Chloe!

Sound Matching: Play games where children listen for similar sounds. For example, try a “sound hunt”! Ask your child to search for and collect items around your house that all start with a certain sound (e.g., “Let’s search for things that start with the ‘ssss’ sound. Oh look, I found a ssssock! I hear the ‘ssss’ sound at the beginning of sock.”)

Marking Syllables: Syllable awareness is another important skill for pre- and emerging readers. Encourage your child to clap, jump, or stomp out the syllables in their name and other familiar words to help them recognize and pronounce the syllables within words and the patterns in language, and also to help them develop correct pronunciation of words,

These activities can easily be integrated into daily play and routines, making learning feel natural and enjoyable, rather than like “homework”.

Vocabulary Building Activities

Expanding vocabulary is essential for literacy development. As mentioned above, reading consistently to your child is one of the most effective ways to build your child’s vocabulary knowledge. Reading exposes your child to new and varied types of words (e.g., nouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositions, pronouns, etc.), exposes them to new concepts, expands their world knowledge, provides models of various sentence and grammatical structures, and so much more!

Also, by simply engaging preschoolers in conversation and showing interest in their thoughts and ideas, you will encourage them to express themselves, presenting the opportunity for connection and also for expanding upon their ideas (while modeling new words and more complex language structures). Try using open-ended questions to stimulate dialogue, such as “What was your favorite part of the day?” or “How did that make you feel?”

Everyday activities are also the perfect opportunity to introduce new vocabulary. For example, while cooking, show them the recipe and point out the words, discuss the ingredients, cooking methods, and the steps involved using words like first, then, next, etc. Involve children in sorting laundry as you describe the various colors and textures. There are no rules, and language learning opportunities are everywhere!

Enhancing Narrative Skills

You can naturally support your child’s narrative skill development through storytelling and retelling activities.

Before reading a book, encourage a “picture walk”, where you look at the pictures and make predictions about what the story might be about. Even better, let your child turn the pages and point out what they notice (skipping pages is allowed!), then encourage them to “make guesses.” This primes children to engage with the text and become excited about the story.

After you read the story, encourage children to retell the story in their own words, with or without the pictures. You can also use puppets or other props, or encourage them to create their own drawings to help them visualize and tell the story. If they need some additional support, ask questions like, “What happened first?” and “How did the story end?” This not only builds comprehension, but also helps them to learn how to sequence events in a way that makes sense to their listener.

Integrating Literacy into Daily Routines

Read, Read, Read!

Making reading part of your child’s daily routine is key. Set aside time each day for reading, whether it's before bed, before bath time, during quiet time, or all of the above! Try to read with your child at least 15-20 minutes a day (as time allows), encouraging your child to choose the books that interest them- even if that’s the same book for days on end!

Creating a reading routine not only helps your child to build essential early literacy skills, it also fosters a lifelong love for reading! There are no rules- the key is consistency and making reading a treasured part of your day.

Conversations and Language Modeling

As mentioned above, conversations are a natural way to build language skills! Encourage your child to share their thoughts and ideas as you listen actively and respond to them with rich, expanded language models, and follow up with related questions to encourage them to expand on their ideas. For example, if they say they saw a dog, you might respond with, “Oh wow! I saw a big, fluffy, black dog today. What did the dog you saw look like?”

Modeling and emphasizing descriptive language (along with other word types) helps expand their vocabulary and overall language skills.

Play-Based Learning

Always keep learning playful! You can easily incorporate literacy concepts into play. For example, pretend play scenarios like a grocery store or a restaurant provide excellent opportunities for language development. Encourage children to read signs, write and draw their own menus, or create recipes and shopping lists! Join their play and take turns playing various roles like the “customer”, the “chef”, etc., providing opportunities for practicing skills like asking and answering questions, following directions, taking turns in conversation, and so much more!

Building with blocks? Encourage children to label their creations with letters, words, or scribbles, or ask them to tell you about what they’ve created as you write down their description. Doing an arts and crafts activity? Ask them to describe their process or create a story about their artwork. Activities like these build vocabulary, narrative/sequencing skills, and create opportunities for connection. Play-based learning is crucial and makes literacy development relevant and FUN for children!

Supporting a child’s pre-literacy journey sets them up for future reading and writing success. By creating a literacy-rich environment, engaging in meaningful (and FUN) activities, and incorporating literacy into daily routines, you can enhance your child’s overall language and literacy skills and foster a lifelong love of reading in young children. This is the goal! And remember, there are no rules when it comes to reading- encourage your child to lead the way!