Preschool Letter Matching Activity

Sharing is caring!

Letter recognition is a skill that parents work with their children from the beginning of infancy. What, you say? Hear me out. When we read to our children everyday, we are exposing them to auditory letter recognition. They hear the sounds letters make. You are also exposing them (and creating) to the excitement of what is reading. After all, reading is the very foundation of education.  As they get older, you let them hold and explore a book. They are seeing and touching for themselves these strange and foreign looking characters, letters! How fun!As they develop these interests in books, there are games and activities we can play with them to further expose them to letter recognition.

As a stay at home/working mom, I try to come up with different activities for my 3 year old to engage in all the while learning. Literacy is very important to me, as I’m an avid reader and want to instill that love of reading in my children. When Kelli from 3boysandadog asked on Google+ for guest posts, I immediately jumped at the opportunity. I’ve been thinking on making a blog post myself for this very purpose. I’m happy to share it on her homeschooling site.

Here’s a little letter matching activity game that my son and I have played together to continue exposing him to letter recognition.

This letter matching activity is fun for preschoolers to do because it is tangible to them. It is something they can see, own and feel good when praise is given.  It’s also easy for mom or dad to do at home as well. There’s not much prep that goes into it. I used several resources that I had at home that were ready made. What you’ll need are:

• Letters – magnets are good, blocks are good, pre cut ones are good, or even hand written letters are just fine. You just need letters that are legible and that your child can recognize and trace with his finger. 
• Paper – any size paper can do. Poster board if you want to go big, construction paper, copy paper even, anything where you can also legibly write the letters on so your child can match up the single, loose letters to.
• Treats – as a little reward so you desire or if you feel your child needs that extra encouragement. It could be anything. I used FrootLoops. He rewarded himself every time he matched the letter correctly. This is an example of him owning it. He knew what the needed to do. We’ve now moved past the treat stage.

 

Before you embark on this fun letter recognition through matching activity, be sure to have your supplies ready. If your little one is as impatient as mines, you’ll quickly learn to have everything ready. There’s nothing more frustrating that having to start and stop an activity due to not being prepared correctly. I’ve learned the hard way with my son.

You can begin the game by singing the alphabet song or reading a book about letters. Something that is short and engaging. Tailor the book to their likes such as if you child like animals, read a letter book about animals. Or if you want to dive right into it, that’s perfectly fine as well.

Engage your child while playing with him. Talk to him about the letter, it’s shape and what sound it makes. Ask him to trace the letter using his fingers so he can feel the shape of the letter and practice his emergent writing skills. If you know he’s selected a letter that he knows, ask him. This can help to build up his confidence.

The most important aspect of this activity or any activity is to have fun with your child. Let him know that learning is fun. It will only help to instill that love of learning in him.

Dianne is a stay at home, trying to work from home mom. She has three boys ages 9, 7 and 3. Currently, she reads, avidly, crochets, regularly and blogs. Her blog, Same DiNamics started out as a personal blog but has since evolved. She blogs about adventures in her life, book reviews and her crocheting. She also writes hubs for Hubpages. Also, she is trying to learn as much about blogging as she can to better increase her blogging skills.

 

Sharing is caring!