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35 Fun Literacy Activities to Help Kids with Reading
Did you know that children who are read to at least three times a week are almost twice as likely to score in the top 25% in reading compared to children who are read to less often? Reading to children is just one way to help boost their early literacy skills and the best news is, it’s easy and enjoyable for children and adults alike!
In addition to reading aloud, there are many simple literacy ideas that you can do at home or in the classroom to help boost children’s early literacy skills. It really doesn’t have to be too difficult, and I’m here to help!
Let’s check out 35 fun literacy activities for kids!
What Exactly are Early Literacy Skills?
Early literacy skills in young children are the fundamental skills they need in order to start reading and writing.
Early literacy skills include:
✩ phonological awareness
✩ print awareness
✩ vocabulary skills
✩ comprehension
✩ fluency
✩ listening skills
✩ fine motor skills
✩ narrative skills
✩ early writing skills
Let’s even throw in language skills!
I know what you might be thinking…
… this list of basic literacy skills is LONG!
Parents, caregivers and teachers can all help early childhood ages with these skills by providing a print-rich environment, engaging in conversations, reading regularly and offering activities that promote phonological awareness.
But don’t worry! I’ve got some super simple and fun ideas below that will take no time and barely any supplies to start implementing TODAY! Keep reading to see my top recommendations and grab some freebies!
Phonological Awareness Activities for Kindergarten
What is phonological awareness exactly?
Phonological awareness means being able to recognize and manipulate sounds in spoken language. The sounds that make up a word are also called phonemes. There are actually 44 phonemes in the english language! It involves skills such as understanding rhyming, blending, segmenting and understanding the different sounds in a word.
There are many different ways to work on phonological awareness skills in kindergarten. Let’s look at some fun activities below to use with children to help improve their literacy skills!
1. Syllable Scoops (FREE ACTIVITY!)
This fun little game from my Printable Literacy Games Pack is for 2-4 players. Each player will need ten small objects such as mini erasers or pom-pom balls for their “ice cream.” Students will draw a card, count the syllables, and cover up an ice cream cone with that number.
Other than that, just print, cut, and you’re ready to play and have fun! This game works great for small groups and partner work.
You can download the Syllable Scoops game for free! Just add your info below and it will be sent straight to your inbox.
2. Read Picture Books
As I stated above, reading books to kids sets up a strong foundation for making them both better readers and writers. They’ll associate reading with feelings of positivity and enjoyment!
Set aside a read aloud time in your classroom; I always liked to do this right after lunch time. If you are a parent and looking for literacy ideas at home, read your child’s favorite story to them at bedtime or right when they wake up. Talk about simple words in the story to help them with vocabulary development.
For example, if there is a tow truck in the story, point to it and label it for your child: “Ooh-I see a tow truck. I wonder where it’s going?”
If you need a place to get started, check out my favorite alphabet books for kindergarten!
3. Sing Nursery Rhymes
Nursery rhymes are another great way to easily sneak in a literacy activity in your day. Babies all the way up to kindergartners (and sometimes older) love nursery rhymes!
I bet you don’t even realize how many different literacy skills you can hit with singing nursery rhymes!
They help kids to understand rhyming skills, how to sequence a story because they usually have a beginning, middle and end, plus they also help with recall and memorization!
4. Street Signs & Environmental Print
Environmental print is all the words and signs that you see around you every day– like stop signs, store names and logos.
Think about the golden arches-kids know by a pretty young age that that is the sign for McDonalds. They may also recognize the environmental print for places like Wal-Mart, Target and Chick-fila. They are going to know the environmental print of the places they frequent the most often.
Make sure you are naming places as you drive by or even when in a building, simply point out the restroom or exit signs. These are all ways to practice reading and vocabulary words!
5. Magnetic Letters
Magnetic letters are tons of fun! Chances are you already have some in your classroom, too. You can use them with magnetic cookie sheets to let students explore the letters, or use them in a more scaffolded activity.
For example these Letter Magnet Cards are a staple in my literacy centers at the beginning of the school year. Just print, laminate, cut, and watch the engagement unfold!
Another fun way to use magnetic letters is with these sorting mats! Mix together a bunch of magnetic letters and have students sort them. (Tip: I also use letters from games, mini erasers, and letter tiles to this activity!) This works great for letter of the week; just use the sorting mat for the letter you’re focusing on and add it to centers!
6. Introduce New Sight Words/ High Frequency Words
In preschool and kindergarten, young children start to be exposed to sight words to strengthen their reading skills. These may also be referred to as high-frequency words. These are simply words that are seen frequently in text. Words like: “is, the, saw, little, not” (just to name a few).
You don’t have to make sight word practice boring:
You can practice in a playful way such as writing them in chalk, rainbow writing or building with magnetic letters.
You could also try to create sight word mini books or have students read and sort their sight words.
Plus, when you read books aloud to students, you can always point out the high frequency sight words while you are reading!
7. Rhyming
Recognizing rhyming words is a basic level of phonological awareness. Most of the time, learning how to rhyme just takes a lot of practice and exposure! Games and songs are such an easy way to give students practice identifying and producing rhymes.
For example, this is the Rhyming Robot game from my Printable Literacy Games Pack. To start the game, students place a mini eraser on all the pictures. Then on their turn, the student removes one, two, or three erasers and produces a rhyme for the picture under the erasers they took. It’s easy to learn, hands on, and guaranteed
8. Practice Alphabet Letters at Bath Time
If you are a parent reading this, you know how fun bath time can be. Kids are silly, they usually have a ton of things to talk about and they want to play.
Bath time can actually be the perfect time to help children work on early literacy skills.
Use foam alphabet letters like these to practice naming letters and sounds, finding the letters in their name, or putting the letters in order. You could also grab these lowercase foam letters to help them distinguish the difference between lowercase letters and uppercase letters. So many opportunities here!
9. Make Letter Shapes Out of Play Dough
Most children love play dough! Adults love it, too – it’s inexpensive and you can even make it yourself!
Why not take something that they are interested in already and incorporate a little learning?
Making letter shapes out of play dough is such fun way to work on fine motor skills, too!
10. Word Games
For this idea, you can really be creative with it and differentiate it to fit your classroom needs.
There are many types of word games you can play with kids to help their phonics skills:
- Sight Word Bingo
- Word Wall Relay: Students race to the word word wall and tap on the word the teacher calls out first.
- Sight Word Pictionary
- Sight Word Simon Says: Simon says touch the word “the” (have the sight word cards spread out around the room)
11. Go on a Scavenger Hunt
Going on a scavenger around the school is yet another neat idea for a literacy activity. Simply make the clues all having to do with phonics.
Check out some ideas for clues:
- Find an object that starts with the letter B.
- Find something that rhymes with bat.
- Locate a book that has the word is in the title.
12. Literacy File Folder Games
Having some simple file folder games to pull for independent work or small group time is another really simple way to help younger children with phonological and early literacy skills.
I used these Literacy File Folder Games because they aligned with Common Core standards and there are 24 different games to choose from.
They range from upper and lowercase matching to beginning sounds, ending sounds and CVC words. This makes them perfect for differentiating within groups in your class!
13. Write Letters in Sand
Any type of activity with sand is an automatic hit for most kids that I know! All you need is:
- A sturdy container, a plastic tray, or you can get really fancy with a sand tray like this
- Sand (I like to get multiple colors to change out throughout the year; for example, I use orange around Halloween time)
- Letter cards (here’s one option)
- Optional: Some kids don’t like the feeling of sand, so I include a pencil (they can use the eraser end) or witch fingers
14. Everyday Activities
When you think about it, there are actually ways that we can practice literacy skills in everyday activities.
When a child is involved in pretend play, there are so many different ways that you can sneak in learning about phonological awareness:
Make him or her the chef of the kitchen and have them create a restaurant menu.
Write letters to friends and have your child deliver them as the mailman.
Play school and they can be the teacher.
When you take your child to places like the grocery store, look for letters and sight words within the store and on the products. Talk about the letters that the fruits and vegetables you are picking up begin with.
Take the child’s lead and go with their interests on this. It will make it more fun for them and they will want to continue playing longer and be more engaged.
15. Alphabet Songs
Singing alphabet songs are some of the main building blocks of literacy. The more your child is exposed to the alphabet, the better they will know it!
Try having the Alexa play the alphabet song while you are making dinner, sing it during bath time or sing it while you brush your teeth!
16. Labeling Everyday Objects
Labeling everyday objects is another great way to work on literacy development. This is especially important for really young kids like babies and toddlers. It’s important to constantly talk about what we are doing so that kids can help interpret what the meaning of a word is.
For example, if you are mopping the kitchen floor-say that out loud. I’m mopping the kitchen floor because it’s dirty.
17. Alphabet Puzzles
Alphabet puzzles are another simple activity for kids during anytime of the day. Letter recognition skills become of utmost importance by the time kids enter kindergarten so they have the right tools for reading.
This set is just one of many good options out there!
18. Letters of the Alphabet Treasure Hunt
Print out letter cards. I like to use this gold coin themed set from my Alphabet Fine Motor Pack.
Hide the letters around the school or classroom in advance. (This is a great after-lunch activity!)
Explain to the class that they are going on an alphabet treasure hunt, and their mission is to find all the letters of the alphabet. They MUST work together to find all 26 letters!
Begin the hunt by providing the child with the first letter. You can hand it to them or give them a clue that leads to the location of the first letter. If you don’t want to give clues for this, you actually don’t have to. They know they are done when they have all 26 letters and that is the beauty of it – if you need a fun activity in a pinch, this could be it!
Once they work together to find all 26 letters, put the letters in order, practice the sounds of each and give them a prize! (a small eraser or sticker will do! Keep it simple!)
19. Tell a Short Story
A new activity to try is having your child or student tell short simple stories.
Encourage them to tell the family stories at home or do this as a class at school. Try to guide them to have a beginning, middle and end.
They don’t need to write the story down-they can just verbally tell you. They could also draw a picture for their story and then tell you about it.
20. Name Activities
One of the most important life skills is for young kids to know their name, be able to spell their name and identify which letters are in their name.
Have students rainbow trace their name, outline each letter with stickers or spell their name with magnets to mix it up a bit.
21. Use Alphabet Beads
Do you already own plastic alphabet beads? There are some letter-shaped ones out there, but any beads with letters will work for this activity. Plus, it incorporates fine motor work so it’s obviously one of my favorites!
Simply print any sort of alphabet cards (like these). I like to laminate them for durability. Tape half of a pipe cleaner on back so it sticks off the side of the card as shown. Provide students with alphabet beads and let them sort the beads by threading them on the pipe cleaner!
TIP: Starting with all 26 letters is probably too much for preschool or early kindergarten, but it’s up to you! It takes more planning, but I like to sort out and use only the first few letters we do for letter of the week.
22. Letter Hopscotch
This one is just like it sounds-your classic hopscotch games with letters on the board. For students that need the challenge, try putting sight words on the hopscotch board instead.
23. Use Clothespin Clipping Activities
Here’s yet another way to incorporate building fine motor strength with early literacy! You can use any type of clothespins that you have. I like the plastic ones because they’re colorful and there’s no risk for slivers.
Clothespin clip cards can cover virtually every early literacy skill you could think of. Here’s just one example:
24. Write Letters in Shaving Cream
Does anyone else remember doing this when they were in kindergarten? It’s the perfect activity because it’s hands on and exciting, plus you’ll have sparkly clean tables and desks when you’re done!
Here are a few ways to make shaving cream letter writing work in your classroom:
- Have students write their name in shaving cream (have them look at their name tag for reference)
- Have students write letters they know
- Call out a letter and have students write it
- Call out a letter sound and have students write the corresponding letter
- Call out CVC words and have students write them
25. Dab-it Alphabet Pages
Kindergartners love bingo daubers! They are perfect for keeping little hands busy, engaged and are even great for working on fine motor skills.
Students can use the bingo daubers to practice letter formation. You can print large letters or you could also use the dab-it pages from my Alphabet Fine Motor Pack. Another favorite activity is my “spot and dot” letter identification printables. They’re perfect for whole group activities, small group practice, and centers.
26. Letter-Sound Coloring Pages
If you are looking for a quick and east no-prep literacy activity, simply print these 26 letter-sound coloring pages and watch the magic happen! Students will color the pictures on that page that begin with that letter. Kids stay really engaged and focused during this since their hands and minds are busy.
They work really great for morning work or literacy centers also!
27. Story Sequencing Cards
Sequencing short stories and events is a skill all kids need help with. You can print out pictures yourself or buy some sequencing cards for your home or classroom.
28. Play “I Spy”
Playing I Spy is honestly just a great game to help with vocabulary and comprehension. You can play this as a class or in the car with your child! That is the best part of I Spy- you don’t need anything at all to play!
29. Fingerprint Letters
This fine motor activity idea is from Happy Toddler Playtime.
You’ll need a washable ink pad, paper and a marker. Start by writing large letters spread out on the paper. Then instruct your child to dip their finger on the ink pad and make fingerprints along each letter. This is a great way for little ones to start recognizing letter shapes even if they can’t quite trace with a pencil.
30. Play Memory Games
Memory is a classic game that can also be applied to many early literacy skills. From simple letter matching to reading CVC words, memory is easy to learn and simple enough for kindergarteners. I have several memory games in my Printable Literacy Games pack, so there’s no need to go reinvent the wheel!
31. Make Alphabet Mini Books
Mini books are something I absolutely love using in the classroom. They usually practice a variety of skills, and the book format adds a fun component. Students love taking their mini books home!
If you’d like to try a mini book, you can try my Letter A Mini Book for free! Just sign up below and I’ll send you my Letter A Activity Pack, which includes the letter A mini book shown above.
32. Create a Word Chain
This is a fun idea when you have about a 20 minute minimum block of time.
- Start by writing a simple word on the whiteboard or paper (e.g., “cat”).
- Explain to the students that you’re going to create a chain of words, where each word starts with the last letter of the previous word.
- Ask the first student to come up and say a word that starts with the last letter of the word you wrote (e.g., “cat” ends with “t,” so the next word could be “turtle”).
- Write down the new word.
- Continue the chain, with each student adding a new word to the list.
- If a student can’t think of a word, you can provide a hint or allow the next student to take their turn.
- Keep the chain going until everyone has had a turn or until you reach a designated stopping point.
33. Word Family Books
This is a set of five word family books. Students will cut out CVC words and pictures and sort them onto the correct word family page. You can have students work on one word family at a time, or they can work on two or more.
34. CVC Word Games for Early Readers
Games like these are really versatile and work for small groups and partner work. You only need to print them and throw in some small objects. Check out some different options below:
35. Try a Kindergarten Literacy Night at Your School!
Have students invite a family member to come up to literacy night with them to create eight Make & Take Literacy Activities!
What are your favorite literacy activities for kids?
No matter which ideas you use, we know that it’s easy to have fun while teaching kids about letters and boosting their phonological awareness. I hope these literacy activities help inspire you and make teaching even easier!
