These free Pre-K reading activities can help your child get an early start on reading!

Conversation Skills

December is often a time for families to gather and spend time together for the holidays. Have a conversation with your child about how a family is made up of people who love one another. Ask them to talk about their family. Who are the people in your family? What do you love about the people in your family? What are some things that your family does that are special to you?

Print Awareness

• Enlist visiting family members, grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles to read with your child.
• If family members ask for gift ideas for your child, suggest they give them a great book. Try one of these: Favorite Books for Pre-K Children. Don’t forget to suggest crayons, coloring books and paper to help with their writing skills, too!
• December is also a time when many children are at home on break from school. Use this extra free time to get in more reading throughout the day.

Read a Book Online for Free

Using your library card number your child they can visit TumbleBooks, an online collection of animated, talking picture books, or the NC Kids Digital Library to choose from hundreds of picture books that will read aloud as your child follows along.

• • TumbleBooks TumbleBooks can be read by you or read to you!

• • NC Kids Digital Library (Free, requires library card number)

Go to “Collections” and select “Read Alongs” to choose from hundreds of picture books that will read aloud as your child follows along in the story.

Phonemic Awareness

Singing holiday songs with your children is a wonderful way for them to learn new words, distinguish sounds from words, and articulate words clearly.

Letter Knowledge

Letters: l, h

•  L, l is for library
  • Read:
    • Lola at the Library by Anna McQuinn
    • Library Lion by Michelle Knudson
  • Write: Make an L out of Lego or blocks. After you make your L trace it with your finger.
•  H, h is for hat
  • Read: Old Hat, New Hat by Stan and Jan Berenstein
  • Write: Make H out of straws or popsicle sticks.
  • What other letters can you make out of popsicle sticks? (T, L, M)
  • Read: Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson

Write: Write letter H with a purple crayon. What other letters can you write in purple? What story can you write using a purple crayon?

Writing

Draw a picture of your family. Help your child make stick figures if they want your assistance. Write the first letter of the each person’s name underneath the family member’s drawing.

Create holiday cards to give to family members. Even having your child copy a holiday greeting that you wrote is wonderful writing practice for your child. Then, let them be creative in drawing and coloring the picture.

• Color, color, color! Coloring is excellent practice for children to develop their fine-motor skills.