beginner language activities for preschoolers

Here are a few suggestions for very beginning language activities for a 2-4 year-old.

Tracing worksheets – I had no idea this was so important, and to be done prior to even practicing letters. It makes sense though, as this is easier!

Visual discrimination worksheets– sounds really official, right? It’s really just a  “which face/dog/house is different”? exercise. The same skill that makes you look closely for a difference will be used later in identifying different letters!

Letter sorting – find a set of plastic letters like these. Each week, introduce a letter. Let the kids handle the uppercase and lowercase, throw it, hide it, talk about if they have lines or circles, etc. Then play “find the…” with the letters you’ve introduced, adding one letter each week. Hopefully by the end students can identify all uppercase and lowercase!

Letter Hunt – Print off a bunch of “a”s (upper and lower). Hide them around the room. Have students go on an “a” hunt and then sort upper and lower in different buckets. Repeat with each letter.

Beginning sound cut-and-paste activities like these are great for teaching sounds!

Practice forming letters – with stick pretzels or playdough

Letter hunt – Children choose any 10 letters from the letter manipulatives. Go through a stack of shuffled letter cards, calling out each letter to the children. As the letters are called out, children look to see if they have that letter, and if they do, the letter is put back in the letter tub. We see who is first to clear all of their letters (like a bingo game). If the kids are too competitive, we play until everyone has cleared all of their letters.
*To teach letter sounds: Call out a word and have children identify the first letter of the word. {Read more: http://prekinders.com/alphabet-letter-identification-activities/#ixzz27LIggrkb}