Pre-Reading: Letter Match Game

Pre-Reading Activities

Here is a simple pre-reading activity for toddlers and preschoolers to draw their attention to the letters and match attributes even before they are ready to begin learning the letter names and sounds! This is the perfect independent pre-reading activity for kids to play on the refrigerator, so you can keep an on on them and entertained while you are cooking dinner!

Like many of you, we have had Letter Magnets on our refrigerator since our oldest began toddling around the kitchen. Our boys occasionally play with them, but it wasn’t until recently until I tried an activity I saw from Chalk in my Pocket that our magnets began to collecting a lot more attention! I am thrilled at how quickly they began working together to match up the letters.

Letter Match Game

1. Clear the bottom portion of your refrigerator.
2. Neatly write the alphabet letters to match those of the magnets you have available.
3. Write all capitals, all lowercase, the letters in order (for beginners), letters scrambled out of order (for children who are more familiar with their letters), and or a lower case and upper case letters scrambled.

Play the Reading Game

Start by playing the game with your child and drawing their attention to the attributes of the letter:

• What does the letter look like? fat, thin, how much points it has, straight, curvy, etc.
• Where is the letter match?
• Encourage them and cheer along beside them as they begin practicing.

Next, encourage them to work more independently.

• Change up the order or types of letters (upper case/lower case) as your child masters each matching game.
• Refer back to the list earlier in the post for different types of letter matching you can work on with your child.

You may want to take a look at these other fun pre-reading activities:

• Reading Games – an It’s Playtime link up of fun reading activities and games.
• Fun Reading Activities – Kids love rolling the Story Cube dice to create new sentences with familiar words.
• Sight Word Activity – This game has been a huge hit with non-reading kiddos, with newly reading kiddos and with the neighbors who are reading independently!