Reading Activities for Kindergarteners
It is important, as your child’s teacher, to get him (or her) interested in books and reading. You want your child to ultimately develop good reading habits. It will be good to take your child to the public library – even though most parents who have access to the internet have got a “built-in library”, it’s still good to go out.
Then your toddler/child will see other kids taking an avid interest in books – this can only be good! Many times, young children enjoy being read to. I know I did. And when you are at the public library, give your child plenty of time to browse – so he/she can develop interests.
And when your student is old enough, you could consider joining an audio book club; and encourage your kids to do things which might help speed along the learning – like having a fun spelling bee, or doing a game where reading is involved (Learning Resources Snap It Up! Phonics and Reading Card Game, Word Families – at Amazon)
As a homeschooler, you desire your student(s) to achieve wonderful reading habits. Make a study of what this might require – of course, the things I’ve already mentioned are a good starting point – but if you have a dyslexic student, or one who seems uninspired when it comes to reading, it could just be something as simple as your child needing glasses 
, or it may be something else. Then, a bit of work is required on your part. It may take some time. First a trip to the eye doctor, or regular doctor, to rule most everything out.
Then if everything seems alright, and it is a matter of inspiring your student (& getting him involved), you can go on field trips – have an agenda which is tied in with reading – so for instance, attending a “Read Aloud” session at the local library fits the bill. Or a special play involving the alphabet (for real young kids) could be in order. Or even have your own play; you can script one real easily, and have your young child as the star.
Children learn when they participate – so doing things like theatrical plays is a great idea. Here’s another one – have your kids interact together (work together) – they can create their own play. Just give them some guidelines ..
Sing, Spell, Read & Write for Pre-schoolers
At an early age kids should start to learn to recognize letters; the earlier the better – and a FUN way to do this is with sing-alongs, where kids can begin to learn phonetics. There is a teacher’s manual with more than 100 activity sheets (224 age-appropriate activities ), sing-along songs on CD as well as 5 audiocassettes; also coloring, tracing, letter recognition, auditory discrimination, counting 1-10, letter sounds, and oral vocabulary development.
There is also an “ABC Number Line strip” and some more fun exercises . It is around $75 and can be found here (I don’t make a commission, it’s only a suggestion).
Preschoolers Homeschooling: In Short What Have We Discovered Here?
By doing things in the classroom (Like the aforementioned singalongs) which are fun for young kids (preschoolers), you can get them interested in learning – and not bored.
A natural progression with your reading activities with your youngster is that after you read a passage from a story, have them tell you what it was about. Then you’ll have an idea as to what level of listening ability and understanding they are at, and the child can begin to build his vocabulary as he works to find new words to describe the story. (*Keep Records – espec. if you teach several students)
Good reading activities don’t always have to occur at the house, or just before bedtime. While you’re running errands or on vacation, perhaps have the kids begin to collect words from signs, or spell objects they see. Encourage them to learn different ways to describe the objects they see. Instead of something big, it may be “huge”, or “enormous”… or even of gargantuan proportion!
Getting Creative: Come up With Reading Games
Have your child arrange the words they have collected into silly sentences or phrases. Even something as simple as collecting letters from signs, license plates, and such to work their way through the alphabet is a good kindergarten age reading activity.
Not in the car, or travel around much? Use every day items around the house to do the same thing. Labels, there are plenty of labels around the house. Actually put labels on everyday items around the house so your child can associate the spelling, and reading with a tangible item. Then, after a while, take the labels off the items and help your child read and re-label the house.
Once you get your creative juices flowing, you’ll come up with many more reading activities. The key is to make reading activities an everyday part of life. Make an effort to spend an hour a day reading more – with an hour less of television.
T.V. is an extremely passive thought processing activity. Whereas reading and using one’s imagination is a source of growth – and a great foundation from which to build.
Copyright Healthy Kids
