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

Conversation

Let’s get ready for Kindergarten this fall by having your child memorize YOUR first and last name (in case of an emergency), your phone number and their home address. Ask your family to help by working with your child as well. Make it a game!

Print Awareness

While driving in the car with your child, ask them to spell words they see on big signs, like STOP. See if they can guess what it says. If it’s too difficult for them to spell all the letters, have them just tell you the first letter.

Phonemic Awareness

Play the alphabet game and include sounds. While driving in the car, think of things from summer and start with the letter A. For example, you start by saying “A is for ants at a picnic, aaaa.” Then your child would do the letter b, for example, “b is for beach ball, b,b,b”. Continue on until you finish the whole alphabet! Remember to include the sound each letter makes.

Letter Knowledge

Letters: q, z

• Q, q is for quilt, quack
  • Read:
    • The Quiltmaker’s Gift by Jeff Brumbea
    • Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey
  • Write the letter Q on these tracing pages.

• Z, z is for zoo
  • Read: Going to the Zoo by Tom Paxton
  • Read: AlphaOops! The Day Z went First by Althea Kontis
  • Write the letter Z  using sidewalk chalk. Then use a thick paintbrush to paint over it with water. Watch it turn to chalk paint!

Practice all the letters of the alphabet at ABCYa.com, a free educational website for children.

• Alphabet Bingo
• Alphabet Slider Puzzle
• Monster Mansion Letter Match
• Connect the Dots ABC

(Note: Kids can access all games for this website from a home computer for free, however the app for phones and tablets costs a monthly fee. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg library has ABCYa.com on all computers, at all branch locations for kids to use.)

Writing

Get your child excited to write by offering some new “tools”. Get them a clipboard,  notepad, calculator, pens, and a pretend phone. Let them pretend to be in an office, on a worksite, or in a restaurant and engage in dramatic play. These new tools will inspire a new desire to write while giving them a purpose to practice.