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ABC, Easy as 123 – How Parents Can Promote Early Literacy

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This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

Parents can promote early literacy with their children by using fun games and simple activities even before they start school.

TeachMamaTo give us tips and tricks to help prepare children for learning to read and write, we have brought Amy from Teachmama.com on board to share a 4-week early literacy series.

Amy, creator of teachmama.com, is a Reading Specialist, Literacy Consultant, and freelance writer. She’s passionate about helping parents learn how to teach their children to read and write. Amy shares her insight as a teacher and mother to help us all discover more about promoting early literacy.

Mother teaching her young daughter how to spell her name. Text overlay says: Mother and preschool age son learning to write at a table. Text overlay says: How Parents Can Promote Early Literacy

Whether we’re homeschooling our children, sending them off each morning to attend school, or working with our little ones to get them ready for kindergarten, all of us want to help encourage our children as they learn and grow.

We teach our babies to eat, smile, and trust us. We teach our toddlers to talk, walk, and (okay, eventually) sleep on their own. We teach our kids to communicate effectively with others, we teach them manners, and we teach them to go off to preschool or daycare with confidence.

But I have found that many parents want to do more to support their children’s learning, and I think if parents knew what to do, they would do it. One of the best ways for parents to make a positive impact on their children’s education is learning a few strategies to promote early literacy.

magnetic letters

We put a lot of trust into our children’s teachers, but there’s also a ton of really easy, meaningful, and sneaky ways that parents can enhance their own children’s education at home in the form of games and play. With the right support, parents really can be fantastic teachers for their children, yielding a stronger school-ready foundation for their little ones and a little more intentional family time together.

What I do at my home–and what I share at teachmama.com–reflects some of the ways that I try to sneak in a little bit of learning every day for my three children, ages 6, 4, and 3. Believe me, I’m far from a perfect parent; I pray every day for patience and strength, and there are many days when our learning falls to the wayside, and I yearn for an hour commute to anywhere.

But as a former high school English teacher and now a certified K-12 Reading Specialist, I know there are really easy ways of preparing my kiddos for school—-or enhancing their learning at school–that sometimes takes all of five minutes of our day. And most times, my kids don’t even realize they’re learning.

For example, parents can play simple DIY educational games such as creating an ABC Hunt Game that helps children learn the names and sounds of alphabet letters.

Homemade ABC hunt game with alphabet letters to promote early literacy

I’m excited to be on board with 5 Minutes for Mom.com and to be able to share some of these “teacher tricks” with the incredible community of readers here.

I will be writing about what I’m doing—and what other parents can do—to better prepare their children for school.

Over the next four weeks, I’ll be cover many literacy tips and strategies for oral language, concepts of print, phonics, and phonemic awareness. And I’ll introduce terms you’ll need to know to decode teacher jargon and to understand report cards.

Mother and preschool age son learning to write at a table. Text overlay says: How Parents Can Promote Early Literacy

Read The Complete 4-Week Early Literacy Series

UPDATE: Now that this series about “How Parents Can Promote Early Literacy” is complete, you can find all four posts here…

  1. ABC, Easy as 123 – How Parents Can Promote Early Literacy
  2. Teaching Sounds and Syllables using Names
  3. Celebrating Names: Play With Letters
  4. How To Teach A Child To Write Their Name

 

Discover More Ways to Support Your Child’s Education

During the years since Amy shared this early literacy series with us here at 5 Minutes for Mom, we’ve continued publishing more resources to help parents support their children’s education.

In the following blog posts, you’ll learn more about how to help your children improve their literacy skills…

 

Written by 5 Minutes for Mom contributor, Amy Mascott who owns the popular website Teachmama.com.
Originally published: March 29, 2010
Updated: October 1, 2023

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13 Comments

  1. I cannot wait to read these. I have a 3 year old who wasn’t hearing the first 1+ years of life. We fixed that and then came the speech therapy. She is talking/learning/communicating where she should be now. I couldn’t believe all the things I learned throughout her therapy. I wish I had taken notes. I am going to start homeschooling my soon to be 3rd grader next year and I know my 3 and 2 year olds will want to join in. Easy, fun learning ideas for them will be soooo helpful!

    Reply

  3. I’m so excited to see you here! Congratulations!

    I do have one question that maybe you could address. My 3yr old is tending to use his left hand more and more often when grasping a crayon, paintbrush, or anything else remotely fine motor. My hubby and I are righties. How do I help him learn to write, hold a writing utensil, help him write and draw? I don’t want to teach him ‘incorrectly’ and find him having problems later on because I was working with him wrong.

    Thank you! Can’t wait to read more of your writing over here!

    Tricia (momistheonlygirl.blogspot.com)

    Reply

  5. Congratulations and good luck with your new position! As a mother of five and an educator, I am also trying to support parents in educating their children. My web site is at:

    http://www.littleones.com/

    Please take a look and let me know what you think!

    Thanks,
    Lisa Cartolano
    Little Ones Education and Parenting Resource

    Reply

  8. I was laid off last year in March so instead of sending my daughter to preschool, I’m homeschooling her. She’ll be starting kindy this fall. I have to admit it was no easy task teaching my daughter at first because I honestly didn’t know what to do or where to start off. I bought skill-building interactive cds from The Learning Company and lots of books for my daughter. I also relied on what I remembered my two eldest kids were taught when they were in preschool to teach my little one now. She can write her alphabet in upper and lowercase but I hope to learn from you future posts on how to improve how to properly teach her to write her letters properly. I look forward to learning tips and ideas from you.

    Reply

  9. Thanks, friends, for the warm welcome! I’m so happy to be here!

    Susan–I’ll write more about this later because so many people wonder the same thing (we’re so rarely alone in our parental questions/ struggles, right?), but essentially, kiddos need to be taught the ‘tripod’ grip–how to properly hold a pencil/ crayon/ etc. From there, there are ‘better’ ways of forming letters, which I’ll cover in another post. If children are correctly forming letters in their own style of writing, that’s one thing, but if they really are off and the letters are illegible, then it’s time for some help!

    Reply

  11. Amy, I am so excited for this new series and I want to thank you for joining us!

    I really need your tips and ideas to help me teach Julia and Sophia more at home. (I’m not a homeschooler… Julia goes to preschool and will be attending Kindergarten in the fall. Sophia will start preschool in the fall.)

    I find myself constantly wondering what more I can do to help them learn while playing and I know these posts are going to help so much.

    I’m also definitely going go to spend some time at your site.

    One concern I have is how to help teach my almost 5 year old to print her letters following the correct strokes… I’m not even sure how to describe that… does that make sense?

    For example, when Julia is writing her name, she especially struggles with the lowercase “a”. But she tends to want to just form it “her” way and not let me show her how it is supposed to be written. So far I haven’t wanted to discourage her independence and I haven’t worried that she’s not quite shaping the “a” correctly.

    But I’m wondering… how can I encourage her to shape her letters correctly and with the suggested strokes that the workbooks offer? When I try to do hand-over-hand, she tends to get upset and wants to do it herself.

    Thanks Amy!

    Reply

  12. So nice to see you over here, Amy!! Congrats on the new gig, and I’m looking forward to even more of your wisdom in this forum. 🙂

    Reply

  13. Super congrats on your awesome new gig! I am so excited that you are joining this great group of ladies so your fun ideas can gain an even greater readership! Hooray!

    Reply