Early Literacy: Play

Play is one of the best ways to support your child in developing their early literacy skills. There are many ways in which you can incorporate language and literacy into everyday play – and the best part is that it’s fun too!

• Talk about the size, shape, colour, and texture of toys while your child plays with them
• Make animal sounds while pretending to be animals
• Share new words while pretending to be somewhere else (in space, in a jungle, at the beach, under the sea, etc.)
• Play at reading menus, grocery lists, prescriptions in doctors’ offices. Show your child that that words are in the world all around us and they’re important!
• Have fun with rhymes. Pick a word and see how many other words you and your child can find that rhyme with it. Read books with lots of rhymes in them or sing nursery rhymes together.
• When you are writing a grocery list, give your child a crayon and paper and let them do the same. Playing at writing is learning to write!