This page has a plethora of activities to do when you teach your child to read. Keep checking back to find new and interesting things to do with your child so that you keep the variety in your activities and keep both your child’s and your interest levels high.

Ideas for activities to help with learning phonics:

•    Make a large copy of the letter to learn and trace it holding your child’s finger, starting in the correct place to form the letter correctly. Say the letter sound and get them to repeat it as you trace over the letter.

•    Get some lowercase magnetic letters for the fridge or a whiteboard and find the one that you are learning.

•    Build a list of animals, places, names or anything which begins with the letter sound being learnt.

•    Say words slowly, stretching them out, and see if your child can hear the sound within the word. Give words that do have the sound and others that don’t to see if they can distinguish the sound accurately.

•    Play ‘I Spy’ with the letter sound.

•    Let your child write the letter, always with help to make sure they are starting in the right place and forming it correctly. Use shiny or glittery pens as well as pencils, and children love using special ‘grown-up’ pens that they are not usually allowed to use and could be reserved for this ‘special writing’.

•    Paint the letter, forming it correctly, with finger paints, water colours, or ready-mixed paints and a paint brush.

•    Write the letter in a tray covered in sand, shaving foam, jelly, cornflour mixed with water or anything else you can think of that will provide an interesting sensory experience.

•    Go outside in the sun and write the letter on the floor with a big, wide paintbrush and some water. See how many they can write before the sun evaporates them.

•    Make a ‘rainbow letter’ by writing the letter over and over again on top of each other with different colours.

•    ‘Write’ the letter with play dough or plasticine.

•    Look for the letter in Mum or Dad’s magazine, book or newspaper.

•    Look for the letter when you are out and about in shop signs or road signs.

•    If you don’t have or don’t know of a commercial scheme with a song for each sound, make one up! For example to the tune of ‘Skip to my loo’:

a is for apple a,a,a,
a is for apple a,a,a
a is for apple a,a,a
An apple for Anita.

(remember to include the letter sound, and NOT its name)