Raising Kids Activities Fun Phonics Activities for Your Preschooler By Apryl Duncan Apryl Duncan is a stay-at-home mom and internationally-published writer with years of experience providing advice to others like her. Learn about our editorial process Apryl Duncan Fact checked by Fact checked by Shereen Lehman, MS on May 13, 2020 Shereen Lehman, MS, is a healthcare journalist and fact checker. She has co-authored two books for the popular Dummies Series (as Shereen Jegtvig). Learn about our editorial process Shereen Lehman, MS Updated on May 13, 2020 Print Phonics activities can be educational and fun at the same time. Get your kids excited about learning with fun phonics challenges that teach and inspire them at the same time. Start with 7 fun phonics activities that help your kids learn to read. 1 Hunt for Letters Indeed / Getty Images Who knew learning phonics could be so much fun? Turn old magazines and catalogs into phonics activities that develop your child's comprehension even further. Pick a letter and spot everything in the catalog that has the same phonetic sound. Grab the scissors and cut those items out of the pages. Together you'll make a customized flashcard as you learn the letter and its sound. Kids will have the visual of the word, such as alligator, along with the letter you're studying. You only need a few household items to get started. Activity Books to Keep Kids Busy 2 Teach Phonics Through Picture-Taking Tap into their creative mind when you hand them a camera and send them on a phonics adventure. Help them spot objects that navigate them from A to Z through photos. They can snap pictures of everything from an anthill to a Zamboni. The lesson continues at home when your child makes their own alphabet book with their pictures. The activity never gets old and can be used to capture a field trip, vacation or regular day with mom or dad through their eyes. 3 Spell Phonetically Help them practice writing skills as you spell words for them phonetically. Once they know the phonetic sounds of the alphabet (aah, buh, cuh, etc.), they'll be able to spell and comprehend all of those words he sees in his storybooks. Get them a notebook and help them create lists that cover everything from their favorite toys to games they like to play. Sound out every letter so they can write the word themself. For example, if they like cars, sound out cuh so they'll write the letter C, then aah for the letter A and so on. 4 Play Alphabet Ball Burn some of your child's endless supply of energy. Play phonics activities that teach them letters, letter sounds, and words. Alphabet ball is a multifaceted game that grows with them and can be adapted to fit a variety of school subjects. There are three levels of play—one for toddlers, one for preschoolers and one for school-age children. To get started all you need are a ball, marker and a child who loves to play. 5 Use Worksheets Print free worksheets from your computer to work with them on each letter and its sound. This is one of the most basic phonics activities your child can do and it's easy to get started. As they become more confident with letters, this phonics activity will give you a mini-break because they can sit close by while you're working, cooking dinner, or folding laundry. Since you'll be an arm's reach away, you can periodically ask them questions about the letter as you work on something else. 6 Read Phonics Books Dig right into phonics books to give them a head start in reading comprehension. Many phonics programs include books that are written specifically for beginning readers. Sit down for some one-on-one time to tackle letter sounds and sight words. You can make reading fun for them, which will make them look forward to sitting down with a good book in the future. They'll feel a sense of pride and accomplishment as they flip the pages and learns to read each word. They'll become eager to get their hands on even more books, which is a habit that will encourage a lifelong love of reading. How Parents Can Improve a Child's Reading Skills 7 Watch Phonics DVDs They can learn even when you don't feel like playing phonics activities right along with them. Their noggin can still get a workout with some of the top phonics DVDs available on the market today. Watch the programs with them and talk about them later to test their memory recall. Engaging them in a conversation about what they watched helps reinforce what they saw and includes you in the phonics activity, even though your DVD player helped lend a hand in the teaching department. Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Get expert tips to help your kids stay healthy and happy. Sign Up You're in! Thank you, {{form.email}}, for signing up. There was an error. Please try again. What are your concerns? Other Inaccurate Hard to Understand Submit Article Sources Verywell Family uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy. Piasta SB, Wagner RK. Learning letter names and sounds: effects of instruction, letter type, and phonological processing skill. J Exp Child Psychol. 2010;105(4):324-44. doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2009.12.008