For preschool teachers: reading readiness activities?

Question

im a teacher in a 1 month reading program offered by our school. It turned out that most of the children enrolled did not have any background whatsover with the alphabet (that is, letter recognitions and their sounds). In spite of their age, 4&5, two of my students are not ready to for kindergarten. Because of this, my 1 & a half hour with the children is largely spent on playing with playdough, pegboards, puzzles and playing with each other. I feel guilty that a very small amount of our time is being spent on teaching them. I only taught them letters a & b and they vaguely remember its sounds. What can I do? With their very short attention span, and our very short reading program.. Your feedback and suggestions will be very much appreciated.. Thanks!

Answer 1

Have you looked up different approaches like Jolly Phonics, Letterland etc to make it fun and stimulating?

What about teaching through play eg: when playing playdough make letter shapes, have laminated letters for them to place dough on, have shape cutters that are letters etc...you can have letter jigsaws, rhyme jigsaws.

Basically look at the curriculum that the younger children eg: 2-3, 3-4's follow and build from that-they need to start at the beginning rather than being expected to be "4 and 5"!!!

If they have short spans then do things in 15 minutes batches with breaks or play in between esp for group work...or have the session with a period of freeplay where children can choose own activities (you can have on tables letter/reading based games  so its still literacy) this may support them in feeling god about themselves, like they are accomplishing!