The following 15 early literacy lesson plans are brought to you by the National Center for Learning Disabilities to be used with activity cards that accompany the Get Ready to Read! program. Get Ready to Read! is a national initiative to build the early literacy skills of preschool-age children.

Lesson Plans:

Pick a Letter-Alphabet Recognition/Printing Letters (Grades Pre-K - K): Students will be shown a large alphabet letter. Teacher names the letter and students repeat the name. Students analyze the shape of the letter and describe how to form the letter. Students are then given the opportunity to touch or form the letter in various formats, such as, touching the letter covered in sandpaper, tracing the letter with crayons and then gluing beans, cheerios, or popcorn onto the letter, or forming the letter using Play-Doh.

Mystery Sound-Identifying Beginning Sounds (Grades Pre-K - K): Students will become aware that words have beginning sounds. They will be able to identify the beginning sound of a given word. Students will be able to think of words that begin with a given letter.

My Word Box-Classroom Environmental Print Recognition (Grades Pre-K - K): Identifying words will be written on various items or locations in the classroom. The students will be introduced to those words as they use the items. A word box will be created. Each day one of the words will be added to the box, after the word has been reintroduced, discussed, spelled, and read. Prior to a new word being added, review the previous words already placed in the box and practice reading them.

Be an Expert Listener (Grades Pre-K - K): Students will be able to listen to various sounds. After listening to given sounds students will able to reproduce given sounds. They will also be able to decide if given sounds are the same or different and be able to match sounds that are the same.

Word Jump (Pre-Activity) (Grades Pre-K - K): Student will learn to identify animal names and match animal pictures with the beginning consonant sound.

Walk on a Letter: Alphabet Recognition (Grades Pre-K - K): Students will be shown a large alphabet letter. The teacher will name the letter and the children will repeat the letter and say the beginning phonetic sounds of the letter. Children analyze the shape of the letter and think about how to form the letter using their bodies. The children will give directions to create the letter on the floor by telling the children to lie down to form the shape. (Example: A capital A is made of one child lying on a diagonal on the left, another child lying on a diagonal on the right, and another child lying across in the middle.) Say the name of the letter and brainstorm with children words that begin with that letter.

Stretched-Out Story (Pre-activity) (Grades Pre-K - K): Student will learn to blend sounds together to make words.

Word Puzzles (Pre-Activity) (Grades Pre-K - K): Student will learn to put parts of a simple puzzle together. Students will learn to differentiate between pictures and words.

Name Memory (Pre-Activity) (Grades Pre-K - K): Student will learn to identify animal names and match animal pictures.

My Name Has Letters (Grades Pre-K - K): Student will learn to recognize his/her own name in print. Student will be able to identify own name out of a group of other written names.

My Favorite Book (Pre-Activity) (Grades Pre-K - K): Student will learn to sort items by category and use. Students will learn that words stand for concepts/categories.

Making a Menu of Healthy Choices (Grades Pre-K - K): : As part of a preliminary study of menus and print, students will identify plastic and real food products. They will discuss if the food is a healthy, wise choice or an unhealthy choice for their body. Students will then sort and place items under a card labeled ‘YES’ for a healthy choice and ‘NO’ for an unhealthy choice.

How Many Words? (Pre-Activity) (Grades Pre-K - K): Student will learn that a sentence is made up of words.

Find the Rhymes (Pre-Activity) (Grades Pre-K - K): Student will learn to listen for rhyming words at the ends of certain song lines.

Draw to the Music Learning to Listen for Sounds (Grades Pre-K - K): Students will identify that music is made of different sounds and rhythms. They will be able to define vocabulary that explains music such as fast, slow, loud, and soft. They will be able to move their bodies to demonstrate music speed and make their voices and body movements reflect loud and soft.