Reading aloud to students should be the primary project in any preschool language arts program. Students learn many different aspects of language through reading, including tone, inflection and vocabulary. Refine the students' listening skills by asking questions in appropriate places throughout the story. Encourage students to answer your questions using complete sentences. You can mix art with story time by having your students draw a picture of a scene from the book as they are listening. Encourage the love of literature by using extra reading time as a reward in the classroom.
Narration occurs when a student hears a story and then re-tells the story in his own words. Narration is an important building block when learning to communicate effectively. To make narration fun and less intimidating, group your preschoolers together and instruct them to act out the chapter that was just read. Walk around and observe the narrations for accuracy. After watching a group's skit, ask questions about the skit to encourage verbal narrations. Using this method will take the pressure off a single student while boosting confidence in the classroom.
Nursery rhymes are a fundamental piece in the language arts puzzle. The rhythm, vocabulary, cadence and intonations of the rhyme instruct the student in the basics of the spoken word. Nursery rhymes make memorizing large passages simple with their fun beat, silly story and new vocabulary words. A preschool student with a large repertoire of nursery rhymes is better able to begin learning phonics sounds and reading. The student learns to hear a story in his head, which must precede seeing a story in his head through reading.
Making phonics flash cards is a fun way for preschool students to internalize the sounds of letters. Write a printed upper and lower case letter, accompanied by a picture associated with the sound, or use a printed phonics coloring page. This will give the student a visual reference for each letter. Instruct the student to glue the phonics page onto a piece of construction paper and then color the drawing. Introduce no more than one new flash card every three to five days. Practice the sound of each flash card daily.