For children developing literacy skills, being able to put things in sequential order is important. Sequencing reinforces children's ability to retell stories. Add a sequencing station for early childhood students. Find either pictures or line drawings of activities like building a snowman, a flower growing or brushing teeth. For young children around 4 years of age, start with sequences of no more than three steps; for children who have had exposure to sequencing, use up to five steps in each sequence. Sequencing pictures and cards are available online and in most teacher supply stores.
Young children enjoy working with tactile items like stamps. Provide students with a selection of stamps with letters and pictures on them. Add a "stamp-a-story" literacy center to the early childhood curriculum. Provide students with paper and help them stamping out words or their names. For an advanced challenge, ask them to stamp pictures with the beginning or ending sound of the picture they stamped. As literacy develops, students will be able to form simple sentences using the letter stamps.
Add a "making words" station to the early childhood curriculum. This activity is important for the reinforcement of phonemic awareness skills. Students are provided with several letters, usually no more than five. Make sure at least one letter is a vowel. Students use the letters to put together as many words as possible. Students use their knowledge of letter sounds to create words. In addition to phonemic awareness, this activity can build vocabulary as students begin to recognize words and to spell them correctly.
Add a "book box" to the early childhood curriculum. Make a comfortable place for little ones to read with bean bag chairs and pillows. In the center, place a box filled with wordless books, popular ABC books, favorite nursery rhymes, predictable books and favorite books read in class by the teachers. Provide students with book buddies for when they use the book box. (Book buddies are small stuffed animals and puppets with whom students will read their stories.) The more students are exposed to the written word, the more quickly they will begin to read and increase their literacy skills.