A book series provides consistent characters that go on many adventures throughout the length of the series. The good thing about using a book series is that it teaches character development, encourages reading comprehension and keeps the preschool child's attention. When choosing a book series, it's important to choose one that is appropriate for preschool aged children. Little Critter and Maisy Mouse are two good book series examples. They are simple and relatively short to read. Plus, the main characters have problems that preschool-aged kids relate to. Learning how to tie your shoes or starting school are things a preschooler would be interested in.
Phonemic awareness involves sound recognition in words. According to the Begin to Read website, "Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds-phonemes --- in spoken words." Dr. Seuss books are good books to use to teach phonemic awareness. The strange, made-up words cause you to really pay attention to the letters when sounding out words. Preschool kids most likely aren't reading at this level, but hearing you sound them out and letting them follow along will help them down the road.
Every book store has a section for children's educational books. This is where you will find word family books. A word family is any group of words that have the same order of letters in them somewhere in the word. For example, the words "cat," "hat," "mat," "bat" and "sat" are all in the same word family because of the "-at" ending. Reading books that contain word families can help kids become better readers. Reading them over and over again will help preschool kids learn that certain combinations make specific sounds. "Word Family Tales" is a series that involves several word family books for young children.
Publishing companies make it a point to publish giant workbooks filled with practice worksheets. Finding workbooks for your preschool-aged child shouldn't be difficult. These are good practice sheets, as long as you sit down and help your child through the pages. Stretch it out to only two to three pages a week, unless, of course, your child really enjoys the challenge and wants to keep pushing. These books are filled with letter, number, shape, color and hand-writing practice. "Spectrum Basic Concepts Preschool" or "The Super Deluxe Basic Series: Preschool Workbook" are two examples to check out.