* Have your child practice printing his or her name in lower case letters (Nayda instead of NAYDA) Say the name of each letter aloud as he or she prints it to help reinforce letter recognition.
* Encourage motor skill practice (cutting, drawing, doing dot-to-dots, using small tools, playing with playdough, etc.) We are really focussing on working on improving the children's fine motor skills. This means we will be doing a lot of projects involving cutting, tracing, printing and colouring. Those children that have difficulty with these types of activities may find it very challenging. Please help me to remind them that it doesn't have to be "perfect"- they just need to try their best!! You may want to encourage some of these activities at home too.
*Read picture books to your child daily in English! Have them point out or read familiar letters or words. Reading rhyming books and having your child guess the rhyming word is an excellent way of preparing them for learning to read.
*Practice number and letter recognition. Children who know the names of the letters and numbers in English usually learn them very quickly in French. Start with the letters of their name. Starting with 26 letters at once is far too overwhelming! Print your child's name on a piece of cardstock and cut it up (between each letter). Have the children put the letters back in the correct order, repeating each letter out loud. Do this for 5 minutes each day. Once the child knows the letters in their name, add other names of people in your family, one at a time.
*Do not do anything for your child that they can do themselves!! Encourage independence.
*Play card games like "Go Fish!" to help practice number recognition.
*Encourage your child to count groups of objects as often as possible (cutlery, plates, cups when helping in the kitchen, etc.)
* Practice counting small groups of objects to 10 in French.
*Limit screen time (both TV and computer).