Play is one of the most natural ways children learn. When children pretend, build, sort, move, explore, and make up stories, they are practicing the same thinking and communication skills they will use as readers.
Through play, children can:
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Learn new words through real experiences
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Practice listening and following directions
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Build imagination and storytelling skills
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Notice patterns, categories, and cause-and-effect
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Strengthen problem-solving and critical thinking
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Connect language to movement, objects, and ideas
Play does not have to be complicated to support literacy. A blanket fort, a pile of laundry, a favorite stuffed animal, or a few minutes of pretend play can help children build language, curiosity, and confidence in ways that feel fun and natural.
Ages Birth - 24 Months
When reading books about animals, pause to make the animal sounds together. Point to the animal, name it, and say the sound clearly, like “The cow says moo.” This keeps reading playful while helping your child connect words, pictures, sounds, and meaning.
Make Animal Sounds While Reading
Use stuffed animals, dolls, or simple toys to act out a story your child enjoys. You can move the toys, use different voices, and repeat familiar parts of the story. Acting out stories helps babies and toddlers connect language with action, imagination, and early storytelling.
Act Out a Favorite Story With Stuffed Animals
Place sturdy books near your child’s toys so books feel like a natural part of playtime. Let your child reach for books, carry them, open them, and explore them alongside their favorite toys. Keeping books within reach helps children see books as familiar, enjoyable objects.
Keep Books with Toys
Let your child play with sturdy books by stacking them, carrying them, opening them, or even building a small tower and knocking it down. This kind of exploration helps babies and toddlers become comfortable handling books. When books are part of play, children begin building positive feelings about reading.
Play with Books
Hold your baby in front of a mirror and ask, “Where is [Baby’s Name]?” When your baby looks or reacts, smile and say, “There you are!” Mirror play supports bonding, attention, self-recognition, and early back-and-forth communication.
Play Mirror Games
Ages 2-4 Years
When reading books about animals, pause to make the animal sounds together. Point to the animal, name it, and say the sound clearly, like “The cow says moo.” This keeps reading playful while helping your child connect words, pictures, sounds, and meaning.
Make Animal Sounds While Reading
Let your child play with sturdy books by stacking them, carrying them, opening them, or building a small tower and knocking it down. This kind of exploration helps children feel comfortable handling books. When books are part of play, children begin building positive feelings about reading.
Play with Books
Use bath toys or safe household objects to explore what sinks and what floats. Say the words “sink” and “float” often while your child watches what happens. This playful experiment builds vocabulary, observation skills, and early scientific thinking.
Explore Sink and Float
Write individual letters on cards, turn them face down, and invite your child to look for matches. When they turn over a card, say the letter name together. This turns letter recognition into a simple game that supports memory, attention, and early print awareness.
Play Homemade Letter Matching Games
Collect scraps of different fabrics, such as lace, corduroy, cotton, or silk. Let your child touch each piece while you describe it with words like soft, bumpy, smooth, or scratchy. Sensory play helps children build descriptive vocabulary while noticing differences in the world around them.
Explore Fabric Textures
Build a simple blanket fort and bring books inside with a flashlight. Let your child choose a book and make the reading space feel cozy and special. This turns reading into an imaginative play experience and helps children associate books with comfort and fun.
Build a Blanket Fort and Read Inside
Invite your child to help sort laundry into color groups. Say the color name for each item, hand it to your child, and let them place it in the correct pile. Sorting builds vocabulary, categorization skills, and attention to similarities and differences.
Sort Laundry by Color
Play with compound words by taking familiar words apart and putting them together. You might ask, “What word do we have if we take cake away from pancake?” or “What happens if we put cow and boy together?” This helps children notice that words can be made of smaller meaningful parts.
Play With Compound Words
Ask silly yes-or-no questions like, “Is the sky purple?” or “Can a cat drive a car?” Encourage your child to answer and explain why. This playful game builds comprehension, reasoning, and expressive language.
Play the Yes-No Game
Use letter magnets to create silly made-up words together. Say the sounds out loud and invite your child to try blending them. Nonsense words help children practice letter sounds in a playful, low-pressure way.
Build Nonsense Words With Letter Magnets
Ages 5-8 Years
When reading books about animals, pause to make the animal sounds together. Older children can help name the animals, make the sounds, or add details about where the animals live. This keeps reading interactive while building vocabulary, background knowledge, and comprehension.
Make Animal Sounds While Reading
Let books become part of play by using them in forts, pretend libraries, puppet shows, or storytelling games. Children can stack them, sort them, choose favorites, or use them as inspiration for pretend play. When books are included in play, reading feels more natural and inviting.
Play With Books
Write letters on cards, turn them face down, and invite your child to find matching pairs. As they turn over each card, say the letter name and sound together. This game supports letter recognition, memory, sound awareness, and early reading skills.
Play Homemade Letter Matching Games
Collect different fabrics and talk about how each one feels. Use descriptive words like silky, rough, stretchy, fuzzy, smooth, or scratchy. This sensory activity helps children build richer vocabulary and compare details more carefully.
Explore Fabric Textures
Build a blanket fort and turn it into a special reading space. Let your child choose books, bring in a flashlight, or read to stuffed animals inside the fort. Creating playful reading spaces helps children see books as enjoyable, comforting, and worth choosing.
Build a Blanket Fort and Read Inside
Invite your child to sort laundry by color, size, type, or owner. Talk about why each item belongs in a certain pile and compare similarities and differences. Sorting activities build categorization, vocabulary, reasoning, and attention to detail.
Sort Laundry by Color
Play with compound words by taking words apart and putting them together. Ask questions like, “What word is left if we take sun away from sunflower?” or “What new word can we make with rain and bow?” This helps children understand that words are made of meaningful parts.
Play With Compound Words
Ask silly yes-or-no questions and have your child explain their answer. For example, “Can a fish ride a bicycle?” or “Do shoes go in the refrigerator?” This game builds comprehension, reasoning, humor, and expressive language.
Play the Yes-No Game
Use letter magnets to build silly words that are not real words. Sound them out together and talk about how each letter or letter combination changes the word. This playful activity supports phonics, sound blending, and confidence with unfamiliar words.
Build Nonsense Words With Letter Magnets
Playing with Diverse Learners
Use Sensory Play to Build Language
Let children explore textures, sounds, smells, movement, water, fabric, blocks, sand, or safe household objects while you describe what is happening. Use words like soft, rough, loud, quiet, heavy, light, wet, dry, fast, slow, sticky, and smooth. Sensory play can support children with vision loss, language delays, sensory differences, and children who learn best through hands-on experiences.
Act Out Stories
Use toys, stuffed animals, puppets, real objects, or body movements to act out a story. Children can move the characters, point to what happens next, choose an object, or create a new ending. Acting out stories supports comprehension, sequencing, imagination, and expressive language.
Create a Pretend Library
Set up a small pretend library with books, labels, a basket, and a homemade library card. Children can choose books, “check them out,” sort them, or recommend them to someone else. This helps children see books as part of real life and gives them a playful way to practice literacy routines.
Sort and Match Everyday Objects
Sort socks, toys, blocks, food packages, picture cards, or household items by color, size, shape, sound, category, or beginning letter. Sorting helps children notice similarities and differences, which supports vocabulary, reasoning, and early reading skills. For children with vision loss, sorting can also happen by texture, shape, weight, sound, or function.
Build Words With Movement
Use movement to explore letters, sounds, and words. Children can jump for each syllable, march while saying a rhyme, trace letters in the air, or build letter shapes with their bodies. This is especially helpful for children who learn better when they can move.
Follow the Child’s Lead in Play
Notice what your child is already interested in and join them there. If they are lining up cars, talk about first, next, last, fast, slow, red, blue, stop, and go. Following the child’s lead can be especially helpful for autistic children, children with ADHD, and children who communicate more during preferred activities.
Use Low-Cost Literacy Play
Literacy play does not require expensive toys or programs. Boxes, paper, old magazines, fabric scraps, food labels, library books, music, and everyday household items can all support language and reading development. This helps families build readers with the materials and routines they already have.
Make Space for Advanced Thinking
Some children are ready for deeper questions, complex stories, or more advanced topics. Invite gifted or advanced learners to make predictions, compare ideas, explain how something works, or create their own stories. The goal is to keep literacy playful while giving their curiosity room to grow.