Literacy

Holidays and Literacy Learning

During the year your child has learnt many important skills. The school holidays are a time to relax, have fun and unwind, but practising learnt skills during this time helps to ensure that key skills are not forgotten. Below are some examples of fun and engaging activities that can be used and/or adapted to suit children of any age. 

Fine Motor Skills & Handwriting

Here are some ideas and activities for fostering nimble fingers and correct pencil grip and control:

• Play tennis with a balloon.
• Throw and catch bean bags.
• Play Simon Says (touch your head, hop on one foot).
• Use play dough – squeezing, poking, rolling, pinching, twisting, finding coins hidden inside 
• Thread beads or macaroni on pipe cleaners or string – use tweezers to hold beads to make this task more challenging.
• Finger Painting (messy, but great fun).
• Dot-to-Dot drawings or mazes.
• Fold paper to make paper aeroplanes.
• Drawing
• Cooking – mixing & rolling
• Build models with LEGO and blocks.

Oral Language (speaking & listening)

During holiday activities, try some new and different ways that you can support your child’s language development:

• Ask them to recount a day out with details of ‘When’, ‘Who’, ‘Where’ and ‘What’.
• If you’re out and about in the car, or it’s a rainy day, try some of these games:
  • Shopping List – ‘I went shopping and bought bread – milk – sugar’ and the child has to remember what has been said before.
  • I Spy – modify by giving clues about what the item looks like and what you do with it rather than just saying the sound it starts with.
  • Guess Who – make up some clues about a person using personality traits or what they look like, and have them guess who it is.
  • Celebrity Heads – ask your child to think of one of their favourite characters or celebrities and ask questions to uncover who it is.
  • Charades: use actions and body language to describe a person, book, movie or activity.
• Play a ‘Barrier Game’ – place a barrier between you and your child and they must use language to make sure both sides of the barrier are the same. For example, your child draws a simple picture and then tells you how to make the same picture – you could also use block towers or bead patters to describe.

Reading

Encourage reading by making it fun and interesting for them:

• Pick an interesting book (fact or fiction) and read to your child every day – show by example, a love of reading.
• Read purposeful texts with your child (train timetables, movie guides, holiday brochures, recipes).
• Encourage a short 10-minute reading session every day to sit and read with your child.
• Revise sight words in a fun way – write them on cards and play games with them – memory, fish, snap, bingo
• Visit the local library to help your child find a type of book they enjoy.

Writing

Test out some creative ways for your child to practice their writing:

• Keep a holiday journal about significant events from the holidays.
• Collect souviners from holidays day trips and excursions.
• Write a joke book with your child – tell jokes to each other and write them down.
• Make a recipe book – cook with your child, talk about the recipes and put them in a book together.
• Write postcards or emails to family and friends.

Spelling

There are fun games to help children practice their spelling:

• Play board games such as Scrabble and Up Words.
• Play Scategories and Snowman with your child – the whole family can enjoy this too.

Article adapted from Dr Samantha Hornery 

https://www.learninglinks.org.au