Hi everyone! You know what I think is sad? Too many parents neglect working with their kids on reading and writing – assuming the teacher will do that. I’d like to say that as a parent who taught all of her kids to read and write well before school started, this isn’t a CHORE you have to do – it’s a blessing – a wonderful time spent opening your child up to the wonders of a new world.
Scarlett told me the other day, “Mom? I’m lucky to have you as my Mom. Other kids’ moms don’t read to them.” She’s 8. She’s been reading since age 3. I started reading to her from birth. It’s a loving time where we cuddle and get into stories and a make believe world. But yet I love reading to her still. I know there will come a day (too soon) where she won’t want me to read to her anymore.
Savor these moments. Enjoy watching your child move from babble and scribble to comprehension and the ability to not only read their own stories, but write them, too. Here are my top 10 toys that teach reading and writing:
#1 – Melissa & Doug Magnetic Wooden Alphabet
Sized right for small hands, these wooden letters help children with their reading and spelling from an early age. The set is a wonderful educational tool. These tough magnetic letters can be used on any magnetic surface such as appliances or a magnetic board.
Your child will learn upper and lower case letters, how to create words and will be able to memorize the alphabet. The set comes in a wooden box with a separator between upper and lower case letters. I’m a huge Melissa and Doug fan – their toys are the kind that you pass down to future generations.
#2 – VTech Sit-to-Stand Alphabet Train
You want to give your child a head start on his education and the VTech Sit-to-Stand Alphabet Train is a great toy to help your child learn starting as a baby. This is the toy that has age appropriate activities from baby to toddler.
Your child can learn letters of the alphabet counting, he’ll hear songs, learn his colors and more. The alphabet train has 13 letter blocks that babies love take from the caboose of the train and drop into the top of the engine car.
The side of the train has a hinged book that allows your child to turn the pages. There are number buttons to push and plenty of activities to entertain and engage your child. The toy can be used for floor play for babies who are still in the crawling stage, it can be used as a walker for kids who are young toddlers and as a ride on toy for older toddlers.
#3 – Imaginarium Letters & Numbers
Magnetic letters are a staple of childhood and all kids age 3 and up should have a set. This set comes in a clear plastic pouch for storage. These brightly colored letters are great for both play and learning.
The strong magnets on the back will help adhere the letters to the surface no matter how often they’re used. Magnetic letters are a great way to play word games with young children like tic-tac-spell using three letter words. This is a tool that can help parents teach their preschool kids the alphabet.
#4 – VTech – Brilliant Creations Beginner Laptop
The VTech – Brilliant Creations Beginner Laptop is a great first computer. It has a nice size LCD screen with 80 activities including games, a mouse and a joystick. The laptop helps a child with math, encourages creativity, teaches them language skills and more.
At the top of the laptop base, kids can use the buttons to navigate the activities. They can choose from math, science, logic, language, creativity, challenge and more. The interactive screen instructs and the child follows along.
The computer will say a number and then count out that number in a visual so it’s easier for a child to understand. It also has a handy letter sound activity so kids can learn how to sound out letters and then words! The laptop has the QWERTY keyboard so it’s easy for little fingers to use.
Isn’t it odd that this generation is taught computers from basically birth? It’s kind of cool. There’s still a place for old fashioned toys, but we do need to prepare our kids for technology early on now. Watch this cute video on what it’s all about:
Kids can mimic Mom and Dad’s technology now with the VTech – ABC Text and Go. This toy has the QWERTY keyboard and buttons your child can use for the four game modes.
Kids can also personalize the toy and can get messages and answer using the keyboard. The text messages are pre-set, age appropriate messages and help teach your child about letters and typing. The phone has great visuals on the screen and the buttons easily point a child to letters, counting, text messages and more!
#6 – Magnetic Poetry Kit – Really Big Words
This set comes with 104 giant word tiles in a sturdy case. These magnetic tiles attach to a surface like the front of a refrigerator and give kids hours of word play. Word play is important for kids early development with writing, reading and spelling.
This toy helps kids to learn to sound out and to recognize words. It’s a great tool for any child and especially for visual learners. The kit has suffixes that help kids to learn how to change words. Using this kit, kids can magnetically write out poems or stories.
#7 – Magnetic Poetry Kids’ First Words
Teaching your preschool child his first words will help to lay a foundation for him to learn reading and writing skills easier. These words are made oversized so kids can easily pick them up and move them around.
The words are created on the tile with the clear roman typeset and come in a handy storage box. When the box is open, kids can use the magnetic lid to link first words together to create a sentence.
Sentence structure is an important factor in literacy when teaching children to read or helping them to improve their reading skills. Kids love moving the words around to create funny sentences.
#8 – Learning Curve Brands Super Why – Wave and Learn Magic Spelling Wand
This toy is suitable for 3-year-old children and above. It has a screen that will help your child learn letters and phonics by asking your child to identify what’s on the screen. Phonics is the foundation of great reading skills and of word recognition.
The wand helps your child learn how to spell words and as your child masters a level of learning play, she can advance to the next level by waving the wand. This is a fun way to get kids interested in learning the basics.
#9 – Smethport Tabletop Magnetic Sentence Builders
These magnetic boards are great for one child to learn or learning in pairs. Because the back as well as the front of the boards are magnetic, it also helps teach your child about sharing and working together.
The easy to handle magnets come in red, blue, green and yellow for the purpose of teaching kids the correct parts of the speech to fit together when making a sentence. There are over 150 magnets in the set and the set will even help to teach your child about punctuation in a fun manner. Your child will learn to grow in reading, spelling and writing. Plus, as he uses the set, his vocabulary will also expand.
#10 – Sentence Building Dominoes
It’s a fact that kids love to learn when the learning is done in a fun way. The Sentence Building Dominoes delivers fun learning when it teaches children about sentence building with the parts of speech blocks.
The blocks cover nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs and more. This 228-piece set can be used to create countless sentences and even includes punctuation marks. Kids can have fun seeing who can create the longest or the silliest sentence!
Sentence structure will help your child learn or improve spelling, writing and reading. A handy storage bucket keeps the dominoes together when they’re not in use.
So which one did you love most in this list? My favorite is the spelling wand. My daughter loves making wands out of anything so learning how to read with one would have been amazing to her!
Tiff 😉