I recently shared a post with reviews of over 10 resources to help children with their reading. They are primarily paid services or products, and I do recommend all the products included in that post. I believe it’s definitely worth investing in educational products and services, as anything towards the children’s education and development is money well spent!

However, I did promise that I would share some free literacy activities and literacy games here on the blog too. So here’s a selection, not just posts from me but also from fellow parenting bloggers with some of the best fun and free literacy activities for kids. These are all activities which can be done at home to help encourage kids interest in letters, reading and writing. I’ve also included some posts which are not activities but are really useful resources for children’s literacy.

literacy games and literacy activities to help children's reading, writing and learning letters

Some of the literacy games we like to play at home are:

  • Using magnetic letters to make up quizzes. Eg miss one letter out from a word and challenge each other to correctly guess. Mix up the letters of a word and have your child unscramble them. Make a list of rhyming words. Make the longest word you can! Foam or wooden letters also can be used in exactly the same way. We have a large magnet board and magnetic letters in the playroom but we often use foam letters in the bath
  • Writing letters in the air. Mr Z will write a letter in the air and I have to watch his finger carefully and guess which letter it is. This can also be done by tracing the letter onto each other’s back and guessing by the feel of what has been traced.
  • Making up silly sentences. Writing normal sentences would not always keep Mr Z’s attention for so long, by using something a bit silly like “Mum fell in the mud” “Dad sat in the jam” this kept his attention a bit more.
  • I-Spy. This is a classic! It’s good for phonological awareness which has a knock on effect on reading and writing.

And now for some of the posts with great literacy activities that I would like to share:

literacy activities with mirror symmetry lettersExploring Symmetry in Letters from Still Playing School

literacy activities with post it notes

Learn to Write your Name with Post it Notes from Here Come the Girls

active literacy games and literacy activities

Five Active Activities for Practising Beginning Word Sounds from Frugal Fun 4 Boys

15 writing literacy activities for kids

15 Fun Writing Activities from No Time for Flash Cards

lego animal alphabet A-D fun literacy activities

Lego Animal Alphabet (with free printables) at B-Inspired Mama

tips for getting started writing - literacy activities

Getting Started with Writing from Lemon Lime Adventures

tips getting started reading for literacy activities

Getting Started with Reading from Lemon Lime Adventures

recommended books for toddlers for early literacy activities

135 Book recommendations for Toddlers from In The Playroom

I hope you find all the ideas useful. If you have any blog posts on literacy or just ideas that you would like to share, please feel free to leave them in the comments section!

*Blog posts and images included with permission. If you would like to pin those activities, please click through and pin them directly from their source.