Reading Is Good

Helping young children master literacy skills hinges on an ability to make those skills fun and relevant. If we can find ways to integrate teaching with something that children already love, the child’s enjoyment of the activity will do half the work for us.

This article discusses one of the best ways parents and I have discovered to integrate learning letters and sounds into daily home life: through cooking.

Kids Love Cooking

Kindergarten and first grade kids LOVE to cook. They love the gathering of ingredients. They love the mixing. They love the mess. They love the anticipation, and, above all, they love getting to eat something they helped to prepare.

What’s more, cooking is an activity kids at this age expect to be doing with a parent, which makes it a great opportunity to both bond with and educate your child.

Cooking is Already a Literate Activity

It’s true. Reading and writing are built right into the process of cooking. To cook a meal we must be able to read a recipe, write a grocery list, read the labels on ingredients, read the measurements on a measuring cup and follow a set of directions in sequence. All of which rely on critical literacy skills. Cooking presents many opportunities to build literacy.

Building Literacy in the Kitchen

Obviously, I’m not suggesting that you hand a cookbook to your kindergartener and tell him to read it to you. However, there are ways that you can incorporate the things he needs to learn into the process of cooking food. Not only does this give your child extra practice with needed skills, but it also shows him the relevancy of learning to read and write, something many kids find hard to grasp.

Here are a few games and activities you might try:

Guess the Ingredient:

Show your child the first letter in the name of an ingredient and see if they can use it to guess what the ingredient is. For instance, you might point to the line …

1 cup chocolate chips

… and tell your child, ‘We’re making cookies. Look at the first two letters. What sound do they make? What do you think the recipe is telling us we need?’

If your child doesn’t know what sound that letter makes, tell them the sound and let them try to guess the ingredient.

Magnetic Letter Quiz:

Place a set of magnetic letters on the door of the refridgerator. For each ingredient on the list, call out the name and challenge your child to show you which letter makes the sound at the start of that word. If they get it right, they get to add that ingredient into the bowl.

Write a Grocery List:

Grocery lists are one of the best ways to show young children that writing is a useful, real-world tool. They’re also a great place for them to practice using letter sounds to write. Get out a sheet of note paper and make up the grocery list together. Your child can write the first letters and you the rest. Alternately, you can use both words and pictures.

I would suggest prefacing this activity by reading the classic Rosemary Wells book Bunny Cakes together, then making your list.

Food Writing:

While gathering and measuring your ingredients, challenge your child to write or identify letters and sounds. For instance, with a countertop covered in flour you might draw a ‘B’ with your fingertip and have your child name its sound or two foods that start with that letter.

You can also spell out letters or words with chocolate chips, raisins, carrot sticks , etc.