What Your Child Needs to Know by Age 4: Reading Skills

Having a preschool skills checklist or guide to follow is a useful way to plan your preschool year. Here is what your child needs to know by age 4.

What Your Child Needs to Know by Age 4: Reading Skills

Having a preschool reading checklist or guide to follow is a useful way to plan your preschool year. Use the following as a preschool year plan, or as an end-of-the-year evaluation for your homeschooled preschooler. It’s just a general idea of what you should cover in the year before Kindergarten. By the way, this post contains affiliate links which means that I may receive a commission when you make a purchase from them. Please read my disclosure for more information.

Preschool is an important learning time for your child. Not only will they learn social and emotional skills in your home, but your preschooler will actually begin to learn a lot of foundational reading skills. They will need a good foundation in order to succeed in homeschool kindergarten the next year. Here are a few of the most important skills you can teach your child before beginning homeschool kindergarten.

What Your Child Needs to Know Before Kindergarten: Pre-Reading Skills

• Alphabet – Even though your child will work on the alphabet during the kindergarten year, they will most likely go through it quickly. If your child learns the alphabet in preschool, they’re more likely to be able to keep up with this faster pace in whatever kindergarten curriculum you may choose later.
• Letter Sounds – In addition to the alphabet, you should begin teaching your preschoolers their letter sounds. Knowing the sounds that each letter makes will help your preschooler be ready for reading in their kindergarten year.
• Story Sequence – When you read a book to your preschooler, start asking them what happens in the beginning, middle, and end of the story. Knowing the sequence of a story is an important reading skill that your preschooler will need to know before kindergarten.
• Picture Clues – Young readers use a lot of different clues to help understand the text, including the pictures. Start introducing this important concept to your preschool before kindergarten. When you first open a book, have your preschooler take a look at the picture and describe what they think is happening on that page. Your child will definitely use this skill in kindergarten.

That is certainly not all that your child can learn in homeschool preschool, but it’s a general idea, and the perfect place to start.

These top reading skills are very important for your preschooler to learn.

Each of these skills will help your child be more successful in kindergarten, a very important year for learning! By introducing these ideas to your child before they begin kindergarten, they will be more familiar with the skills while in kindergarten, making it more likely that your child will eventually become a successful reader.

Check out some resources you can use in your homeschool to teach your preschooler:

Pre-K Homeschool Curriculum Free

How to Teach Pre-Reading Skills to Preschoolers

Best Letter Recognition Videos for Homeschool Preschool