Compound Words Activities: Pre-Reading Skills

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Before a young reader can parse together phonemes to form a word, they have hear the parts of the words. Hearing the parts of compound words and blending words together is then an essential pre-reading skill to develop. The hands-on compound words activities we put together were fun for my school-resistant preschooler.

My five-year-old daughter rarely shows an interest in doing formal “school time.” She does not want to learn to read and she certainly does not want to have “school time.” More informal learning happens throughout our mornings together. when she did express an interest in looking through the Logic of English Foundations Workbook, I was happy to comply.

The beginning of the Volume A book for the Foundations program addresses the segmenting of words, starting with compound words, so we jumped right in to this. Strawberry loved the workbook pages and so we of course had to do more activities!

Compound Words Picture Clip Cards

It’s like a silly puzzle. My daughter loves to saw aloud the pictures she see if she can “add” them into the correct word. Sometimes, she finds the incorrect answer and acts all goofy. The compound word picture clip cards allowed her to practice her fine motor skills (using clothes pins) as well as sounding the parts of words.

Her favorite card was the one with a tooth and a bottle of paste/glue.

“I wouldn’t want to put paste in my mouth!” she exclaims as she clips the “toothpaste” image on the bottom.

Compound Words Puzzles

Once Strawberry felt comfortable finding the correct compound words images on the clip it cards, we printed similar pages with puzzles to put together. This took a bit more thinking on her part. It wasn’t a “mail” + “book” = “notebook.” She had to find the correct puzzle card to make it “notebook.”

I also made the same puzzles in two other formats: once with the word just on the bottom line, and once with the words written on all three puzzle cards. This way, I can use it again, once she is ready to actually read the words.