In my work with children facing early literacy challenges, I have found that every learner has unique needs and strengths. These challenges can range from difficulty recognizing letters to blending sounds and developing fluency in reading. In my time working with young learners, I’ve found that various strategies can be helpful in helping children build strong literacy foundations while keeping learning engaging and confidence-boosting.

If you’re a parent, teacher, or therapist supporting a young learner, here are some practical tips to enhance their literacy journey.

1. Strengthening Letter Recognition & Phonemic Awareness

• Engage Multiple Senses: Children learn best when multiple senses are involved. Sandpaper letters, playdough, slime, and tracing exercises primarily engage touch, but they also incorporate visual and proprioceptive elements. Watching letters being formed, recognizing their shapes, and pressing into textured surfaces provide sensory feedback that supports muscle memory for writing and letter recognition.
• Letter Differentiation Games:
  • Balloon Boxing: Write tricky letter pairs (e.g., b vs d, p vs q, s vs z) on balloons. Call out a sound or letter name and have the child box the correct balloon. This reinforces quick identification while incorporating movement.
  • Sensory Word Search: Create a sensory bin filled with letters or words and challenge the child to find and identify the correct ones. This makes letter/word recognition more interactive.
• Make Spelling Hands-On: Sticky Wikki Sticks are great for forming letters and words on surfaces like windows or whiteboards, turning spelling into a kinesthetic activity.
• Movement-Based Learning: Games like “The Floor is Lava” can be adapted for literacy. Place letter or word flashcards on stepping stones, and the child must step on the correct one while avoiding the “lava.”

2. Improving Blending & Decoding Skills

• Reduce Cognitive Load with Sound Patterns: Blending individual sounds can be overwhelming for some learners. Instead of breaking every word into separate phonemes, group similar sound patterns together to simplify decoding.
  • Instead of /c/ /a/ /t/ → Teach /c/ /at/.
• Progressive Word Building: Start with simple VC words (e.g., “at”), then move to CVC (“cat”), and gradually introduce CVCC/CCVC (“tent”, “stop”) words.
• Tactile Letter Manipulation: Use letter tiles or magnetic letters to let children physically rearrange letters while sounding them out. This reinforces phoneme-grapheme connections.

3. Boosting Fluency & Retention

• Reinforce Learning Through Varied Repetition: Repetition helps children build fluency, but doing the same activity repeatedly can lead to disengagement. Varying how practice is presented keeps learning fresh and engaging. Mix up flashcard drills, phonics games, and interactive reading to reinforce learning.
• Build Fluency with Echo & Paired Reading: Many children struggle with fluency because they lack confidence or find reading overwhelming. Echo and paired reading provide structured support, allowing them to develop fluency in a supportive and encouraging manner. Shared reading strategies help build confidence, improve pacing, and reinforce word recognition in a supportive environment.
  • Echo reading: Read a sentence aloud, and have the child repeat it.
  • Paired reading: Read together simultaneously to build fluency in a low-pressure setting.
• Match Books to Reading Level with Decodable Texts: Reading success comes when books match a child’s phonics level. Decodable books use controlled vocabulary aligned with phonics instruction, helping children apply what they’ve learned while minimising frustration.

4. Encouraging Confidence & a Growth Mindset

• Make Mistakes a Learning Tool:
  • Use Bracketing Instead of Erasing: Encourage children to bracket mistakes and write the correct word above rather than erasing. This allows them to compare their original attempt with the correction, helping them recognise patterns in their mistakes.

  This method works well alongside Targeted Corrections, where the focus is on adjusting only the incorrect part of the word instead of rewriting everything. Together, these strategies build self-awareness and confidence in learning.

• Celebrate Progress, Not Just Perfection: Reward small wins, whether it’s recognizing a tricky letter or reading a full sentence independently.
• Incorporate Playful Learning: Activities like word scavenger hunts and letter hopscotch make literacy learning fun and reduce anxiety around reading.
  • Word scavenger hunts encourage children to find and match words around their environment.
  • Letter hopscotch helps reinforce letter-sound connections through movement.

5. Strengthening Comprehension Skills

• Encourage Verbal Processing Before Writing: Many children struggle with writing responses, so start with verbal recall before asking them to write answers.
• Teach Active Reading Strategies: Model how to scan for keywords in a passage rather than expecting children to recall everything from memory.
• Use Picture Prompts: Encourage children to make predictions using illustrations before reading. This helps them connect meaning to the text.
• Provide Sentence Starters: Some children struggle to begin their sentences when writing or answering comprehension questions. Offering a sentence starter (e.g., “I think this happened because…” or “The character felt…”) helps them get started and structure their thoughts more easily.

Final Thoughts

Every child’s literacy journey is unique, and as therapists, parents, and educators, our role is to provide the right support tailored to their needs. Combining structured phonics instruction with engaging, multisensory learning builds confidence and fluency, turning reading into a positive experience.

Try out some of these strategies and see what works best for your learner! Have you used any of these methods? What’s been most effective in your experience? Share your thoughts!

 Article written by:
Anuja Wararas
RETA Fellow