Description:

To build an understanding of letter names and letter recognition, children will use highlighters to find and highlight the individual letters of their name within the text of a newspaper.

Promote learning by:

Children will use highlighters to find and highlight the individual letters of their name embedded within the text of a newspaper.

Start of assigning each letter of the child’s name with a specific highlighter colour. This is best done by writing the child’s name on a piece of paper and then having them choose a highlighter colour for each letter. This can be used a reference point for the experience.

Next, allow the child to choose a couple of (appropriate) pages from the newspaper. Lay the highlighters out in front of them and instruct them to use each colour for each letter of their name. For example, if their name as an ‘E’ and they have allocated this letter with a yellow highlighter, they should skim through the text in the newspaper and every time they see an ‘E’, they should highlight it yellow. They would then do the same for each letter of their name using each individual colour.

To further extend this experience, children could repeat this activity using their last name, a sibling’s name or the name of our their favourite animal or food.