Free forest animals concepts of print pack

Today I’m sharing another free pack to help your child master concepts of print.

(This post contains affiliate links.)

I often have readers e-mail me to ask if their child is ready to read. Often, their child is a preschooler who knows letters and sounds.  While some children with solid alphabet knowledge are ready to sound out words, others need work with concepts of print.

What are concepts of print?

• We read from left to right and top to bottom.
• Each word we speak is represented by a word on the page.
• After we read a line, we “return sweep” to the left of the page to keep reading.
• Every book has a front, back, and author.

Have you ever seen a young child “pretend” to read by pointing to words as she reads and saying what she thinks might be on the page?  Have you seen her say more than one word as she points to a single word on the page?

This is where my preschooler was at. He had (has) a very solid understanding of letters (both upper and lowercase) and knows his sounds quite well, thanks to my letter of the week curriculum.

But he wasn’t distinguishing between words on a page.  I knew that we needed more work with concepts of print to get him ready to read.

Enter… my concepts of print packs!  So far I’ve shared three packs: transportation, Christmas, and toys.

Today I’ve got a new set: forest animals.

Each pack consists of forty free printable cards, featuring ten different images.

Like all the packs, the forest animal pack follows a consistent pattern.

“Bear.”
“The bear.”
“The brown bear.”
“I see the brown bear.”

Even if your child doesn’t recognize any of the words (which was the case when I started doing these with my son), he should grasp the pattern and recognize that when more than one word is on the page, he needs to speak more than one word.

Encourage your child to point to the black dots as he “reads” the words.

Your child may not recognize any of the words by sight – which is A-okay.  Eventually, though, he may start to learn some of those repeating words, like “the.”

After your child knows the pattern consistently, consider mixing up the cards so he really has to think, instead of just reciting the pattern.

What a difference these packs have made for my little guy!  He started out needing help with every single card (see the transportation pack), but now he breezed through these and easily recognized and identified “I,” “see,” and “the.”

We’re getting ready to read!

To assemble the printable:

• Print on cardstock.
• Laminate for durability.
• Punch a hole in the top left corner of each card.
• Attach with a metal ring.

Nursery rhymes are one of the very best ways to teach concepts of print.

© 2016 – 2020, Anna G. All rights reserved.