Your toddler is now building important pre-reading skills: listening and speaking. These activities and games are fun and help build on those skills.
Activities by Age for 12 to 17 Months
ON THIS PAGE
- Beginning Writing
- Letter Knowledge
- Oral Language
- Phonological Awareness
Body Art
Finger painting is a fun activity, and it helps your toddler strengthen the muscles in her hands and fingers.
Chalk It Up
Try this simple, self-directed drawing activity to support early writing skills.
Crumple and Tear
Help your child work on the fine motor muscles needed for writing and drawing, by tearing up magazines and paper. 
Drop! Plop!
Help your toddler develop the fine motor skills he will need for writing someday with this fun activity!
Making Marks
Offer your toddler markers and crayons and let them explore, making marks and scribbling on paper.
Paper Towel Beading
Here is an opportunity to engage your child in a two-part activity that will strengthen those fine motor muscles of the hands and fingers.
Rolling, Rolling, Rolling
Help your toddler develop motor skills by rolling a ball back and forth with him. 
Stuck On Fun
Help your toddler develop motor coordination skills of their fingers and hands with this fun activity!
Touch the Page
Read and explore books with your child and encourage them to use their fingers to point to pictures, lift flaps and push buttons.
Water Painting Fun
Give your toddler a chance to try out a new writing tool on a new surface — by painting with water.
Where, Oh Where Is Baby?
Help your toddler develop fine motor skills with a game that lets her open flaps and find her photo! 
Cozy Reading Nook
Create a comfortable and cozy reading nook at home to show your child how much you value books and reading.
Crash, Bang Letters
Here is a fun knock-down activity that will expose your child to alphabet letters.
Digging for Letters
Make a fun game with your toddler by digging for letters in the sand.
Letter Printing With Water
A simple water-play activity to expose your toddler to alphabet letters and their sounds.
My Day in Motion
Help your toddler develop pre-reading skills by making and reading a personalized storybook of her day.
Peek-a-Boo Letters
Help your toddler get ready to learn the letters of the alphabet with a game to notice different shapes and see how things are alike and different.
Peekaboo Time
Peekaboo games are fun, and they help your toddler learn to pay attention.
Plunkety Plunk
Help your toddler use her senses to explore and have fun with letter blocks.
Sorting Shapes
Play with shapes to prepare your toddler for future letter learning. 
That’s Your Letter
Help spark an interest in letters by playing games to introduce your toddler to the first letter of their name.
Where’s Your Nose?
Play quick games with your toddler to get them to focus on their different facial features and see how they fit together to make a face.
Animal Sing Along
This fun activity will build your child’s communication and social skills using singing and pretend play to bring a toy animal to life.
How Did That Happen?
This fun activity helps your child start to learn about cause and effect.
Let Me Add to That
Have fun with your toddler by using one of their words in a sentence, and then use it in a story, rhyme or song.
Pointer Pal
Help your toddler say the names of items he sees around the house with this fun activity!
Songs on the Move
How to turn an everyday routine, like riding in the car, into a powerful oral language experience.
Talking All-Star
Play a favorite fill-and-spill “basketball” game to help your toddler learn new “motion” words.
Teddy Says
Play games where your toddler can show off all of the words they understand but cannot yet say.
Turn Up the Volume on Learning New Words
Help your child learn new words while you have fun listening to music and singing together.
What’s in the Closet?
Help your toddler explore and learn new words by showing them a part of your home that they normally don’t see every day.
What’s This? What’s That?
In this activity, you and your toddler will explore a room of your home while you name items and talk about them. 
Where Did It Go
This fun activity helps your child begin to build a vocabulary while engaging the senses.
Bows and Toes
Take advantage of your child’s love for repetition and show him how to rhyme with this fun activity!
ERRRRRR Goes the Fire Engine!
Help your child experiment with sounds by listening to and imitating the sounds your make.
Funny Fingers
Fingerplays and action rhymes can help toddlers learn about rhyming and encourage coordination of words with actions.
Play Song Rhyme Time
This fun sound activity uses lively songs with rhyming, alliteration and repetition, to help your child hear the sound patterns of speech.
Read It Again!
Read rhythmic stories and poems again and again to expose your toddler to rhythm and rhyme.
Shake, Shake, Shake!
Play games that involve music and movement to help your child develop beginning reading skills.
Silly Faces, Silly Sounds
Encourage your little one to play with the sounds of language in fun ways, like having them copy what you say and do.
Silly Names
Play fun games that invite your toddler to repeat sounds, beginning with your child’s name.
Tap the Rhyme!
Listen, sing and move to the music with your toddler to help prepare her ears, voice and brain for language.
Tap, Tap, Tap on Baby’s Fist
Toddlers love simple rhymes, especially ones that end with a kiss.
Tube Talk
Encourage your child to listen carefully as you speak to help nurture their listening skills.