ArtsAutosBooksBusinessEducationEntertainmentFamilyFashionFoodGamesGenderHealthHolidaysHomeHubPagesPersonal FinancePetsPoliticsReligionSportsTechnologyTravel

Two-Year-Olds Love to Learn: Worksheets for Your Toddlers

Updated on April 12, 2012
My son doing his "worksheet."
My son doing his "worksheet."

My two-year-old just loves to do his "worksheets." He sees his big sister writing and runs to sit with her and make little letters on his paper. If he didn't tell me what letter he is writing I might not have known. He's just so excited about it, I decided to make some "worksheets" for him. He asks for them every day, and asks for more when we are done.


If you plan to undertake this, the most important thing is not to push your toddler at this stage. Your little one is a sponge for new information and really wants to learn. If she is not enjoying it, it's not for her. Now is the time to instill a delight of learning so please, only do this if it is a delight to both of you. Always stop before your toddler wants to. There is no need to do it every day.

Terrific reading tools!

Background

My son is very familiar with the capital letters and their basic sounds, thanks to The Talking Letter Factory and The Talking Words Factory. I'm not a fan of the square babysitter, but in the winter we often watch as much as half an hour a day. He also enjoys a letter puzzle that we got from the Dollar Tree. Each morning he plays with the letter magnets and we talk about them while I make breakfast. Each of these things are tools for parent/child interaction that leads to pre-reading skills. When I read to him, I point to the text as he reads it. By the time he was two he would flip through books pointing at the words as he went along. He also asks me to read things if I skip them or don't point to them while reading them.


This brings me to the worksheets. I was looking for a way to help him learn the lowercase letters better. The LeapFrog videos use exclusively capital letters and our letter puzzle only has capital letters. I had shown him the Your Baby Can Read videos and some other materials from Brillkids.com so he was somewhat familiar with the lowercase letters, but I wanted something to give him more opportunities to get to know them.

Post these worksheets on the wall so you can see them and talk about them frequently.
Post these worksheets on the wall so you can see them and talk about them frequently.

The worksheets

They are really simple. Just one short word with a common ending such as "at" or "ig." I started with "up" and "at" because they are words in an of themselves. It's more rewarding to start that way. Subsequent worksheets should have the same endings. If you choose "ig" you might do big, pig, and wig. If you choose "at," you might do at, fat, sat, cat, hat, pat, and rat. Choose words that your child knows and can say. I did these in Print Clearly Bold font, which you can download for free, and then used the font tool in Word to make them outlined. However, you might find it easier to just do them by hand.


The Method

The most important thing is that you interact with your child. Point to the letters and say each sound. Note: "t" says "t" not "ta." Encourage your child to decorate within the letters, but it is not really important that they do so. They will learn, but they don't need to understand it all at once. The more opportunities your child has to see large (large is really important) letters and words, the more prepared he will be to learn to read.

My son's favorite way to complete these worksheets is to put them on the carpet and use a pencil to punch holes in the paper. It is good to use heavy paper for this. I printed these on the back of my husband's outdated resumes that were printed on heavy paper. We have also tried marker, glitter, and finger paints.

And remember:

  • Relax and have fun: a positive reading experience is much more valuable than a thorough reading lesson.
  • Keep talking: your child needs to hear letter-sound associations many times before she can use them herself.
  • Do not insist that your child finish: Children under four will probably not benefit from being forced to do formal lessons. Also, stop before your child gets tired of it. Keep these worksheets special.

Ideas for words

ig
at
ad
et
pig
mat
mad
pet
big
sat
sad
get
fig
hat
bad
wet
rig
fat
had
bet
dig
cat
tad
met

Ideas for decorations

Don't limit yourself to these ideas; be creative. I would love to receive comments if you have new ideas.

  • paint, crayons, pens
  • fingerpaint
  • glitter
  • beans and pasta
  • beads
  • puncture with pencil or knitting needle

working

This website uses cookies

As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.

For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy

Show Details
Necessary
HubPages Device IDThis is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons.
LoginThis is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service.
Google RecaptchaThis is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy)
AkismetThis is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Traffic PixelThis is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized.
Amazon Web ServicesThis is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy)
CloudflareThis is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy)
Google Hosted LibrariesJavascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy)
Features
Google Custom SearchThis is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy)
Google MapsSome articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
Google ChartsThis is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy)
Google AdSense Host APIThis service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Google YouTubeSome articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
VimeoSome articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
PaypalThis is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook LoginYou can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
MavenThis supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)
Marketing
Google AdSenseThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Google DoubleClickGoogle provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Index ExchangeThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
SovrnThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook AdsThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Unified Ad MarketplaceThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
AppNexusThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
OpenxThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Rubicon ProjectThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
TripleLiftThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Say MediaWe partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy)
Remarketing PixelsWe may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.
Conversion Tracking PixelsWe may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.
Statistics
Author Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)
ComscoreComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Tracking PixelSome articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)
ClickscoThis is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy)