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All around us are opportunities to enhance literacy, particularly among young kids. Reading and writing, after all, are not just essential communication skills; they are important life skills as well. They bridge gaps between and among people, allowing one to understand another regardless of cultural differences.

Kids are introduced to letters and numbers from an early age, but they cannot immediately make sense of these stimuli until they learn how to read and write by themselves. Kids encounter their very first letters and numbers around the house, in the most mundane things such as water bottles, milk cans, and assorted boxes.

Parents can take advantage of this by introducing letters and numbers to children one by one, using the natural environment in which these stimuli are found. I used to play Letter Matching Hunt with my kids—I would write a letter on a piece of paper, and they would have to look around and find a match for that letter. I would ask them to hold up the item bearing the letter and check it against the written one. As they grew older, I would help them read the whole word they found as well. We do the same activity when we’re on the road—I ask them to point out specific letters they see along the way. This lets them be extra observant, plus it takes away the boring part of long road trips.

As your kids get better at recognizing letters, you can stretch their imagination further by looking for letters in nature.  You may find the letter T in a tree branch, the letter O in a flower, the letter S on a vine, and so on. To add a twist to the nature hunt, you can even take pictures of the letters you find and compile them for your kids to look back to. Put your alphabet book together and share this creation with others.

The more often you play games like this the more your child gains valuable literacy skills for future use. These activities also help develop avid readers and good writers in the future. Who knows where your Letter Matching Hunt will take your child someday?