Teaching literacy to preschoolers is so much fun! We love finding new hands-on ways to teach about letters, letter sounds, phonics, and spelling in our classrooms. We’ve gathered some of our very favorite literacy tools and toys that we use in our classrooms frequently to share with you today. Keep reading to see why we love them!

Our Favorite Literacy Tools and Toys

Here are a few of our favorite literacy tools and toys that we find our students using again and again in our preschool classrooms!

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Lakeshore Alphabet Sounds Teaching Tubs

We use these letter tubs in our classrooms every. single. day. We pull them out and look at the objects every time we are learning a new letter. We will take several tubs and mix the items, and then practice sorting by beginning sounds. The kids adore all the tiny items and love to pass them around and practice saying the words together. They’re so fun! They are a bit of a splurge, but totally worth it!

Alphabots

These little letter robots are always a huge hit in our classrooms! The kids love transforming them, and even spelling simple words with them!

Learning Resources Alphabet Center

We love using this alphabet center during our circle time each day. It’s a fun, hands-on way to give lots of exposure to the alphabet.

Learning Resources Alpha Pops

These letter popsicles are another favorite literacy toy. They’re especially cute to go with a food, nutrition, or ice cream unit!

Uppercase Letter Beads

We use these letter beads for so many activities! We hid them in rice or beans in sensory bins, or use them to stamp words in play dough or match letters on activity mats. They’re super fun!

Alphabet Stamps

These uppercase letter stamps are great to use in your writing center. We also use them to spell out words that have to do with whatever theme we are learning that month.

Letter Construction Set

These letter construction pieces are a fun addition to the literacy center. We also like to use these when we are learning about different letter features (straight lines, curved lines, circles, etc.).

Uppercase and Lowercase Tactile Letters

We use these uppercase and lowercase sandpaper letters in our literacy groups every day! We love to have the students play hot potato and trace the letter with their finger, then pass it as fast as they can to the next person to trace.

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Alphabet Sounds Picture Magnets

These magnets are so versatile! We use them during our morning meeting, table opener activities, and literacy lessons. One of our favorite things to do is use them for butcher paper activities where students match the magnet to the corresponding letter on the butcher paper.

Letter Locks

These letter matching locks are always a hit with students. They feel so grown-up opening and closing the locks!

See and Spell Puzzle

This spelling puzzle from Melissa and Doug is a classroom favorite. We keep it in our literacy center and it gets frequent use.

Wikki Stix Alphabet Cards

This Wikki Stix card set is one we pull out all of the time! The kids love using the stix to make letters and will play with them over and over again.

There you have it! Some of our very favorite literacy tools and toys that we use frequently in our preschool classrooms. We hope you love them as much as we do!