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True Story: The first word my oldest son ever “read” was “Sonic”. And by “read”, I mean associated the logo with the word (the very beginning of reading). I was super surprised, even as a teacher knowing the importance that environmental print plays in a child’s language development. I convinced myself that this phenomenon was due to the fact that he was obviously brilliant, meanwhile nonchalantly downplaying the role that my daily habit of buying a Dr. Pepper at Sonic might have played in this “phenomenon.” :)

In the book The Art of Teaching Reading, Lucy Calkins mentions that it could be helpful when introducing letters to start with either the first name of the child or the letter M…for McDonald’s. After all, nearly every child can easily identify those golden arches! For better or worse, environmental print plays an important role in our child’s reading development. Reading street signs and restaurant names can actually set the stage for reading sight words later on. That’s why this Environmental Print Bingo game is our activity for Day 25 of our 30 Days of Reading Fun for Beginning Readers series.

I chose several places nearby that we pass often to create this Environmental Print BINGO board. If you don’t have any of these businesses close by, you can always create your own BINGO board in less than 10 minutes! I saved each of the logos from each businesses Facebook page. You could also try this with cereal names, favorite snacks, and more!