July is here already. That means school is just around the corner for your four-year-old.

There are many lessons to teach your young child before he or she begins school. Make sure you include some of these activities to help your child be ready.

Help your child learn about letters and words. You can begin this process by helping her learn about her own name. Make sure she knows her full name and phone number.

Read with her each and every day. Encourage her to look at books on her own.

Clean up her own space. That includes putting toys away.

Say nursery rhymes and fingerplays together. Encourage her to tell stories to younger children.

Encourage her interest in writing and words. Provide her with paper and notebooks for writing.

Provide a variety of art experiences. Make play dough. Create collages from magazine pictures, fabric, wallpaper, and newsprint. Encourage her to experiment with new items like wire and cork, soda straws, string, or yarn.

Sort and count everything in sight. Pick items such as silverware, socks, rocks, leaves, etc. Talk about things being in, on, under, behind, bedside, before and after, larger than, too far, and every other direction.

Count together. Math doesn’t begin in kindergarten. It begins now. Talk about more and less, and bigger and smaller. She will benefit from each conversation.

Teach her the correct use of the telephone.

Ask questions about the books you read with her. What did she like about the book? Why did something happen in the book? Would she like to know the main character herself?

Help her learn hygeine. Teach her to sneeze or cough into her elbow or a Kleenex.

Praise her accomplishments. Provide her opportunities to experience freedom and independence.

Encourage her physical development. Play follow the leader. Pretend to walk like various animals. Set up an obstacle course indoors as well as outdoors with challenges such as crawling, climbing, leaping, balancing, and running across steppingstones.

Promote respect for life and living things. Let her help you feed the birds or the stray cats. Teach her to recognize the animals in the neighborhood.

Let her know about other people. Do this using dolls, pictures and books.

Remember, the more words your child hears the smarter she becomes. Talk to her. Tell her about the world. Tell her how important she is to you.

Remember to encourage her learning in many different ways. You have a chance to be her primary teacher for several years before she begins school. Look for the ways you can make learning fun and interesting and something you can continue to do when she is actually in school.

You are an important teacher for her, not just now but for years to come.

Cynthia Martin is the founder of the First Teacher program and former executive director of Parenting Matters Foundation, which published newsletters for parents, caregivers and grandparents.