Reading games that are fun


Six Games for Reading | Reading Rockets

Here are six games parents or tutors can use to help young readers practice word recognition, spelling patterns, and letter-sound knowledge. When planning to play one of these games, choose words to use from books the child is reading or has read recently. The games should also be chosen or designed to promote the child's sense of competence and success.

1. Concentration

To make

Select five to ten words from a book (or books) the child is reading. Print each word clearly and boldly on separate 3x5 inch index cards, making pairs of each word. (The child may be able to help you by copying the words you write.)

To play

Shuffle the cards and place them face down in neat rows. Take turns turning up two cards at a time and reading the words aloud. If the two cards match, the player keeps them and takes a second turn. If they do not match, the cards are replaced face down and the next player takes a turn. Play until all the cards are matched. The player with the most pairs wins. If the child has trouble recognizing a word, say the word — do not ask the child to "sound out" the word. The purpose of this game is to build automatic recognition of whole words.

You can control the difficulty of the game by the choice and number of words used: for very beginning readers, choose meaningful words that are visually distinctive: "ghost", "dark", "sister", and keep the number of words low. For a more challenging game, include some words that are less distinctive: "when", "what", "this", "that", but be careful not to overwhelm the child.

Variation 1

Instead of matching pairs, you can use rhyming pairs: look, book; dark, park.

 

Variation 2

This game can also be used to build letter recognition and letter/sound association. Paste or draw simple pictures on one set of cards; and on the other set, print initial consonants to go with the pictures. For example, paste the picture of a dog on one card, and write the letter "D" on a matching card.

Note: This game can be adapted to use with older children, or more advanced readers: variations can include vocabulary practice such as using homonyms, (words that sound alike but are spelled differently and have different meanings: cent/scent; dear/deer, etc.) or contractions, (can't; cannot, etc.).

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2. Go fish

This game is good for early fluent to fluent readers.

To make

Select ten to 20 words from a book (or books) the child is reading. Print the words clearly and boldly on separate 3x5 inch index cards, making pairs of each word. (Children may help by copying the words you write.) Two to four players can play this game.

To play

Shuffle and deal three to five cards to each player. Place the rest of the deck face down. Players take turns asking each other for a card to match one held in his or her hand. If the opponent has a matching card, it is given over, and the first player takes another turn. If the opponent does not have a match, he or she says "Go Fish" and the player draws from the remaining deck of cards, and the next player takes a turn. Each time a player has a match, he or she reads the words, and puts down the pair, face up. Continue the game until the cards are all used up.

Instead of matching words, rhyming words can be used. In this case, players ask for "a word that sounds like 'night'..." At the end, the child can earn extra points by dictating or writing additional words that rhyme with the base words, or creating "silly" sentences using the rhymes.

Note: This game can be adapted to use with older children, or more advanced readers: variations can include vocabulary practice such as using homonyms (words that sound alike but are spelled differently and have different meanings: cent/scent; dear/deer, etc.), or contractions (can't; cannot, etc.).

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3. Old maid

To make

Select three words per player from a book (or books) being read. Print them clearly and boldly on separate 3x5 inch index cards, making pairs of words. Choose one more word without a match that will be the winning card.

To play

Shuffle and deal three to six cards to each player. Players take turns drawing a card from a player to their left. If a player draws a card that matches one in his or her hand, he/she reads the two matching words in order to keep the pair. Play continues until all the cards are matched, except for the one odd card. The player who holds that card at the end wins the game.

Note: This game can be adapted to use with older children, or more advanced readers: variations can include vocabulary practice such as using homonyms (words that sound alike but are spelled differently and have different meanings: cent/scent; dear/deer, etc.), or contractions (can't; cannot, etc.).

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4. Monopoly

This is a great game to help teach word family patterns and spelling patterns. This should be used with children who write fairly comfortably, usually second grade or older.

To make

Create a game board with four or five squares on each side. Prepare word cards with families of words that emerge from the child's reading: night, light, tight; went, bent, sent; hat, cat, bat. (For beginning readers or younger children, make sure the patterns are not too similar: mat, sat, rat; man, can, ran; met, set, bet.) Color code each word family and each side of the game board.

Place the words face up around the board in sets. To add to the element of chance, have other game directions on the board, such as "take another turn", "go back 2 spaces", etc. Prepare score sheets for each player with color-coded headings for each word family.

To play

Role dice or use a spinner to move around the board. Wherever a player lands he reads the word, then writes it in the appropriate "word family" category on the score sheet. Extra points can be earned by dictating or writing sentences with the rhyming words.

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5. Rhyming games

Play rhyming games to teach about the patterns in words. Try the following, for example, for words in the same family as the word black:

  • Introduce a poem or rhyming story such as Miss Mary Mack:

    Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack
    all dressed in black, black, black
    with silver buttons, buttons, buttons
    up and down her back, back, back…

  • Encourage the child to point out words in books that have a similar spelling pattern as in black.
  • Help the child think of other words that have this pattern. You may have to write a few words for him or her:

    sack
    pack
    stack

    Then have the child read the whole word and underline the repeated part of the word, "ack."

  • Using magnetic letters or Scrabble pieces, form a word with the "ack" pattern. Ask the student to change the first letter of the word (for example: 's' in sack) to make a new word, such as pack. You should be sure to provide a limited number of letters (two or three at first) for the child to choose from.
  • Remember to choose a word pattern that is useful and important to the student and that relates to something that he or she has read or will read. If possible, start with a word he or she already knows in the word family. After reading a book about being sad, for example, start with the word "cry" and then follow with "fry", "try", and "wry".
  • Remember to review the word families you've chosen to work on periodically by playing some of the other games described above.
  • Be sure to give the student a chance to go back to a book, poem, or other texts where he or she can apply this new reading skill. Poems, nursery rhymes, and jump rope jingles are a great resource for early readers.

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6. Fishing for sounds

This is a game for emergent readers and writers.

To make

Find and cut out small pictures of familiar objects from magazines, old workbooks, catalogues. Try to find several pictures that start with the same letter, such as book, bed, basket, boy; snake, sun, skate, slide, etc. (The child can help; this is a good language activity too.)

Cut out 12-15 fish shapes and paste or draw one picture on each fish.

On individual 3x5 inch index cards or on an 8x11 inch piece of paper or cardboard, print consonant letters with a key picture for each group of pictures found. (For example, print the letter "S" with the picture of a sun to represent all the words beginning with that letter.) (If using a sheet of paper, print only two or three letters per sheet. )

To play

Select two or three sets of fish pictures that start with the same letters and mix them up. Place face down on a table and take turns "going fishing." As each fish is turned over, the child names the picture and places it in the appropriate pile under the key letter / picture. When all the fish are caught and placed correctly, have the child "read" the pictures under each heading. If necessary, read along with him or her, saying the letter name and stressing the initial sound of the word. "Yes, here are 'S' pictures: sssun, sssnake, sssaxophone."

To add excitement, you can play as opponents, each player having one or two categories and key letter / pictures. Take turns fishing, and discard those fish that belong to the other player.

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20 Interesting And Funny Reading Games For Kids

Reading is not a chore anymore for your kid, thanks to these games.

Research-backed

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Reading games for kids is an interesting way to enhance your child’s ability to focus. A child’s cognitive, emotional, and social development is promoted by reading skills. Usually, most kids acquire this fundamental skill between six and seven. However, a few may learn it earlier, at three to four years (1). Vocabulary and comprehension skills can be high in children who read from early childhood. These skills are needed for academic and professional success and personal development in the future. Read on to know more about the reading games that will entertain and also educate your kids.

Importance Of Reading For Children

Reading is an essential life skill that can help your child (2) (3)

  1. Learn and practice diction and intonation and promote speech development.
  2. Learn new words and their meanings, and use them in different scenarios.
  3. Understand the basics of grammar and promote language development.
  4. Improve their concentration and focus and enhance their overall brain function necessary for cognitive development.

Quick fact

Children exposed to reading every day between the ages of four and five can positively affect language, literacy, numeracy, cognition skills, and academic performance later in life (5).

  1. develop their imagination and creativity.
  2. Learn about the world around them.
  3. Improve their reading comprehension skills necessary for learning concepts that promote academic development (4).
  4. Encourage their curiosity into subjects that are new to them.

Reading games and activities in a group setting or with family can help promote your child’s socio-emotional development and turn them into a responsible and confident adult.

20 Reading Games For Children

You could play these age-specific reading games with your child to make reading fun and enjoyable.

1. Spot the alphabet

Image: iStock

The game helps your three-year-old identify and learn the letters of the alphabet, using a set of colorful flashcards.

  • Show any two flashcards to your child and ask them to find a common letter in the two cards.
  • Each pair of flashcards should have only one letter in common.
  • The child compares the two cards to identify and recognize the common letter using their recognition and perception skills.
  • Prompt your child to read the identified letter aloud to support speech and memory development.

Buy a Spot It! Alphabet card game or prepare one at home involving your three-year-old for more fun and joy.

2. Sequence letters

The joyful board game teaches phonics to children above four years, using colorful pictures. In the game, children get a board with printed pictures and a set of cards with letters written on them in uppercase and lowercase. Your child has to identify the picture, read the name of the object/thing aloud, and find a letter card that matches the sound of the word’s first letter. Regular practice of phonics helps develop your child’s vocabulary and spelling skills and hones their critical thinking skills.

3. Charades for kids

Image: Shutterstock

Charades is a fun group activity for children above four years of age. To play the game, you will need some plain papers and markers/pens to make chits.

  • Make chits and write a word on each. Keep the children’s age and reading abilities in mind while writing the words.
  • Fold the chits and put them in a bowl.
  • Divide the children into two teams of three players each.
  • Ask each team to take turns sending a teammate to pick a chit from the bowl.
  • The child with the chit needs to act and give out clues to the word without uttering a word/making a sound, and their teammates have to guess the word.

Quick tip

Making children draw words from the chit can help infuse creativity in guessing games.

Indulging in such activities can help improve their vocabulary skills, foster creativity, and provide ample opportunity for fun.

4. Scrabble boggle game

In this word-construction game, the child has to come up with as many words as possible by arranging and rearranging 16 letter cubes on a boggle grid within a set time. An electronic version of this game, known as scrabble flash, involves up to ten players, wherein they need to form words by swapping tiles. The word game could help improve your child’s vocabulary and spelling skills and hone their memory and logical thinking skills.

Related: How To Teach Kids To Spell Words: 25 Best Ways To Try

5. Junior scrabble

Image: Shutterstock

Junior scrabble is an engaging board game for teaching word construction to five-year-olds. The game involves forming words by identifying the picture on the board and placing the letters within the crossword in a predetermined order. Engaging in this memory-boosting game can improve your child’s vocabulary and spelling skills. Buy a scrabble or make one at home for hours of fun and excitement.

6. Riddle treasure hunt

Riddle treasure hunt aims to enhance reading, interpretation, and comprehension skills by prompting children to solve riddles in order to find a hidden toy/goodie hamper. You can make several chits with riddles written on them and hide them across the house. Hand over the first riddle to the child and instruct them to find the other hidden chits to solve a series of riddles to reach the hidden gift. Reading and understanding the riddles can help them hone problem-solving and analytical thinking skills.

7. Snake and ladders with words

Image: iStock

The exciting DIY board game uses the rules of the classic snakes and ladders game to learn and remember words through visual perception. Take a snakes and ladders board  and write age-appropriate and easy-to-understand words in each box using a pen/marker. The snakes and ladders board has 100 boxes to write 100 different words that you want your child to learn. Roll the dice and play the game as usual with an additional rule that requires your child to read aloud the word in which their counter lands.

Related: 15 Easy Yet Fun Dice Games For Children To Play

8. Use the word

Train your child to read words and understand their proper usage in sentences with this unique game.

  • Prepare some flashcards with plain paper and write an age-appropriate word on each using a pen/marker.
  • Keep the cards on the table and ask your child to pick one card randomly.
  • The task is to read the word written on the flashcard aloud, say its meaning, and use it in a sentence as an example.

This game is ideal for children aged six years and above. It can help improve their reading and comprehension skills, develop their vocabulary, and encourage them to frame simple sentences.

9. Hopscotch spelling bee

Image: Shutterstock

You can try this game with a large group of children, wherein each child represents a letter, and they all work together to form a word.

  • Draw four hopscotch courts on the floor. Each court should have seven different letters from A to Z.
  • Assign one letter to each child and make six kids stand at the edge of each box.
  • Now, say a word aloud, for instance, “ARMOR,” and instruct the children to hop on the letter assigned to them in the order as they come in the word”ARMOR.”
  • The child assigned with the letter “A” should hop first followed by the child with the letter “R,” and so on.

Involving your child in such activities can help develop their vocabulary and spelling skills.

10. I spy with words

It is an ideal reading game for six-year-olds. The game can help develop their reading skills, boost memory, and build focus and concentration.

  • Select a story from a reading material, such as a storybook or comic.
  • Based on the story, prepare a few questions having one- or two-word answers.
  • Ask the child to read the story thoroughly within a given time to answer correctly.
  • Once they have read the story, instruct them to take turns to ask each other questions.
  • Every question should start with the phrase, “I spy something that I can … (kick/drink/eat).”
  • The other students should guess the answer using the hints given in the text that they have read.

11. Word bingo

Image: Shutterstock

Children above five years of age can play this game to foster phonemic awareness, the ability to identify individual sounds in spoken words, and identify simple rhyming words.

  • Paste different cutouts of words on a chart paper.
  • Stick the chart paper to the wall, and ask your child some questions, such as “Which word on the chart rhymes with the word cat?” Or “What word rhymes with the word bowl?”
  • The child has to identify the word in the chart with the word mentioned in the question.

Playing such reading games can help fine-tune your child’s perception and recognition skills, develop vocabulary, and promote logical thinking.

12. Take turns reading

In this game, you and your child take turns reading the paragraphs of a story. You can choose a storybook that your child likes to read or use their schoolbook. Help your child read with proper pronunciation and intonation. Take pauses after every three to four paragraphs, to discuss what the child has understood. It will help keep the child alert and focused.

13. Word search

Image: Shutterstock

Word search crosswords or puzzles involve tracing hidden words from letters arranged vertically, horizontally, and diagonally in a grid. Children between the ages of five and six can begin solving word search crosswords/puzzles to combat boredom and develop their vocabulary, reading, and recognition skills. Encourage your child to practice word search by participating in online/offline games or print some worksheets.

14. Fluency target

Draw four circles on the ground, each a feet apart from the other. Ask your child to stand within the first circle and read a paragraph within the given time. If the child reads it with proper pronunciation and intonation within the set time, they can pass the first circle and move to the second. If not, they have to reread the paragraph and try to do better. Guide your child on the mistakes that they make and hand-hold them to improve. The game can help develop the reading skills of children aged seven years and above.

15. Pirate island

Image: Shutterstock

It is an exciting board game for two to four players where the participants have to read short passages and answer questions on some details given on the board. The children need to answer each question to reach the treasure chest. You can buy this game or prepare one at home. For added fun and excitement, set a time limit to reach the treasure chest. Involving children aged above seven years in such games can help develop their reading and comprehension skills.

16. Word towers

Involve your six-year-old child in this entertaining game and help them frame sentences/phrases using blocks that have words written/pasted/printed on them.

  • Take some plain white stickers and write nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, sight words, etc., on them.
  • Paste one sticker on each Lego or Duplo block in random order.
  • Once done, pass the blocks to your child and instruct them to make a tower.
  • The tower should be built in such a way that it looks and reads like a sentence or phrase.

Engaging a child in such activities can help enhance their cognitive abilities and foster creative thinking.

Related: 4 Stages Of Cognitive Development In Children & Ways To Support

17. Bringing stories to life

Image: Shutterstock

Assign a story from a storybook, comic, or textbook to your child, and ask them to prepare a skit. Provide them with all the necessary props that they would need to perform the skit efficiently. Involving children above six years of age in such activities can help improve their reading and comprehension skills, promote language development, foster creativity, and develop public speaking abilities.

18. Reading paintings

This artful and engaging activity provides an opportunity to display one’s reading and comprehension skills through painting.

  • Provide a sketchbook, colors, and a printed passage to your child.
  • Guide your child to read the passage/paragraph and recreate it in painting in their sketchbook using colors within the given time.
  • Discuss the painting with your child to help them express feelings, emotions, and thoughts.

Such activities can help foster creativity, develop emotional intelligence, and hone your child’s reading and comprehension skills.

Point to ponder

Give your child a photo book ( with images such as children playing, a busy restaurant, etc.) drawn or glued on it, and ask them to write a story from their observations. This activity will help build observational skills and allow them to express their innermost feelings.

19. Dear diary

Image: Shutterstock

Keeping a diary can be an enriching experience, allowing children above seven years of age to express their feelings, thoughts, and experiences. Motivate your child to jot down their thoughts in the diary daily and read it aloud the next day with you. Reading a diary with a parent strengthens the parent-child bond, enables self-expression, and simultaneously improves their reading and writing skills.

20. Put the story together

Organizing information in a logical sequence is an important part of active reading for children above six years of age. In this interesting and engaging activity, your child needs to sort and arrange the story pieces written on different flashcards in a sequence to complete the story. Practicing story sequencing can enhance their reading comprehension skills and strengthen their logical reasoning and analytical thinking skills. You can get story sequencing worksheets online or prepare some at home for a great learning experience.

1. How to encourage my child to read?

The best way to encourage your child is by creating the right atmosphere to read at home. So set up a cozy reading corner and surround your children with reading material. Lead by example and set aside time for reading every day. Moreover, avoid reading materials that are beyond your child’s reading abilities.

2. How do you make reading practice more fun for kids?

Create a fun reading space. Buy picture books and give them books they would love. For example, buy books about their favorite characters or animals. You may read books together and act out the story to capture their interest.

Reading games for kids help enhance a child’s focus and reading skills. Reading helps children learn the pronunciation of new words, speech and language development, and cognitive development. Spot the alphabet, sequence letters, junior scrabble, riddle treasure hunt, and word bingo are some of the interesting reading games for young children. You may choose the game according to the child’s age and grip on the language. For example, you can use alphabet games for preschoolers and more complicated games and activities such as writing a letter or diary or tough spelling for older children.

Key Pointers

  • Reading games focus on enhancing speech and improving the child’s chances of learning new words.
  • Charades, scrabble, snakes and ladders with words are examples of some fun reading games for children.
  • Reading games improve a child’s vocabulary and cognition and contribute to academic development in the long run.

References:

MomJunction's articles are written after analyzing the research works of expert authors and institutions. Our references consist of resources established by authorities in their respective fields. You can learn more about the authenticity of the information we present in our editorial policy.

1. Helping Your Child Learn to Read; Healthy Children; American Academy of Pediatrics
2. Reading and storytelling with babies and children; Raising Children network
3. What Is The Importance Of Reading?; JBCN International School
4. Sait Akbaşh, et al. ; The Effect of Reading Comprehension on the Performance in Science and Mathematics; Education Resource Information Center
5. Reading to Young Children: A Headstart In Life; Department of Education and Early Childhood Development; The University of Melbourne

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10 cool games that will teach your child to read quickly and without errors

How to teach a child to read confidently, fluently, correctly? Interest and captivate! We offer a selection of games from the teacher, speed reading and memory development instructor Guzel Abdulova.

Gyuzel Abdulova, neuropsychologist, teacher, speed reading and memory development coach, head of the Eidos Intellectual Technology Center

These exciting games will not only arouse interest in reading, but also help develop memory, attention and the level of understanding of texts. Play - reading, read - playing!

"Racing"

What should be done? Invite the child to read his favorite poem several times, each time increasing the speed and power of the voice.
Purpose. The exercise significantly increases the speed of reading, improves reading technique and promotes the development of speech.

"Foreigner"

What should be done? We read the words, highlighting the last syllable, as if with a "foreign" accent. Reading text or columns of words. For example:
In a healthy body healthy mind.
Not the one who is RIGHT who is strong, but the one who is honest.
A tree is supported by roots, and a person is supported by friends.
And Vaska listens and eats.
Elbow is close, but you won't bite
The cuckoo praises the rooster for praising the cuckoo.
Alone in the field is not a warrior.

Purpose. This exercise helps children get rid of the habit of swallowing endings. It is quite tedious, so we complete it for 30 seconds.

"Voices"

What should be done? The task is to read the text in the form of a person or animal, cartoon or literary character. Discuss with the child how Baba Yaga or a mouse, a hare or a wolf would read this text.
Purpose. The exercise improves the reading technique, helps to get the kid interested in reading, to show that it is fun and interesting.

"Funny Pictures"

What should be done? For this exercise, you need to match text with a large number of pictures. Cut the pictures and mix. The task of the child is to arrange the pictures in order to restore the sequence of events.
Option 1. Read the text and put the pictures in order.
Option 2. Tell a story from pictures. Then read the text and compare your version with the one proposed.
Purpose. The exercise contributes to the development of semantic reading and a deeper understanding of what is read.

"Magic puzzles"

What should be done? Cut the text into pieces-puzzles and mix. We invite the child to collect them and read the restored text.
Purpose. The exercise is quite difficult, and memory, attention, and thinking are involved. The skill of semantic reading is being improved. At first, you need to choose familiar texts, better - fairy tales.

“The word is lost”

What should be done? Read the text aloud, skipping words. The child must understand which word was missed.
Target . The exercise contributes to the development of attention, the formation of the skill of semantic guessing and a deeper understanding of what is read.

"First and last"

What should I do? The child reads the text, saying aloud only the first and last letters in the word. Then he should tell what he read about.
Purpose. The exercise trains concentration and quick switching of attention, teaches you to perform several actions at the same time: read, understand, memorize.

Head-tail

What should I do? Option 1. An adult reads the beginning of the word, and the child must find the "tail", that is, the end of this word. To do this, you need to quickly scan the entire text, find the word and read the ending.
Option 2. The adult reads the beginning of the sentence, and the child must find its ending.
Purpose. This is a good training for the skills of "scanning" the text with the eyes, concentration and semantic reading.

"Read and count"

What to do? The child must not only read and understand the text, but also count the words. Naturally, for starters, you need small texts - from 10-20 to 40-50 words.
Target. This exercise helps to develop attention and better understand the text.

"Shooting a movie"

What to do? Ask the child to imagine a movie based on the text. We help with leading questions, find out what he sees and feels when he reads. The task is not only to understand what the text is about, but also to hear sounds, feel smells, tastes, and experience the emotions of the characters. The child must answer your questions and retell the text.
Purpose. We develop figurative memory, speech, retelling skill. Thanks to the use of the method of co-sensation, children easily remember and tell the text with all the details, even come up with details.

G. Abdulova “We read after the ABC: we develop speed reading”

It is important to teach a child to read correctly. The book by an experienced neuropsychologist, speed reading trainer and head of the Superbrain School of Intellectual Development Gyuzel Abdulova contains interesting and fun exercises that will help a child learn to read fluently without mistakes and hesitations. And although this book is designed for children of primary school age, it will certainly be interesting for parents to study: try to quickly read the text upside down or find a few words in a whole sea of ​​scattered letters.

See also :

5 memory games

How to teach your child to read confidently: 5 tips for parents

"Secrets" and four more children's games for the street

Photo: Prostock-studio, Alex2stundr Luis Molinero/Shutterstock

tips

Learning to read in the game: 12 games

For those who need to find the answer to the question How to learn to read? today prepared a wonderful material by Maria Kostyuchenko, the leader of the Develop column. Masha is sure that there is the best approach to learning to read - learning by playing. So in today's issue - no less than 12 games for learning to read!

When to start teaching a child to read - and how? This question sooner or later arises in front of almost every mother. Now there are a lot of methods for teaching reading: whole words, warehouses, letters, etc. and so on. Each mother chooses her own way of introducing the child to the wonderful world of books. But there is nothing more effective than learning to read through the game! Therefore, today I want to show you some ideas on how to make the process of getting to know letters and words an exciting process. How to learn to read in the game? There are many, many ways!

Letter, appear!

You can bring letters to life, make them tactile, write stories about them, or do something else. Or you can use magic. Make 33 cards (choose the size yourself) on each of which write a letter with a white wax pencil or a regular candle. Give the child a card (one or more - it depends on your plan for getting to know the letters), paints, a brush and offer to paint the card with the color he likes. When the child begins to draw, the letter written with wax will not be painted over, but will appear, thereby surprising and delighting the child.

Find the letter

Having learned to recognize letters, you need to learn how to match letters and words. An interesting game with cards will help you with this. For example, you make several cards with the image of objects in advance (they should be simple and understandable) and write 2-3-4 letters next to the image of the object. The child is asked to choose the letter that begins the word on the card. He can paint over it, circle it, put a beautiful stone on it, attach a clothespin, etc. The main thing is that the child understands what is drawn on the card. For example, you give a card with a picture of a bullfinch and thought that the child should find the letter "C", but he can regard the picture as "Bird" and look for the letter "P". In such cases, you must warn him in advance that you want him to understand what kind of bird it is and find the first letter of its name.

Stained-glass windows - from "A" to "Z"?

Learning to read is going very well during creative games. Great idea - a stained glass letter. Take a sheet of paper and draw a letter on it so that it can be painted over. Take a ruler and draw a sheet of paper so that visually it consists of pieces. Put dots on the pieces that belong to the letter and invite the child to color this unusual pattern. All pieces with dots are the colors of one shade, and everything without dots is the colors of a different shade. So your child will once again fix the image of the letter, train his hand and learn how to accurately paint over the pictures, as well as get acquainted with the shades of the same color. For example, he will paint over a letter with shades of orange: peach, pumpkin, honey, copper, amber, etc.

Learning to read by stringing beads?

Let's move on from letters to the formation of words. A great option for games where the child not only learns to read, but also develops fine motor skills. Write a word for the child (it is better to start with small words), you can use a picture. Lay out cubes-beads with letters in front of him (if there are no such cubes, then you can either make them yourself from a self-hardening mass for modeling or from salt dough, and you can also use cards with letters in which holes will be made with a hole punch), chenille wire (you can just string). And now show how, by stringing letters on a wire, to assemble a word.

Simulator for learning to read "from nothing"

A similar game, only it is made much easier and from what we have at hand. You will need lids for this! We stick letters on the lids (or write with a marker if the lids are white) and begin to put words out of them!

Attach the word!

The next step is to insert words into sentences. Take a strip of cardboard, write on it the beginning of a sentence that will work for any subject, for example, "I see ...." or "I'm playing with...". Put cards with the image of objects in front of the child (they must be signed, if the child begins to read, then images are not needed, only words are needed), your offer and a clothespin. Invite the child to change words with a clothespin and read the resulting sentence.

Missing letter!

When we learned to read, it's time to learn to recognize words, even if letters are missing. Make cards with words where 1 or more letters are missing (you can adjust the difficulty level yourself), 33 clothespins, at the ends of which a letter will be attached. Invite the child to read the word and find the clothespin with the missing letter.

Houses of words

We are reaching a new level and learning how to make sentences on our own. And the usual block constructor will help us with this. The smaller the child, the larger the details should be. We measure blocks, make cards with words, stick cards to the constructor and we can build whole houses from words.

Puzzles for those who are learning to read

Another great game is the reading puzzle. You will need several cards of the same size. a square of cards, on each card there is a word on two sides, and pictures on the other two. You have to match the pictures with the corresponding words.

A letter… “in a haystack”

When a child learns to read simple words, you can complicate the task for him and ask him to look for his words among a random set of letters. To learn to read even better, the child must learn to see the word he needs and read it, even if there are extra objects around the word.

We are not bored with fables

How to learn to read - this task is no longer worth it? Do you already know how to read? Great. Let's start having fun. Children are very fond of fairy tales. But writing them is not so easy. To stir up your imagination, make a notebook for reading fables. Take an ordinary notebook with springs, cut each page into 3 parts and write a word on each resulting leaf. The main thing is to write on some pages always the subject on the other predicate, so that they add up to sentences. Flip through the pages, get new offers, compose fables. For example, you can get “dad sews a cloud” - and so on.


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