Reading Games for Kids

February 3, 2018March 1, 2018 Veronica McCarthy

Reading Games for Kids

Reading games for kids are the easiest way to increase a child’s reading level.

Everyone knows that kids need to read to succeed. Some kids just learn to read with no problems, while Reading Blocks: A Step By Step Method to Teach Reading other kids struggle, struggle and struggle some more just to learn the alphabet. This is where a reading game comes in handy. You can get your struggling readers to play a reading game way easier than you can get them to practice sight word drills. The more fun the game is, the more time they will be willing to spend playing the game. And, as a consequence, they will be learning and strengthening the reading skills necessary for future success.

Here’s to better and better reading skills!

Get a few reading games right now and raise your child’s reading level and have fun at the same time!

Chunks: The Incredible Word Building Game

Great hands-on reading and spelling tool which is also great for developing fluency (greater reading speed). This game combines 70 yellow onsets (beginning of the word) with 70 green rimes (end of the word) to make hundreds of words to read in a game format. This is a very effective game for any age person that needs more practice with reading skills.

Boggle and Boggle Junior

Boggle is a great game to practice making and reading words in a fun game format. Super Big Boggle has a super sized grid including the new double letter cube and new blank cube. Includes 36 letter cubes and a 4 minute timer provide a fresh challenge with every game. The biggest boggle game ever. Contains 36 letter cubes, stylish cube grid and dome, 4 minute sand timer and instructions.

Boggle Junior is an easier game version for younger players and helps younger readers begin to recognize and learn the alphabet and sounds as well as put the sounds together to form words. This is a first game for preschoolers and grows with the child by combining different ways to play the game. The child can match letter cubes to picture or word cards in 2 multi-level games. This game is great for introducing letter and word recognition, matching, spelling and memory and is for 1-2 players.

Match It! Alphabet Memory Game

The Match It! Alphabet Memory Game is a fun game that will challenge problem solving, teach upper and lower case letter recognition, and develop memory skills as they try to find a pair of matching alphabet cards. I recommend that you begin playing the game using only 4 letters. You will have 8 cards all together (4 upper case letters and 4 lower case letters that match the upper case letters). Add a new letter each time a letter (upper case and lower case) is learned. When the child turns over the matching upper and lower case letter they should also tell you the sound they would make for that letter. You can also combine two and three letters to begin practicing blending the sounds together to make simple words to read. For example, when the child can recognize the letters a, t, and m they can make the words: a, at, am mat and tam. As the child learns more sounds continue to make new words to read combining the new sounds with the already known sounds.

New Set: The Family Game of Visual Perception

New Set:The Family Game of Visual Perception, has won over 35 best game awards including MENSA Select. Race to find a SET of three cards where each feature is either all the same or all different on each card. SET can be played alone or with as many players as you can fit around the table. Most children who struggle with reading will benefit from a strategy to strengthen their visual perception skills. Strengthening a child’s visual perception will also strengthen their ability to recognize and memorize letters and sounds as well as strengthen numerous other learning skills. Set can be played in 20 minutes or less so it makes a fun and quick way to practice a very important learning skill.

Scrabble and Scrabble Junior

Scrabble is a great game to practice making and reading words in a fun format. This version of the game is great because the words won’t be slip which is especially important with someone just learning to read. There are also soft pads on its bottom that allow you to effortlessly slide the board across a table or rotate it for a better view. And, the compact size of the board, tiles and racks, make the game ideal for travel. You can play Scrabble in a car, train, plane or boat which makes practicing reading skills so much easier!

Scrabble Junior is an easier version of scrabble for younger players and newer readers. This version of Scrabble will give kids practice with letter and sound recognition. Kid-sized words and colorful pictures make it fun to match letter tiles to words on the grid. Players move their tokens up the score track as they score points. When all of the tiles have been placed on the board, the player with the most points wins. There is an easy version of the game on the front and a more advanced version on the back as the child’s skills advance.

Word Shark

This is a fun game for making and reading words in a game format. This makes reading practice fun instead of an argument! Each player chooses a Word Shark mat. Player 1 draws a consonant tile from the pile and tries to add it to a word ending on his or her mat to make a word. If the letter cannot be used to spell a word, it is returned to the pile. Then the next person takes a turn. For 1-10 players. Includes: 10 two sided mats, 58 vowel tiles and 92 consonant tiles.

Sight Word Bingo

Sight words are words that are seen over and over again in all kinds of printed material. Kids need to be able to read sight words automatically to become fluent readers. Since many sight words do not sound out using phonics they need to be memorized so they can be read quickly. Sight word drills can be boring for kids so a game format is a great way to get kids to practice learning these words. Children love to play this hands-on, interactive game while they practice reading 46 sight words. The child can move on the the next level once he/she can read these words fluently. Unique six-way format adapts to a variety of skill levels. Appropriate for small groups or the entire class and ideal for learners with disabilities or anyone learning English. Includes 36 playing cards, 264 playing chips, calling cards, caller’s mat, answer guide and storage box.

Sequence Letters

This is a great game to practice letter and sound recognition. The more the child practices, the easier it is for him to learn the names and sounds of the alphabet letters. This game makes it fun to practice letter names and sounds. Players sound out the letter on their card and match it to the beginning sound of the picture on the game board. Each card features a letter of the alphabet in upper and lower case format. Colored squares on the cards and game board help with faster recognition for younger readers. When you have 5 of your chips in a row, you’ve got a sequence.

Snap It Up!

This is a fun and easy to play card game that gives kids practice in making and reading words. Use this game after kids know the sounds of the alphabet letters. You can also pull out the cards that are more difficult to sound out such as “ear” and then include them back in after the child has had practice playing with the easier sounds. The child will also practice reading “rimes” which is the chunk of the word after the vowel. This is a great skill to practice for fluent reading. The more they practice this skill, the quicker they become fluent readers. Players pick and pass cards as fast as they can to spell words. Each game includes 90 cards

Snatch It

This is a really fun game to practice making and reading words and can adapt to different reading skill levels. This game can be played every day for painless reading practice. It is faster moving than Scrabble because everyone play at once which may be better for the kids who get bored waiting for their turn. You can “steal” someone else’s word by adding another letter to their word to make a new word. When you see a word just shout it out and grab it. For 2 or more players.

I would love to hear how you used these games to raise your child’s reading levels. Let me know by leaving a comment below. Also, if you have any questions about your child’s reading skills you can ask it in the comment section below. 🙂

Learn How to Read in Preschool

January 18, 2017February 27, 2018 Veronica McCarthy

Learn How to Read in Preschool

Child Must Be Interested First

A child that is interested in learning how to read can definitely learn how to read in preschool. The key idea to note here is that the child must be interested in learning how to read. Otherwise, the process will be painful for the child and the person teaching the child

There are specific skills necessary to becoming a good reader. The skills include Phonemic Awareness, Alphabet knowledge, Decoding Skills, Comprehension, Fluency, and Vocabulary. If interested, you can read a more detailed overview of this process here.

Start With Small Chunks

For preschool, you will focus on the earliest and most basic of reading skills which occur in four separate steps. You will start teaching with a small chunk of information. When the child learns the information in this small chunk, another chunk can be added. You only need to use one vowel (the short sound in the vowel “a”, like you hear in the beginning of “apple” and “ax” ) and four consonants (m, p, s, t) to begin your instruction. You can use these five letters in blending and separating sounds, making words, reading words, and making books to read.

Step 1 – Phonemic Awareness

Step 1 – Phonemic awareness can be assessed first, before you begin actually teaching. You can find a phonemic awareness test here . Phonemic Awareness skills can be strengthened, if necessary, at the same time that you are teaching the letter names and sounds. The phonemic awareness skills we are interested in during preschool are: blending sounds (/a/+/t/ = /at/), separating sounds (/at/ = /a/ + /t/), and rhyming words (at, mat, sat, pat). You can find more information about phonemic awareness skills here.

Phonemic awareness skills are completed by hearing, not by seeing. You want the child to start

listening for the first sound he hears in a word. He does not need to know the name of the letter. He just has to be able to hear the sound he hears first. For example, in the word “mat” the first sound you hear is the /m/ sound. (One important concept to know at this point is that you do not want to add an extra sound to this letter. You do not want to make the /muh/ sound. A lot of people add an /uh/ to the letter sound. So /muh/ would be two sounds: /m/ and/uh/. You want to clip the sound and just say /m/ or /mmm/. Try making both of these sounds right now for practice. Do you see what I mean? Good. This will save you and your child a lot of trouble down the reading road.)

Have your child practice hearing the beginning sound in words that begin with the letters: m,s,p,t and the short “a” sound like you hear in the beginning of apple. These are the sounds we will be concentrating on for the beginning reading skills. Some examples of words to use for hearing beginning sounds are: mat, sat, pat, mam, sam, pam, map, tap, sap. Just say the word out loud and ask your child to tell you the sound he hears first. If he can not tell you the sound, help him out and tell him the sound. For example, “What sound do you hear first in the word ‘Sat’? I hear the /s/ sound in the word ‘Sat’. Can you hear the /s/ sound in ‘Sat'”? Continue practicing the beginning sound using the four consonants (m,s,p,t) and the short “a” sound (like in “apple, ax”).

Step 2 – Alphabet Name and Sound Knowledge

The child does not need to know all the letters and sounds of the alphabet before he begins making

and reading words. He just needs to know one vowel sound and a couple of consonant sounds to begin. Right now we will be working on a total of five sounds, one vowel and four consonants (a,m,s,p,t). These sounds are specifically chosen for several reasons (which I won’t get into here) and are the best sounds to begin with in a new reading program.

You can make a set of review cards for the sounds. Use index cards and a black and red marker. Use the black marker for writing the consonants (m, p, s, t) and use the red marker for writing the vowels (a). One letter per index card. When the child can easily respond with the letter name and sound, you can add another consonant or vowel. Only use the five letters to begin with so the child does not feel overwhelmed. You will be teaching decoding skills using only these five letters. Later, the child will apply these skills to more challenging reading tasks.

Start by introducing one of the index cards. Lay the card down and say, “This is the letter ____. When you see this letter you know that you should make the sound, ____. Let’s practice saying the letter name and the sound you make when you see this letter.”

You can explain that the letter you write is kind of like a picture for your eyes to see that matches the sound that your ears hear. So when your ear hears ____sound, you can write ____ for your eyes to see the sound that you made. After practicing this sound, introduce another one of the five sounds. Continue doing this for all five sounds. Continue to practice these sounds until your child can easily respond to all five sounds. You do not need to add another sound to the list until the first five sounds are mastered, and words have been made and read successfully with the five sounds.

Step 3 – Blending Sounds and Making Words

You will combine skills from step 1 and 2 that your child has mastered and begin to make words to read and write. So when your child knows the sounds for “a” and “t” you can combine the two sounds and practicing blending two sounds. “I make the ____ sound for this letter, and the ____ sound for this letter. So now let me try and squish these two sounds together and listen to what we hear, /at/” And then practice, /a/+/t/ makes the /at/ sound. Continue practicing using only two sounds at a time. Write down each two letter combination you make on an index card. You will use these cards for review and to make words and stories with later. You can make different two letter combinations with all of the five sounds. You must be successful with the two letter blending and reading before you move on to the three letter combinations. You can make pretend words as well because pretend words are really syllables inside a bigger word. Reading the smaller portions of the word in the pretend word is great practice for reading bigger words later.

When your child knows the five sounds, and has practiced blending two sounds together, you can begin to practice blending three sounds together. For example, if you are blending the three sounds in “mat”, you would begin by saying each sound separately, and then combine all three sounds into the word, “/m/ /a/ /t/, “mat.” Do this for all the combinations you can make with your five sounds. Remember, every word and syllable has a vowel, so every word or syllable that you make with these five sounds has to include the vowel “a”. Use your index cards to make the combinations of sounds and words.

Step 4 – Make and Read Mini Books

You will then make and read mini books based on the words you made in the previous step. For example, when you have blended and practiced reading /at/, you can write this word on a separate index cards. This set of cards will be for the words you have learned. Keep your alphabet cards separate for now. Every time you combine and blend different sets of letters together, make an index card to read using this combination. Syllables can be used also in your word practice index cards.

Once you have made several word cards, try and combine some words to make little sentences. Only

use the words you have learned so far. You can staple several small pieces of paper together to make a little book to read. One page can have the word or simple sentence, and the paper directly next to it can have a picture for the word or sentence. The child can practice reading these simple books to anyone who will listen. This practice will help the child to be put the word into his long term memory and will help him to become a fluent reader.

Continue to make index cards for each new letter practiced and learned, and an index card for every new letter combination or word. Continue to make little books using all the new sounds and words. Making the books and rereading the books is a great tool for building fluency.

Make these activities fun and engaging and your child will learn to love reading. The love of reading is a skill that will propel your child into a successful school journey that will evolve into the career of his choice.

You can find all this information and a whole lot more in:

Reading Blocks: A Step by Step Method to Teach Reading.

Learning How to Read

April 5, 2016March 1, 2018 Veronica McCarthy

Learning How to Read

Learning how to read is a skill that contributes immensely to a person’s quality of life.Teaching someone to read is arguably one of the best gifts you can give to another person. This skill will contribute to his experiencing a fulfilling and productive life. Teaching someone how to read can have challenges but it is also one of the most rewarding endeavors you will undertake. So, congratulation! Good for you!

Learning how to read opens the doors to unlimited opportunities and possibilities in a person’s life which otherwise might remain closed. We frequently hear incredible stories about someone who reaches an epic level of success in spite of his or her inability to read. But for every amazing story of success, there are thousands upon thousands of stories of lives adversely impacted by the inability to read. Prisons are filled with men and women who cannot read. Maybe, many of them would not be in that situation if they were more successful in school, which requires adequate reading skills.

Information Age Makes Learning to Read a Crucial Skill

learn how to read The ability to read has probably never been more important than it is right now in this “information age” of computers. We are incredibly blessed to have an unprecedented wealth of knowledge freely available to everyone. The only condition required is the ability to read and comprehend the information. This sometimes can be much easier said than done.

People learn how to read many different ways. Some people will learn effortlessly, using any program or system. Other people learn more slowly and laboriously, but continuously move ahead, like the turtle in the race. They eventually get the job done. And still another group of learners struggle immensely.

Progress for this third type of learner is usually very slow with possibly two steps forward and then one step backward. Some days it might seem like all steps are backwards. One day this type of learner knows a letter name or sound, and the next day, or even hour, this learner acts like he has never seen or heard of this letter or sound before. One moment this type of learner can read a sight word, and the next moment he cannot remember that same word. This third type of learner runs the risk of living a life of illiteracy if he does not receive the appropriate instruction. If this type of learner sounds all too familiar to you, don’t worry. Reading Blocks will work for all types of learners.

Decoding Versus Memorizing

Phonics Reading Program While testing a group of First graders, I observed one of the children reading a First grade level story perfectly. But she read almost too perfectly. Her style of reading led me to investigate a little deeper into her reading skills. I asked her to turn to the last page of the book and read that page starting at the last word instead of the first word. I wanted to see how she decoded individual words without the scaffold of the familiar story. She was not able to read any word on the page. I discovered that she had memorized the whole book, as well as many other books, but could not decode individual words.

Obviously, memorizing all the books is not possible, and this child was falling farther and farther behind. In her mind, reading was memorizing. On closer inspection, I discovered that this reader did not know many of the alphabet sounds, and could not blend or segment sounds.

A struggling reader learns to compensate and blend in with the other children. Struggling readers have a myriad of strategies to keep under the radar of a teacher or parent, and also to keep from looking different. The longer this issue goes undetected, the longer it takes to rectify.

Ideally, a reading difficulty should be recognized during the second half of kindergarten. A struggling reader will begin to lag behind other readers at this time.

Lowered Self-Esteem

A very real and devastating effect of a reading difficulty is a lowered self-image or self-esteem. A struggling reader can begin to feel inferior and start to avoid anything to do with reading. This avoidance eventually has a negative effect on other areas of learning, which continues to play havoc with the individual’s confidence. A person must internally KNOW he can succeed in order to be successful, and a person with a lowered self-esteem will begin to doubt his ability to succeed. Addressing this issue is a crucial factor in a successful tutoring plan.

What Does a Reading Disability (Learning Difference) Look Like?

A reading disability is really just a learning difference. This learning difference can present itself in many different ways. The learning difference can be severe or mild and everything in between. All levels of this learning difference have one component in common, the possibility of lower lifelong achievement for the individual. Even a mild learning difference in reading, not rectified, can decrease a person’s achievement in some area of his life. Maybe he will avoid reading in front of the class and later in life, public speaking. Maybe he will avoid learning a skill because it involves a lot of reading and later in life avoid a profession because there was too much reading required to obtain that goal.

Symptoms of a Learning Difference

He/She might have trouble learning the letters and sounds of the alphabet.
He/She might have a difficult time finding a rhyme for a word.
He/She might have trouble learning and remembering sight words.
He/She might know a sight word one day and not know the word 10 minutes later.
He/She might have trouble trying to sound out bigger words.
He/She might confuse or replace letters within a word (horse for house).
When he/she does start to read, he might know a word in one sentence but not know the same word in the next sentence.
He/She might not be able to recall some or most of what he just read.
Different fonts in books may throw him/her off completely.
He/She might pronounce big words incorrectly, mixing up the order of the syllables (mazagine for magazine, hostable for hospital, bisgetti for spagetti).
He/She might have no observable trouble with reading in Kindergarten and First grade and then fall far behind in second grade.
An older learner might show a noticeable difference in what he/she can tell you orally and what he/she will write on a test.
He/She might read painfully slow and as a consequence, avoids reading at all costs. He/She might learn much better when listening or viewing versus reading.
A common factor in all levels of learning differences in reading is that at some point the learner begins to avoid reading. This aversion to reading grows and the learner begins to fall farther and farther behind.
Another common factor is that all the learners with this learning difference can improve their reading skills. This learning difference is conquerable.

The Process of Learning to Read

Learning to read is a very complicated proceedure. When you take a look at everything involved in this Learn How to Read process, it’s a wonder anyone learns how to read. But we do, and some people even learn to read effortlessly.

Our miraculous brains are wired to be able to understand that an abstract symbol can represent something else. Almost every 5 year old can look at a picture of a bird and make the connection in their brain between the picture and the real thing. He can also understand that this mark on the paper represents a sound. That’s not the hard part. The hard part comes when we take the symbol, “a” for instance and we give it a name, “AE”. Then we give it a sound, /a/ like in “cat” and another sound /ae/ like in “cake” and another sound /aw/ like in “tall” and sometimes it’s even silent like in “coat”.

Now that alone could make a person want to quit. But then we go on to name 25 more letters each having its’ own sound or sets of sounds. Then we start to combine all these sounds into pairs or groups which can then change the sound, /th/, /sh/, /ch/, /thr/, and on and on. And if all this isn’t difficult enough, we throw in words from different languages which have their own set of rules and pronunciations, for example “tortilla”.

Everyone Can Learn How to Read

Despite all these challenges, pretty much everyone can learn how to read. People are able to take these abstract symbols that we call letters, give them a sound, and combine the sounds to form words. We can then assemble the words into strings of words or sentences and form a coherent thought. Then we can string the thoughts together to form more complicated thoughts which transfer knowledge and learning from one person to another.

This system is advantageous to everyone. Just take a look at the improvements and inventions our society has made in the last 50 years. This is possible because of sharing and building upon past discoveries. A person today can read about another persons’ thoughts from a hundred years ago just by knowing the code they used.

Seven Components in Learning How to Read

There are seven components to discuss when learning how to read.

To learn more in any of these seven areas, click on the link and you will find more information, as well as strategies to strengthen that skill.

Comprehension Fluency and Vocabulary

Decoding skills must be mastered first before assessing comprehension, fluency and vocabulary levels. Often times a reader looks like he has an issue with one of these three areas but the real issue is his decoding ability.

Sometimes, a reader with good comprehension skills might begin to have a comprehension issue when first reading expository material like science. This type of reading has more challenging vocabulary and is harder to read and understand. There are specific comprehension strategies to use in this situation. You can find comprehension strategies on the Comprehension Page.

Fluency and vocabulary naturally improve when the reader reads more. Dr. Stanovich called this phenomenon the “Matthew Effect”. Strong readers get stronger while weak readers fall farther and farther behind with each passing year. This is why it is so crucial to identify a struggling reader mid way through Kindergarten. Fluency and Vocabulary strategies can be found on their respective pages.

The Most Effective Way to Teach Reading

Studies have shown that the most effective way to teach reading to all types of learners is with a
How to Teach Reading program that is:

research based;
directly taught in a sequential and cumulative manner;
uses multisensory techniques;
offers review and repetition as needed;
is phonics based.

In other words, taught in identifiable chunks of knowledge, according to a definite map of what chunks to know at what time and in what order, and utilizes a specific learning technique. Each new progression builds on the previous step.

Reading Blocks: A Step by Step Method to Teach Reading is designed to fulfill all these requirements. This program guides you step by step through the process of designing and implementing a reading program that fits the unique needs of each learner, instead of trying to force the learner to fit the program. Reading Blocks is suited for all learning differences including: Dyslexia, Autism, Central Auditory Processing Disability (CAPD), ADD and ADHD, and more.

Click Here to Purchase the Reading Blocks Program – On Sale Today with FREE Shipping!

learning how to read

[Note: For the sake of clarity, the term “he” will be used for both males and females. Also, the person learning how to read can be any age from four to ninety-four, so I will refer to “him” as a “learner”, “person”, or “reader”.]