Utilising household resources to create exciting new reading games

Posted August 16, 2020

As C-19 drags on and schooling our children at home is becoming filled with “resistance”,
I have been looking for ways to bring some enthusiasm back into the educational sessions I do with my children.

Solution:
MODIFYING GAMES WE ALREADY HAVE INTO “WORD GAMES”

Make your own versions of games that are commonly found in many houses, to include your childs favourite book characters or sightwords level

Up until now,

I have allowed my children to create a book using the options on my website.

My eldest used this book to locate different kinds of words requested by her teacher eg adjectives, WOW words, depending on what the set task was.

My younger child used her book to find letters she recognised and match words from our SIGHT WORDS sheets. She even traced the letters on a laminated copy.

There had to be more games I could find WITHIN MY HOME!

(seeing as we are in lockdown and limited on travel distance)

BINGO!

Looking around my house and inspiration hit as I opened the games cupboard and there in front of me were numerous games I could adapt to make learning more fun.

First up: BINGO

Here I have made a BINGO game based on one I had in the cupboard.

Paper game cards with RED, GOLD or any words your child is learning on them.
A spinner using cardboard, a bead between the holes (to allow smooth spin) and a pipe cleaner to hold it loosely together.
An idea could be to laminate the Game Cards so your child can TRACE the letters as they get a word.
Once they trace 3 in a row, BINGO!

Using SIGHTWORDS create a fun BINGO game

MEMORY!

Can you remember the last time you played this game? LOL

It is fantastic for children to play in short intervals.
Personally, I would begin by staggering the difficulty of the game.
Begin by adding some words they are familiar with.
Swap the sheet out with some words they are having a little difficulty with.
Swap the sheet again for a mix of words that are from different levels in their SIGHTWORDS.
If they get a little stuck, I would show them that some of the words are from higher levels of Sightwords than they are currently on.

While ensuring they know that some words are mixed through the first levels as they are simply used more often in everyday language.

DIY Memory games using lift the flaps and removable word selections. Increase number of words or SIGHTWORD level as child becomes familiar with the words

GUESS WHO!

“How can we change a WHO for a WORD?” I hear you ask.

Begin by reducing the number of options in front of the child. Stick to the words they are working on in their SIGHTWORDS.

When asking questions consider:

Letter sounds
Words containing specific letters
How many letters in the word

As the game needs to get harder, mix words from different SIGHTWORD levels and use the colours.

Without changing the real game, you can simply cover the images with your own word panels

NEED SOME ENERGY BURNT?

Leap Frog
Using coloured paper or textas cut Lily Pad shapes and on each write one SIGHTWORD from the colour coded lists. Use 3-4 colours
Scatter the lily pads across the floor or yard and ask the child(ren) to leap between the RED words YELLING them out as they land on them.
If they can’t work it out, hop back to previous word and sound it out again for another try or pick another.
Maybe you could use a spinning board with the colours for the child(ren) to leap onto a pad of the colour the spinner lands on.

HIDE AND SEEK

Using SIGHTWORDS, have two copies of each word.
Hide one set around the house or outside.
Using the 2^nd set, allow your child to find the matching words.

For more advance readers, consider the work their teacher is asking.
You may be able to hide multiple WOW words or adjectives and have the child bring them back to relevant words for the words to link to.

Eg Hide these words: magical sparkling vibrant menacing enormous gentle slither
Consider how a story is written. Match effectively to: kingdom wizard fairy mushroom

CHALLENGING CHILDREN’S ABILITIES

There are times when children can advance to higher levels and still get stuck on some of the earlier words. With practice they will overcome this. They gain more confidence through progression and calmly repeating the sounds when needed with gentle encouragement.

As always, these are games I play with my children.
Should you have any concerns about your child(ren)’s development, please contact their teacher for professional advice.