Some kids are naturally drawn to reading. Other kids are too busy to sit still while their parents try to teach them letters and phonics. Games are a great way to teach any child read from the basic skills of letters and sounds to spelling and sight words. There are active games for active kids and games more suited to studious children. You can find reading games for early learners online, in books or make up your own. Here are some places to find fun and educational reading games.
Starfall
Starfall is an educational reading website created by a team of professional educators, artists and musicians. Kids can start by learning their ABC's with songs and music. Advanced readers can learn new words by playing more complex games. There are several games to choose from with different themes. To celebrate Earth day kids can help clean up litter and learn recycling words at the same time. There is also a word hunt, build a flower and writing a letter to grandma games. The games are design with small kids in mind with large printed words, slow and clearly spoken words and large buttons to click on.
Learning Resources
The company Learning Resources has created many fun and interesting games to help young kids learn to read. For those just learning the alphabet is the ABC Clever Catch Ball. The ball gets tossed back and forth and the catcher reads the letter under a thumb. They also have mat games, puzzles, blocks and computer games to teach kids from the basic letters and phonics up to spelling and words. Many of their games are designed to be active and fun for both kids and adults.
Scholastic Books
Lots of books are available that have dozens of game ideas for early readers. Scholastic has a series of reading game books to meet the needs of any level early reader. In "40 Sensational Sight Word Games" you can play "Mingle and Match," an active word matching game or use clay to learn read. With the book "15 Fun and Easy Games for Young Learners" game cards are provided to play games such as "Socks, Bug in a Rug and Goofy Glasses." With a couple of reading games books in your child's library you can have hours of fun with reading.
Make up a Game
You can easily make up reading games to play with your kids with items from around the house. Make a word or letter bingo with some paper and crayons. Play with letter magnets or blocks and spell different items your child sees with them. Talk a walk around the neighborhood and count how many of a certain letter like "s" or "p" you can find on signs. With some imagination your child can help make up reading games to play as well.
