Check out this reading game to help your child learn to read and strengthen their reading skills!
Do you think games are just child’s play? Not always. Many times the games we play as children…help us develop skills we will use as an adult. For instance, Candy Land® is a fun way to practice counting, a skill we will use our entire lives. The game ‘Concentration’® helps develop our visual processing skills for matching, as well as sharpening our short term memory. The game of ‘Clue’® can challenge our comprehension and higher order thinking skills. Here are three games that your child will love and they will be developing foundational skills for reading as well! Game 1:
Where Did It Go? Ages 5 and up. This game is designed to build short term memory, imagery, and sequencing. These are three very important functions for reading skills.
Materials needed: a cookie sheet or just a table top; three to seven common objects from around the house; a towel or sheet for a cover.
Directions: start with three objects, laid out under the cover of a towel or sheet, in a row on the cookie sheet or table top. Remove the cover. Review with your child, the names of each of the objects. Always start from your child’s “left” and go to their “right” when you review, as this is the direction we read and write. Now, ask your child to turn their head away and cover their eyes. Remove one object, moving the other two closer together in the row. Cover with the towel or sheet. Ask your child to uncover their eyes. Remove the cover over the objects and ask your child which object is missing?
Which object is missing? Great job! Keep adding more objects to the row up to seven. Why seven you ask? Because this is what science presents as the max number of our ‘digit span’ capabilities of the brain. Thus the reason for the origination of seven digits in a phone number. Obviously, our challenges have increased, but focus on the ‘seven’ digit span theory. For older children, ramp up the challenge.
- 1) change the sequence of the objects under the cover and have them put the objects back in the original order
- 2) change the sequence of the objects AND remove one or more objects and ask your child to tell you what is missing and put the remaining objects in the original order they saw them in before hiding their eyes.
- 3) have your child tell you the sound that each object begins with and then ask for the letter symbol(s) for that sound…don’t forget that there may be two letter symbols for the beginning sound such as ‘gl’ for the first sound blend in ‘glass’. GOOD LUCK!
Are You Game? Reading Game 1 was first published on NutsAboutReading.com
