How to Play Kindergarten Reading Games

Lively games to teach reading are a fantastic way to skip the boring drudgery of staring at words and trying to decode them. One of the worst things a parent can do is to destroy a child's love of learning. Since reading is such a great tool for exploring the world, a lot of people put so much pressure on kids to learn to read that they end up hating reading and learning before they've even finished kindergarten. It's a preventable failure.

Instructions

1. Purchase musical children's CD's like They Might be Giants, Schoolhouse Rock and Rockin' Phonics. Play this music and dance with your child. Experiment with square dance moves, choreograph a show for he homeschool talent show, discuss which songs you like, and which ones you don't. What's your favorite part, and what is your child's favorite part? Kids who enjoy music and lively physical activity can learn a lot simply from listening and talking. If you can't afford all these CD's check your local library, they usually have several. Also, Amazon.com sells downloads, so does iTunes.

2. Create giant letter flashcards by cutting a corrugated box, these chunky pieces are easy for kids with fine motor issues to manipulate, plus they won't blow away. Build words and eventually sentences with these. Pull a random card from the stack and think of as many words as you can that begin with that sound.

3. Using the same cardboard that you used in the previous step, you can click on "Kindergarten Reading Games" listed in the resource section, and find more games to play.

Tips & Warnings

• It's not about spelling, so if your child pulls the letter K and says 'cake" you can be positive and say "cake does start with the 'k' sound." Later, when you teach about the letter C, they will learn that it steals the sound from S and K.

• If you have a very active child, you can pull a card and then do an action that begins with that sound. For kids who have trouble focusing, allowing for periods of heavy activity really is an important thing. As they get to reading whole words, you can pull a card that says "run" or "jump" and once they read it, they get to do it for a few minutes. They'll remember it a lot better than reading "Kim can skip" from the school library.

• Kids love goofy words, so if he says "poopoo" for the letter P, just go with it. If you have a potty talk rule in your house, you might need to have him go into the bathroom to choose the word, but seriously, it's just a word. Loving reading and learning are skills that will take him a lot further in life than being disciplined not to say poopoo.

Resources

• Kindergarten Reading Games
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