You know one of our favorite ways at Phonics Reading Pro to help children’s reading skills is by playing fun games. Games are a great way to reinforce the phonics reading lessons that you give your children at home. Here are the simple rules of a very fun game:
1) Make up a simple sentence based on your child’s reading level. For example, if they are anchoring their short vowel skills a sentence like “The cat is on the mat” would be appropriate. If they’re practicing long vowels “The hive is on the tree” works fine, etc.
2) Draw empty dashes for the words to be written on, much like you do for the game ‘hangman’.
3) Above the empty dashes draw a box and put all the words of the sentence in it written at random.
4) Explain to your child that you made a mystery sentence for them and you want them to figure out what is says. Show them the box of words and explain that the sentence contains all of those words. Show them the dashes and explain that that is where they write the words in the order of the sentence. Do the first sentence with them so that they understand how to put together a proper sentence and then create another one for them to try on their own.
5) Keep the sentences simple and encourage them along the way! Help them create problem solving strategies and logic by asking questions. For example, if you had used the sentence ‘The hive is on the tree’ and they got tripped up, you could ask “what makes more sense ‘The tree is on the hive’ or ‘The hive is on the tree’?” Also, don’t forget to capitalize the first letter of the sentence and put appropriate punctuation at the end and make sure that they do the same in their answer :)
6) When they get really good at the game encourage them to draw the accompanying picture with it and—you guessed it—make a book out the pages when they make 10 or more sheets!
I think using this game with your kids to reinforce phonics lessons is great way to have fun and be proactive at the same time. Happy learning!
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