Children need explicit teaching, prompting, and reinforcing during reading in order to learn how words work. Adding the engaging activity of a game can help struggling readers practice searching for the visual features of words and develop automaticity in word solving.
Here are some guidelines for using games as part of your instruction:
- Have children play games with words that are known or that they can very easily solve. The idea is to develop automatic rapid recognition.
- Be sure that the materials (word cards, for example) used in the game are very clear, standardized print so that children can recognize word features easily.
- Play a game after directly teaching children how to play it.
- Make sure that there is a cooperative spirit among the players (it’s only a game).
Some examples of word games you might recognize include:
- Snap!
- Concentration
- Word Ladders
- Lotto
- Follow the Path
To learn more about games to play with struggling readers, see When Readers Struggle by Irene C. Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell.
From When Readers Struggle: Teaching That Works by Irene C. Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell. Copyright (c) 2009 by Irene C. Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell. Published by Heinemann.
