Three Fun Games to Help Preschool Children Learn to Read

Reading games are often the best way to get your preschool children reading and loving it. The more fun the activity, the more they will enjoy reading! However, not all children will enjoy all games, so find one that works best for your students.

Do your preschoolers prefer drawing to reading? If so, incorporate the two, and you’re likely to increase their interest in reading. Take several sheets of paper and write words on the top of the paper that you would like them to practice reading – such as cat, hat, and bat – and that lend themselves to visual images. Then have your students close their eyes and choose a paper. Help them sound out the word at the top of the paper, and then let them draw a picture to illustrate the word. Continue until the stack is finished, and each child has had a turn. Hang their creations up so that everyone can admire them.

If your class enjoys playing typical matching games, try making your own reading matching game to help them practice reading skills. Cut a stack of notecards in half. Write the names of objects that they can read on one half of the notecard, and draw a picture of the object on the other side of the notecard. (You can also cut a picture out of a magazine.) Turn several of the cards upside-down and play a matching game with your class. To get a match, you need to turn over a word and the picture that it represents. This might be best played in small groups to be effective.

This much-loved game can lead to a lot of laughter from even the youngest readers. This activity is best done in a one-o-one situation. Have your student read you a book, replacing any “s” word with spaghetti and any “m” word with “meatballs.” In other words, instead of the sentence “Sue went to the mall,” they would read “Spaghetti went to the meatballs.” Preschoolers find this game hysterically funny, so much so that they might not even notice how much they’re reading.

These reading games are great for getting your preschool children to enjoy learning to read and become more familiar with words and literature.

For more information, you can also read about early literacy tips for parents here on BrightHub.

In addition, these preschool reading board games can show kids that reading can be fun. Try some of them, and enjoy laughing your way through this new type of “reading lesson.”