Communication is one of the first lessons parents teach their kids.
When parents converse with their kids, they tend to user simpler English or any other language they are comfortable speaking with. This is so that their kid would be able to recognise, remember and understand the meaning of the words.
Literacy has always been of utmost importance when it comes to children’s learning development and journey. Therefore, it is unsurprising that many parents today place great importance on their child’s literacy standard.
In order to save costs and be able to better control and monitor their child’s learning progress, parents have come up with several ways to improve their child’s reading comprehension skills. The most common way is to DIY some fun reading games to spark their child’s interest in words.
Here are some ideas on awesome preschool reading games to help improve your kid’s reading comprehension.
#1 PreSchool Reading Comprehension Games – Matching Alphabet Beans Literacy Game
Not requiring much to spend, using pebbles, together with cupcake holders and a muffin tray, you have yourself a very simple reading comprehension game.
Read also: 3 Tactics to Boost Your Kid’s Math Score by Improving Reading Comprehension
Using a permanent marker, write down all 36 alphabets on both the pebbles and in the interior base of the cupcake holders. After that, place the pebbles in a basket and the cupcake holders into each cupcake tray holder.
Of course, if you do not have a baking tray that can accommodate all 36 alphabets, do them in batches. That being said, having to go through all 36 alphabets can be too overwhelming for your child. Hence, you may consider choosing a range of alphabets to play with them in this game.
Next, encourage your child to place the matching alphabets on the pebbles and deposit them into the cupcake holder. While doing so, get them to read the alphabets aloud. In this way, not only do they recognise the alphabets but at the same time, they are articulating them aloud. If they are mispronouncing them, you should correct them immediately. Also, be mindful to reinforce them whenever you can as it helps your child remember better.
Last but not least, this game has an additional benefit as it allows your kid to use their sense of touch to feel the pebbles and cupcake holders. This helps to develop their motor skills.
Read also: 5 Tips To Prepare Your Child for a Reading Comprehension Test
#2 PreSchool Reading Comprehension Games – Sight Word Practice Pages
This is another pretty simple reading comprehension game which parents can create on their own. Be it printing or writing it out, whichever way you choose, there is not much time required to prepare this game.
The Sight Word Practice game has four aspects to it – read, write, find and spell. A simple game like this could adequately cover the main foundations required in reading comprehension skills.
The reading stage requires your child to read the word aloud. Similarly, parents are encouraged to correct their pronunciation and articulation whenever needed.
Writing out the word helps parents to understand the way your child writes. For example, does your child writes ‘e’ from the horizontal line and out all the way to end or does he/she starts from the end and in? More importantly, when your child writes, you would be able to analyse the way he/she holds onto the pencil. Is it the correct way or will it be hurtful to their bone development?
Finding the words allows your child the chance to recognise the words by the sequence of the alphabets and how they are spelled. They may not fully understand or be aware of how words are spelled yet, but recognising the sequence is a good start too.
Lastly, building it requires your child to form the words using individual alphabets. Similar to finding the words, this is more spelling-oriented and intensive. You may need to assist your child on this, since they are still at the pre-reading stage.
Read also: Broadening Your Child’s Knowledge Helps Improve Reading Comprehension
#3 PreSchool Reading Comprehension Games – Find the letter” alphabet
If you think your child’s literacy level has not quite reached there yet, making the above two games a tad difficult to play, perhaps you can attempt this simpler game.
Starting with individual alphabets, parents can kickstart their child’s interest in reading comprehension by first training them to recognise alphabets. This is especially important in phonics classes, whereby the first alphabet usually gives off the type of sound the mouth has to pronounce. Such foundation is crucial before a child can even read out the whole word.
The purpose of this reading comprehension game is for your child to find those matching alphabets as the large alphabet at the top, and colour them in one colour. Try not to use several different colours for the same alphabets as this may confuse your child. Colouring with only one colour for the same alphabet helps to reinforce the similarity and unity of the alphabets.
Read also: 5 Easy Strategies at Home: Reading Comprehension For Kids
As parents may not have adequate time to prepare the materials on their own for reading comprehension games, the above are three very simple games parents may consider.
They do not require much time or effort, and do not require you to spend a lot to prepare them as well. These games are also beneficial as a start to build your child’s reading comprehension foundation. Having a rock solid foundation helps to springboard the learning journey more effectively and quickly.