Reading Games for Young Children

Winner of the iParenting Award.

Reading Games follows the tradition of successful books by the veteran early childhood author Jackie Silberg. The games in the book are designed to enrich three- to six-year-olds' pre-reading skills and prepare them to be successful readers. Eleven chapters are organized by elements of literacy, such as alliteration, alphabet, letter sounds, and rhyming. The book also provides research-based information on the importance of literacy development in young children. These games will develop a love for language and joy of reading.

Each activity in the book is engaging and creative, and notes the specific skills addressed by the activity. Teaching literacy and pre-reading skills is very important to parents and teachers, and Reading Games makes learning fun. These games require little preparation and few materials.

This book offers many helpful literacy tools:

• Reading Games has more than 200 literacy games for parents and teachers to use with young children ages 3-6.
• Each chapter has fun and developmentally appropriate games that are building blocks for learning to read, including games of alliteration, oral blending, writing, alphabet recognition, letter sounds, word play, and rhyming.
• The material in the book can be followed progressively, one chapter at a time, starting with the alphabet chapter and continuing with the letter sounds chapter, rhyming, and names and oral blending.
• The order of the chapters is designed to follow the way children learn pre-reading skills; children learn the letters of the alphabet by sight and sound, then hear the phonemes, then are able to hear rhymes and parts of words (segments).
• The format of the activities allows parents and teachers to open the book to any page and do an activity, without involved preparation or gathering of materials.
• Many games complement each other. For example, "Aunt Abigail asked Alice for an Apple" is an alliteration game, which helps children internalize the understanding of alliteration. Children can practice these same sounds in the "Sound Shopping Trip" game, where children shop in the "sound store" and say the sound of the letter they pick up.

By: Jackie Silberg