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Pre-reading and Reading Games
Home » Early Learning » Early Reading » Pre-reading and Reading GamesPosted by Your Guide on March 14, 2006 4:15 PM
Even though your child’s physical abilities must reach certain levels before they can read letters and words, don’t be discouraged. There are many things you can do with your child to prepare them for reading. Most early childhood games are great for teaching early reading concepts. Sing with me for a minute…. “London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down. London Bridge is falling down, my fair lady.” What reading concept word did we just learn? That’s right, the directional word, “down.” The same concept is learned from the song, “Ring Around a Rosie.” At the end of the song we “all fall down.” Playing these kinds of games are an essential part of learning. But the best part of it is that it never feels like learning. When we sing these songs and fall down laughing and being silly, our children only know that they are having fun with Mom or Dad, and the learning happens so easily while everyone is rolling around having fun.
Other games are great for learning to move in one direction at a time. Candy Land is a popular board game that requires no reading skills to play, but teaches some very important reading concepts. In Candy Land, players draw a card that has squares in different colors. Players move the designated number of blue squares (either 1 or 2) and most of the game they move toward the final square. But occasionally, the game trips them up and they must go back to a previous point on the board.
Reading works the same way. For the entire line, we move from left to right, top to bottom. But when we come across a specific cue, (the end of the line), we must reverse our direction and go back to the left from the right.
Early childhood is filled with games and songs that give clues and provide support as our children learn those early reading skills necessary to reading letters and words. Being a positive reading model, providing warm and loving reading experiences, and allowing some learning to come in the form of silly games all lead your child down the path toward reading. So don’t set a date and become anxious if your child isn’t reading by a certain birthday or date on the school calendar. Children read when they are ready. They want to read and pressure from over anxious parents will only slow them down.
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