As teachers, we all know the importance of review, but do we all know how to review in a way that is engaging and meaningful? Review is one of the best things you can do for your students to help them reach for that magical mastery. One of the best ways to review is through games! I have talked to you about math and phonics games. Today, I’m going to tell you about three fun reading games to engage your students during reading time and, of course, literacy centers.
Fall in Love with Reading Using Sight Word Jenga
We all know sight words are an important part of learning how to read. So, if we pair sight words with a fun game, we create a fun reading game to review something that is incredibly important. How many of you have ever played Jenga? I know it’s a staple in our house because it’s inexpensive and a great time for people of all ages. Because the game is inexpensive and fun, I found a way to use it for a fun reading game. Sight Word Jenga is a great game for students to play, and it helps them learn their sight words without using the dreaded kill and drill method.
Setting Up Sight Word Jenga
How do you set this fun reading game up? It’s simple! All you need to do is on the flat side (on both the top and bottom of the block) write the sight words. By doing this, your students can’t see which word they are going to pull. However, because this is a learning game, I always had my students read the words while they were stacking the blocks to play Jenga. This made sure they were reading them twice; in addition, set up and playing are all beneficial.
I had several Jenga sets because I would find them cheap in clearance sections. If you only want to have one game, check out other ways you can do that by checking out the Facebook Live. One of the best parts of Jenga is it’s a pretty universal game that students recognize and enjoy. Therefore, you don’t have to explain the rules for too long to get this fun reading game going. Sight Word Jenga is great for easy set up and easy play making this a great literacy center game!
Become a Crazy Professor with this Fun Reading Game
Fun reading games don’t have to be just about sight words. This next game is all about that comprehension. One of the major “problems” students tend to have with reading is typically centered around comprehension. In other words, they can read but they don’t understand what they are saying. I learned how to play this game while working Whole Brain Teaching. The Crazy Professor Reading Game is a wonderful WBT game that will help your students become masters at comprehension.
What is Crazy Professor?
You can find all the details on the Whole Brain Teaching website; however, the gist of the 8 level game is while your students are paired up, they take turns going down the different steps. The first step is a dramatic reading. The second time one person reads and the other paraphrases what they read. I often broke this up into paragraphs to make it more manageable for the listener. The next level is the Q&A where one person asks questions and the person who just read answers them. From there it goes into silent skimming, silent summarizing, and silent reading. All this is great but my students’ favorite part was always the Crazy Professor Level.
Playing Crazy Professor Reading Game
This was very simple once I taught my students all the different levels and what their expectations were at each one. I would simply get out a dice and roll it and they would be working on a certain level for two minutes knowing I could yell out, “Crazy Professor” at any moment. Then they would have to go into Crazy Professor Mode which asked them to read AND act out what they were reading! How fun is that? This engaging game combines reading and play at the same time which teaches them great inflection, fluency, and it helps with comprehension. Oh, right, you can find this for free through Whole Brain Teaching.
The New Improved Sight Wordopoly
I went back into the vault of my fun reading games for this one and totally revamped it. What used to be a poster board game is now a printable and editable fun reading game for your students to enjoy. Sight Wordopoly takes all of the fun of Monopoly and adds reading!
Setting Up Sight Wordopoly
When you play Sight Wordopoly, the board is a square. You have pieces that come with it that you will need to print out and put together. This will make a big game board that you’re going to want to laminator at your school (with the big laminator!). Just like Monopoly, you have a start square and you move around the board. The goal of the game is to hopefully land on the collection squares while trying to get all of the same colored squares. On top of the collection squares there are other spots like the Library Pass and more!
How to Play Sight Wordopoly
To play, you roll the dice and move their marker that number. I would use any markers you already have in your classroom. When they reach the spot, they read the word, and if they can read it correctly, they get to collect the card that has that word on it. Each card they collect is worth one point. If they collect all of the color group, they are going to get extra bonus points for collecting an entire color group. It’s not always that easy though. They might land on a different task which will ask them to do something different. For example, it might ask them to sing-spell their sight word three times. There are other cards they may have to draw that has different things that might happen like going to detention.
This fun reading game is incredibly easy to play and set up after you create it and is totally editable. Because it’s editable, you can use it for sight words, sounds, and words that you are focusing on with your guided reading groups. Once you laminate the pieces, you can change the sight words as often as you want. If you want to know more about Sight Wordopoly, check out the Facebook Live and join the Farrah Henley VIP list and get it emailed to you for FREE this week!
Reading is a fundamental skill that all students need to be successful. Sight words and comprehension all need to work together for your students to reach that magical mastery level. A great way to review reading skills is with fun reading games that will get your students up and moving which engages them with their reading. You can play these games in literacy centers easily because they all keep it stickin’ simple. Plus, they have minimal set up and are sure to hold your students’ attention. By engaging students with reading, you’ll create a love of words and books, and isn’t that really the sweetest thing?
Until Next Time…
Keep Being Educational Rock Stars
