“Games”, or in other words - ways to get kids who are having more than the average amount of avoidance to have a go at some reading tasks.
Games are one of the best ways to practise early reading skills, as long as you’re having fun and it doesn’t feel like a chore.
Also, just because its sold as a ‘reading’ game, doesn’t mean you can’t use it for other things.
Everyone in my clinic is well aware that we use these ‘reading games’ for multiple other tasks such as:
Making sentences - from very simple, to complex sentences (eg try to use ‘until’ in a sentence with the word you picked up”
Vocabulary building - define the words, think of a synonym, think of an antonym, think of three more things that are from the same category etc.
Extending morphology - read the word, turn it into different word by adding something - eg run becomes runs, help becomes helpful
Kablam games - played like uno, and other ways, but I like the uno style $18.95 each - set 1/2/3 depending on level of reading ability
Milos read and match - bingo style game that can be used for pre literate children to practise blending, identifying the initial, medial or final sound, or rhyming, and early readers to read and match $29
Sound swap - this is a fantastic way to build phonological knowledge, sound-letter correspondence and confidence in children who need additional support with their phonological awareness skills. It also supports kids who like to guess from the first letter to attend to the whole words - this is set out in a way that is simple for parents to use $75
The reading tower - Jenga style tower with stickers with various word formats on them - you can choose between various forms from cvc to high level vowels $40