The Reading Game is a memory card game/storybook combo for beginning readers by Kenneth Hodkinson of Wordly Wise fame. The game, designed for kids age 4 and up, is simple to play and works! Six sets of memory cards and storybooks are included. The first book contains only the 30 words used in the first set of memory cards. By the time your child progresses to the sixth book, he should have a working vocabulary of 180 sight words.
Each set of memory cards has 60 cards with 30 pairs of words. After playing 6 fast paced memory games, your child should be able to recognize all 30 words in the first story. My Prince (5 yrs) really beamed with pride as he flawlessly sped through each of the books after we played the games. My only gripe, if I have one, is the absence of capitalization and punctuation. Hodkinson addresses this in the instructions and even suggests adding correct capitalization and punctuation as another reading activity.
Phonetics is also easily incorporated into the game by grouping the cards of words in the same sound family. Hodkinson lists these word families in the instructions. For example, after playing the six fast paced memory games with the 30 words in book 2, you could line up the word cards for "glide", "side", and "hide" and emphasize the commone -ide ending and sound. There are five such word families just in book 2. The author suggests playing the memory games first and then emphasizing phonetics if you choose, before allowing your child to read the book. The author also suggests having your child read one or two of his "test sentences" for each book before having them read the book. This was unnecessary with my son, but would be helpful for kids brand-new to reading.
My son really whizzed through the books after playing the memory games and book 6 contains 180 words, including 23 of the 25 most common English words and 42 of the 50 most common English words. The 30 words for each book are also conveniently listed at the back of each book.
You can purchase The Reading Game for $24.95 and when you consider that it includes a game plus 6 illustrated storybooks, I think it's a bargain.
Please check out the other TOS reviews of The Reading Game.
Disclosure: I received The Reading Game for free in exchange for an honest review.
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