Exclusive: Reading Readiness Activity for Kids

We love to read in our house and since long before my kids were old enough to understand what I was reading them, books were a big part of their lives. Now my nearly-five-year-old has started showing an interest in reading for herself and loves letters, the challenge of letter formation and the sounds of words. As a first-time school mum – and self-confessed book nerd – it has been a total thrill to get her little workbooks home from school this term, and to sit down with her and go through what she’s been learning in the day.

I’ve heard the arguments against “homework” for such little ones, but in our case it has been a real revelation. It focuses her (and my) attention, it’s fun, she takes pride in doing it – and it’s an excuse to spend some one-on-one time together too, which has been so good for us when the daily business of after-school activities, play dates and the demands of her baby sister can often make the hours of the afternoon fly by before we’ve had a chance to spend time together.

So I’ve been looking for extra reading readiness activities for us to do together and was delighted to discover Education.com, a company that works with teachers and curriculum developers to create educational activities and other resources for kids. The people at Education.com have been kind enough to share an activity exclusively for Littles, Love and Sunshine readers – and here it is.

Activity: Fish Me a Word

Want to help your child learn how to read and increase her vocabulary? Put down the books and pick up the fishing rod! This silly game is a fun way to introduce and reinforce sight words… by fishing for them! All your child needs are a few household “tools” and some creativity.

What You Need:

• List of sight words (see below)
• Construction paper
• Piece of string or yarn
• Large wooden spoon (for fishing rod)
• 12 paper clips
• Scissors
• Glue or tape
• Magnet (a small refrigerator one works great)

Sight words:

ate
be
black
brown
but
came
did
do
eat
four
get
good

What To Do:

1. Cut 12 fish shapes out of the construction paper. Using the list of sight words provided, either write one word on each fish, or cut the word out and paste in on to the fish. Let your child decorate the fish with markers or crayons.
2. Attach a paper clip to the tip of each fish.
3. Tie the yarn or string to the wooden spoon. Tie the magnet to the other end of the string.
4. Spread all of the fish out on the floor, or on a table.
5. Give your child the fishing rod and tell them it’s time to go fishing! Each time you call out a word, she should look for the word you’ve said, and then try to catch it with her rod.
6. Each time she catches the correct fish, ask your child to shout out the letters—spelling the name of the word aloud. This helps with reinforcement.
7. Once your child gets the hang of it, make more fish.

Here are a few more sight words to try: all, am, are, the, and, to, he, a, I, you, it, of, was, she, said, his, her, that, for, on, but, had, they, now, out, on, that, there, this, too

Happy fishing!