3 Games to Amp Up Reading Instruction

Kathy-Ann St. Hill-St. Lawrence (or “Ms. Saint,” as she’s called by her students) is passionate about literacy. She knows that keeping it playful is critical for learning. In her second-grade class at Harford Heights Elementary in Baltimore, Maryland, she sprinkles in fun games to reinforce new concepts during direct reading instruction.

In Diving for Digraphs, pairs of kids “dive” into an inflatable kiddie pool filled with shredded paper and pull out laminated words containing vowel team digraphs. The students must say their words correctly out loud and determine if they are spelled correctly (some of the words in the pool are intentionally misspelled). They then show their words to the class, and the class agrees or disagrees. This gives students the chance to teach each other phonics—for example, a student may point out that the word “payn” is incorrect because the a-y vowel team always goes at the end of a word. The diving repeats until everyone has had a turn.

In order to practice word chaining, students play a game akin to musical chairs. Kids dance around the room to music (Ms. Saint hails from Barbados, and her students especially love it when she plays music from her home country). When she stops the music, everyone freezes. Ms. Saint calls out a word, which they have to write down on their mini-whiteboards. When they hear “Boards up!” they hold up their boards for Ms. Saint to check. Students who get it wrong have to sit down; they have the chance to rejoin the game if they get it right on the next round. The music starts again, and this time when they freeze, Ms. Saint tells them to change one sound (for example, if they’re starting with the word “gain,” she tells them to drop the “guh” and add an “mmm,” resulting in a new word, “main”). “ If they can successfully delete and add and substitute sounds,” she says, “that tells me they’re ready for comprehension. That tells me they’re one step closer to being a fluent reader. They’re spending less of their brain power sounding out and trying to decode words.”

In addition to using games in whole group activities, Ms. Saint has devised games for station rotation time. Take Sight Word Jenga, in which she’s written sight words on the long sides of Jenga blocks. In order to get a point, kids must remove a block from the Jenga tower and correctly pronounce the word that’s revealed. If they mispronounce a word, the next player gets a chance to say it correctly and win that block. When the tower tumbles, whoever has the most blocks wins.

Ms. Saint points out that the benefits of gamifying instruction go well beyond the content. Turn-taking games are especially important for developing students’ social and emotional skills. And all the games encourage good sportsmanship. Games often feel lower-stakes to students, who are more likely to take academic risks by participating or guessing an answer than in more formal class time. Many games also naturally build movement breaks into the day.

Ms. Saint does take special care to make sure the games, though physical, are inclusive to all her students. “With the support of an aide,” she says, “kids with physical challenges can participate.” If she wants to use a game, “then it is my job to modify it so that it meets their needs. I have not yet met a game that I have not been able to modify!”

For more playful activities and games that help teach reading, check out Kendall Stallings’s article for Edutopia, “6 Ways to Get Students Moving in Elementary Literacy Instruction.”