15 Fun Literacy Games for Students
Literacy skills are fundamental in learning how to communicate effectively. Reading opens the world to students so they know more and can grasp complex concepts.
The process can be challenging for some kids, but incorporating fun literacy games in the classroom setting can help. Using games when educating kids can build their confidence and motivate them to take risks.
Read on to learn about other benefits of teaching with literacy games. This article also provides age-appropriate games for each developmental stage.
Benefits of Teaching with Literacy Games
Teaching with literacy games is a fun way to engage students and make learning enjoyable. Literacy games can help students develop an understanding of the English language and improve their reading, writing, speaking, and comprehension skills. By playing literacy games in the classroom, students can be exposed to various new words, learn how to spell, and practice their handwriting.
There are many benefits of teaching with literacy games, including:
Greater Motivation
Children are more motivated to learn when they’re having fun. They are more attentive and willing to pay attention to what’s happening in the classroom. Students also show more enthusiasm, participate in class, and are more engaged.
Comprehension and Language Development
Understanding is as important as learning to read. This ensures readers can interpret what they’ve read. They should be able to answer questions based on the content. It’s a fundamental skill that helps in other areas, including math.
Playing games also helps with language development by building vocabulary and reinforcing phonics.
Collaborative Learning
Playing facilitates interaction and sharing of ideas. In some cases, teams often have to strategize to succeed. By using each other's strengths while playing, students can learn from one another. This can also help them grasp concepts faster.
Identifies Student Challenges
Playing games in a classroom setting, especially ones involving reading card games, can help teachers identify student challenges. This can include learning challenges or difficulties with vision or hearing. Children tend to be uninhibited while playing. They’re usually focused on achieving successful results, making it easier for teachers to recognize students' issues with reading.
The 5 Best Literacy Games for Kindergarteners
Early childhood is the most critical development stage. Reading to an infant can enhance their social and reading skills. Participating in a preschool reading game can build students' critical thinking and problem-solving skills and improve their reading capabilities. These skills can be further boosted when they play any of the following games:
1. Alphabet Woods
Alphabet Woods helps to reinforce learning the alphabet in a fun way. Playing their cards alphabetically allows students to grow trees for the forest animals. Each card played will enable students to collect a forest animal. The goal of the game is to collect the most animals.
2. Rooby's ABCs
In this game that fosters lower and uppercase letter recognition and alphabet sequencing, players take turns drawing a letter token from the bag and identifying its match to determine where on one of the five alphabet boards it should be placed. When a player places the last letter token and a board is complete, they collect a Rooby token. The player with the most Rooby tokens at the end of the game wins!
3. Clover Leap
This game uses special dice with symbols. You want to look out for the sheep and the clovers. Revealing either of these determines if a player gets to move sheep across the game board or collects a clover tile. Players can use the words on their clover tiles to create sentences to earn points. It doesn’t matter if the sentences are silly as long as you win points. The player with the highest number of points wins.
4. Is or Isn’t
A roll of the die moves players' pawns around the gameboard, where they can land on word cards or challenge spaces. All players can try to identify the matching synonym or antonym on their bingo boards when anyone lands on a word card. Once identified, they cover the corresponding square with a token. After landing on a challenge square, the player can choose any open square on their bingo board and place a token in the space. The objective of this bingo-style game is to fill a row or column with four tokens to win.
5. Pickles’ Pig Tales
This is similar to some of the kid book games that provides an excellent outlet for kids to hone their storytelling skills. On each player’s turn, they move Pickles along the gameboard and draw a card to tell the story. Players who tell the story correctly receive the card. After that, each player tells the story from the beginning and adds one sentence based on the card content they’ve drawn. The player who collects the most cards wins when Pickles reaches the castle.
The 5 Best Literacy Games for Elementary Students
Here are some fun literacy games for kids in the five to ten age group. They include reading board games for elementary students and fun reading games for elementary school.
1. ARTributes
You can use teams or individual students to play this game. Each takes a turn, chooses a descriptive word, then draws a picture based on the word. The other players try to guess the picture before time runs out. Each point is awarded to the artist and guesser if they’re correct. The first team or player that reaches 15 points wins.
2. Word Bits
The category card determines the specific category and number of matching letters a player needs to spell the word. The letters can be used in any order based on quick thinking and speed. The fastest player collects the card used in each round. The winner is the player with the most cards at the end of the game.
3. Get 4 & Score
Players choose the category from a stack of cards. They write four answers based on the category, each starting with a letter on the letter cards. Players then reveal their answers and will receive points for each letter completed before the time runs out. The highest-scoring player wins.
4. Letter Slide
Spell as many four-letter words as you can using the two letters shown on the card that has been turned over. Place one letter tile from each correctly spelled word onto a corresponding letter space. Cover all the letter spaces on your slide board first to win!
5. The Reel Script
Players read aloud the script they’ve created to the other players, who vote on the best story. Players earn points along the way, and the one with the most wins. It’s one of a few reading intervention games encouraging students to read aloud. This can alert you to any reading challenges your students might be having.
The 5 Best Literacy Games for Middle School Students
Here are a few literacy games for middle school students you can introduce to your class. They may not include reading games middle school students might expect, but these still test their comprehension skills.
1. Do You Know Shakespeare?
It’s a great way to reinforce your students’ knowledge of Shakespeare. Players must determine which answers are accurate by placing their pawns next to them. Players are awarded a shilling for every correct answer.
2. Linkity
The player who starts chooses a letter on one of their cards and says a word beginning with that letter. The second player must quickly play their card and say words associated with the word given by the previous player. The first player to play all their cards wins.
3. Bid-A-Letter
You can bid a letter during each round. This allows the player to add a word to an existing chain. The goal is to use all your letters before the other players.
4. Gumball Words
Players collect tiles as they go, follow the directions, and move around the gameboard accordingly. They can use the letter tiles to build as many words as possible. The player with the best words, wins.
5. Chalk-A-Word
Players use the letter cards they’ve been dealt to create words or add letters to existing words in the play area. Each letter used earns points. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins.
Learning Through Play with SimplyFun
Reading is a fundamental skill that opens the doorway to other areas of education. Fun literacy games can help make reading more manageable. Finding ones suitable for your student’s developmental stage and age is easy with SimplyFun.
We have various fun literacy games for every age range that help in math and English. Browse through all of them to find the best game for your young learner!