Collection: Language Arts and Reading Board Games

Reading comprehension skills help children excel throughout their lifetime. Educational reading games can help children develop and reinforce reading and literacy skills, without the pressure of a formal classroom setting.

Here are 4 ways parents can use reading and language art games to help children build essential skills:

1. Choose a Focus

Developing reading and language skills takes time, and no single game can cover every aspect of skills development. Reading games for 6th graders are much different than preschool board games, so make sure you choose games that work for your child’s developmental stage, grade level, aptitude, and a specific skill, such as:

• Color Huey & The Four Seasons. This game is for beginning readers ages 3 & up helps children learn their colors and color names. Gameplay requires kids to place colorful game pieces on the corresponding color name.
• Is or Isn't. This game for ages 6 & up helps children learn about synonyms and antonyms. As players move across the game board, they must find the right antonym or synonym on their bingo card.
• The Reel Script. Designed for ages 8 & up, this game helps children develop writing skills, creativity, and social skills in a small group.


2. Incorporate Storytelling Games

Storytelling is the ideal way to improve reading comprehension skills. Games that involve creating stories from various prompts teach kids how to take what they’ve read and turn it into something more. See how the game Pickles’ Pig Tales helps kids age 6 & up unleash their creativity and storytelling skills!

3. Involve the Whole Family

Many reading games can be fun for the whole family and make gameplay feel less like “learning” for younger players. Consider games like:

• Linkity. This game is designed for ages 8 & up and can accommodate up to eight players. Gameplay is fast-moving and fun, as players brainstorm word associations and challenge questionable answers.
• Get 4 & Score. Also for ages 8 & up, this fun family board game challenges players to come up with four answers corresponding to the four letter cards in play during the round. Use the included sand timer to up the intensity, or play timer-free to allow more time for answers.


4. Use Games That Include Instructions

Play games with your child that involve reading and following instructions. For instance, a game that has cards that tell kids to move a blue pawn forward six spaces and then discard the card may seem like just another game card, but to a child, it’s an opportunity to practice reading instructions.

Make time to play communication games with your child. You should also encourage your child to play with others and put those new communication skills into practice. As they develop better reading comprehension and communication skills, they’ll strengthen social skills, too.

Play is more than fun – it’s a language all its own.

Have you ever sat and watched children communicate? They seem to have their own language as they play together, practicing their communication skills that we might not expect.

From non-verbal to verbal communication, kids tend to talk to each other differently than adults do. They interact through games, fun activities, and creative play. It’s also where they learn valuable social skills.

The next time your child has a play date, watch the unique way they talk to each other, and you’ll see just how effective games can be at building communication skills.

Acting Out Experiences

Unless adults are playing charades, you probably won’t see them acting out what they’ve recently experienced or learned. Children love to play pretend games that give them an outlet for expressing creativity and better understanding their own experiences. As a result, their actions teach and communicate to other children. While they may only say a few words, they all know exactly what the other children mean.

Resolving Conflict

Wouldn’t it be nice to bounce back from arguments as quickly as children? Kids may fight from time to time, but overall, they use play as a way to communicate with each other and work through disagreements. Reading board games can help children communicate social and emotional signals, encourage sharing and empathy, and show them the value of teamwork.

Talk About Fears

The younger a child is, the less experience they have with the world. This means something as simple as taking that first family trip could be terrifying to a child. While they may not be able to fully communicate this fear to their parents, they are able to play it out with another child, or through a proxy, like a puppet or stuffed animal. Right now, they might not have the words to fully express their fears or concerns, but through play, they can. Through games like Wake Up Stars, kids can learn how to share and understand emotions.

Entering middle school can be a big transition for your child: upgrading to lockers, changing teachers and classrooms for core subjects, and a more rigorous academic schedule during and after the school day.

Alongside all of these changes, children’s language and communication skills develop in big ways. They are reasoning more soundly, using logic, and thinking abstractly. They’re required to use their language and literacy skills across many subject areas. Much of the academic success that comes in secondary school is built on five foundational language skills that progress from primary schools.

1. Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate individual sounds and assists in the development of reading and spelling skills. It gives readers a way to approach novel words by ensuring a strong understanding of sound rules. Rhyming and sound segmenting games, like Rooby’s ABCs, or word creation and spelling games like Linkity, are great ways to reinforce phonics skills.

Elementary school teachers spend a lot of time teaching phonemic awareness. By the time students advance to middle school grades, many teachers assume that their students have a well-developed understanding of this complex skill. Reading board games can help strengthen phonemic awareness skills.


2. Storytelling

Storytelling, or narrative development, is a critical communication skill developed in elementary school. At this age, children still have beautiful imaginations and incredible creativity that they can share with the world.

Strong vocabulary enhances narrative productions. Reading board games for elementary students help children learn more vocabulary words and descriptive terms they can use to express themselves both verbally and in written form. With practice, children should be able to tell a descriptive and cohesive story with a beginning, middle, and an end, with appropriate story elements (characters, setting, problem).

3. Metacognitive Strategies

Metacognition is the awareness of one’s own thought process. Children should understand how they learn and self-monitor their own thinking during reading or classroom instruction. Reading board games for children can enhance metacognition skills.

Metacognitive reading strategies may include students asking themselves “Do I understand what I just read?” Students may take the lead on evaluating their own progress or identifying when to ask for help.


4. Listening and Speaking

When we think of language and communication skills, listening and speaking might seem pretty obvious. Classroom discussions are likely to become more complex where peers are sharing thoughts and ideas. Students are required to effectively engage in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, teacher led), with diverse partners. A quality discussion involves building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly. These foundational skills are critical for broadening knowledge, enhancing understanding, and building community.


5. The Art of Conversation

Some of us are still practicing mastering the art of conversation, so perhaps we can give the future middle schoolers a bit of a break here. Conversational skills are always developing, and using verbal and nonverbal signals can help children learn the art of conversation.

Verbal signals such as “Cool” or “That’s interesting,” and nonverbal signals such as nodding show the speaker that you’re engaging in active listening. Ensure that children have an opportunity to both listen and speak without being interrupted or interrupting.

Written by: Erika Cardamone, speech-language pathologist and leader of the PAL Awards that recognizes exceptional games, toys, and books that advance language. Erika is also a mom of four and lives to learn through play. She works in schools and private practice helping children develop speech and language skills while using awesome toys and games to make learning fun.

Looking for an exciting way to help your young learners build early reading skills? Look no further than our newest Reading and Language Arts game, Rooby’s ABCs!

How to play Rooby’s ABCs

In this game players take turns drawing a wooden letter token from the bag and identifying its match to determine where on one of the five alphabet boards it should be placed. A special added feature is that the round tokens have one flat side that demonstrates the correct orientation of the letter.

Out loud, players share both the name of the letter they picked and what image is pictured under that letter. When a player places the last letter token and a board is complete, they collect a Rooby token. The player who has the most Rooby tokens at the end of the game, wins! If there is a tie, the players share the victory. Rooby’s ABCs is intended for 1-4 players ages 3 & up and takes about 10 minutes to play.

It all starts with learning our ABCs

“Learning the alphabet is one of the first major academic challenges a child will face in life, and one of the most important.” said Patty Pearcy, President and CEO of SimplyFun. “Playing Rooby’s ABCs is a great way to introduce the alphabet letters while building letter sequencing skills critical for early reading.”

More than just reading

In addition to learning their ABCs and the sounds they make, reading comprehension games give you an opportunity to interact with your child and provide valuable face-to-face communication. They can watch how you form the sounds of each letter, and then mimic it themselves. This interactive style of communication, while fun, can also help to deepen the bond between you.

Establishing the fundamentals of reading can continue after early learning. Games like Chalk-A-Word can build on those early vocabulary and spelling skills through more advanced challenges.

Let’s chalk up an example:

Chalk-A-Word is an interactive game where players add letter cards to build off of words created by their opponents. A player lays down S, T, A, and R cards. The following player plays L, E, and T cards spelling the word Starlet. The first player receives four points for STAR and the second player gets seven points for STARLET. Players can weave letter cards into the word previously played but cannot re-arrange the letters.

The Power Cards featured in the word game

A fun assortment of Power Cards included in the game helps players double down on strategy, making Chalk-A-Word a unique vocabulary game for the whole family!

–Two Letter Cards count as two points, while adding a PLUS Card to your play doubles your Two Letter Cards to four points!

–A Power Card lets you exchange all seven of your cards for new ones, while a Draw Card lets you draw two new cards in hopes of letters you can play.

–A Trade Card lets you trade three unfavorable letters in your hand with three cards from your chosen player, while the SWIPE card enables you to select a random card from another player.

–Wild Cards are the “luck of the draw” card that allows players to assign the letter of their choice to the card.

Word game benefits of Chalk-A-Word

Reading board games for kids challenge players to build their communication, vocabulary, and spelling skills while stimulating memory and cognitive function. You’ll find our newly released Chalk-A-Word card game to be a fun addition to family game night, homeschool, or classrooms.

Why play board games to help with reading? Let’s face it, auto-correct does a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to our spelling these days. However, our brains require strength training to stay agile and robust! That’s where word games like Chalk-A-Word come into play! Chalk-A-Word can be as easy or challenging as the words that are played, making this one of the best reading games for second graders and older children! Play it at home or on the go in as little as 30 minutes with 2-5 players.

If you are looking for an alternative to app word games that encourage social engagement and less screen time, then get ready to chalk up the fun with SimplyFun’s newest game, Chalk-A-Word!

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