Three On-the-Go Activities for Learning to Read

I get it. Your life is busy! You may be the parent with multiple children with that one child in kindergarten who can’t read yet. You might be the parent who doesn’t see your child until 5 or 6 at night and there’s not much time for homework, teaching things that your child “should have learned during the school day.”

I’m sharing with you three VERY SIMPLE and on-the-go things you can do to help your child learn to read. You can do these while you’re riding in the car to and from school, to and from extra curricular activities, or while you’re sitting in traffic or waiting at an appointment. Parents must make use of every minute they have when life is super busy. Am I right?

Children must learn to sound out small words before they can tackle longer words. The first type of words you should try to have your child read are CVC words. All of these activities will help you in that effort.

1. Rhyme

Learning to rhyme is critical to learning to read! It helps make children aware of different sounds within a word. It doesn’t even matter if the words are made up! The benefits are still there. So, recite nursery rhymes or poems (you can listen to recordings in the car as well). Point it out when you hear words that rhyme. Make a big deal about it! You know you’re making progress when you’re doing an every day activity and you accidentally rhyme and your child says, “That rhymes!”

You can try having your child give a matching word that rhymes. I say, “Bat. What rhymes with ‘bat?’” Your child can respond with, “cat, mat, hat, etc.” This activity is telling because it lets you know any ideas your child has that aren’t fully understood. For example, if your child says “bag,” then you can further explain that’s at the beginning of the word and doesn’t really rhyme.

Anything you see while you’re driving can be played into the game of rhyming. “I see a tree. Let’s think of some words that rhyme with, ‘tree’.” (bee, see, me, etc.) It’s amazing how that car “drive time” can be used to your child’s advantage when there is no tv on during that time!

CLICK HERE FOR A FREE RHYMING ACTIVITY!

2. Practice beginning sounds

Review letter sounds by asking your child what letter makes a particular sound. Let’s say it is the /b/ sound. Your child says, “B.” You praise your child and then ask, “What do you see that starts with the letter ‘b?” It might be a bag, a box , a burger—whatever they see outside. You can even turn it into an “I SPY” game!

If that activity is too advanced, just try modeling for your child. Like this! “The letter s says “sss” like “snake” or “song.” Let’s think of other words that start with the letter s (and then you start to name some examples). *Be sure to not use examples with the “sh” sound as that is not the “s” sound even though the words start with an “s.”

Another variation is to just say a word and ask your child what letter does it start with. “I see a car. C-c-car. What letter does ‘car’ start with?” Again, if your child has no clue or is accidentally saying the last sound first, you can try to give the answer to the question and have your child repeat a few times.

If it seems your child is disinterested, do what you would normally do for attention grabbing. Don’t fuss! Just be silly. You can use a crazy voice. You can use a singing voice. You can give praise with a funny word or gesture. (Just be safe driving, of course).

3. Play ‘Mystery CVC’ words.

Choose any simple CVC word (consonant-vowel-consonant) like “hat, bug, fin, log, met.” Make the letter sounds by themselves, spacing them out with a few breaths. See if your child can figure out the mystery word. /b/………../u/…………./g/ (You might have to do this 2-3 times to ensure your child hears each sound). You child should say, “bug!” Remember, you can give the correct answer for a while if your child seems like he can’t. It might make things a bit easier to focus on words with the same second and third letter (bug, rug, tug, lug, hug, etc.) so that only the first letter is changing. You don’t have to do it that way, but it’s just a suggestion if you need to simplify the process for a struggling child.

Immersing your child in language lays a strong foundation for learning to read. Think about it. How much time do you spend talking to your child and allowing your child to speak to you? Are you playing word games like this with your child? How much does your child hear rhyme—in songs, nursery rhymes and books? If your child is at school during the day, you won’t know the answer to those, so just assume that your child is not getting much one-on-one practice. It will be up to you to provide those short, but extreme effective opportunities to play with words, letters and sounds.

All three of my children learned to read without worksheets and without reading programs—simply because I understood how important it was to speak to them and play word games. They are easy activities with a huge payoff (bigger than sight words)!

I gave you three on-the-go activities, but can you think of more? Add them to the comment section below.

Are you an experienced parent? How did you teach your child to read during a busy season of life? Share your story, and PLEASE share the post with a friend!