Review~The Reading Game

As I've mentioned in past blog posts, learning to read has been a struggle for Chad.  He is definitely improving as a reader, and  I'm always on the lookout for fun ways to help him with reading.  Chad loves games, so when I heard about The Reading Game, by Kenneth Hodkinson, the author of Wordly Wise, I was excited to give it a try!

What is it?  The Reading Game is a learn-to-read program for two players (student and tutor) ages 4 and up,  centered around six beautifully-illustrated storybooks about animals.  The books feature a skunk, a snake, a bear, penguins, a unicorn, and a zebra as main characters, with other animals also in the stories. Each book comes with a simple word matching card game. Most kids love matching games, and they are so easy and quick to play. Each game is played in six stages, each of which teaches five words. After you and your child play each matching game, they have learned 30 new words! They should then be ready to read the corresponding book, which contains only those 30 words. Each subsequent sets of cards and book adds another 30 new words, for a total of 180 words 'hard-wired' into memory. 

 The Reading Game complements most standard curriculums, and meets the criteria of the Common Core State Standards for Language Arts and Reading and Foundational Skills for both kindergarten and first grade.

What is included? Included in the sturdy box are matching cards for each book, each with the corresponding animal picture and game level number, the six animal storybooks, and a teacher's guide, which has lists of all the words used and sample sentences. The cards and covers of the books are very colorful, but the stories themselves are black-and-white, with beautiful illustrations.  The price for The Reading Game is $24.95, with a 15% discount off of orders of 8 or more.

What did we think? Chad loves animals and matching games, so I figured this would be a hit with him.  I wasn't sure if the stories being all black-and-white and not having punctuation would be hard for him, but these things didn't phase him at all.  He enjoys the games and the stories.  I like that everything is fairly quick, so if he is getting tired of reading, it won't be long before we are back to the matching game. The stories are very cute, too! Chad flew through the first 3 books, and we have been working on book 4, Penguins, for the last week or so.  I would definitely suggest The Reading Game as a supplement to whatever you are already using to teach reading!

Click  here for more information on how the program works, including helpful videos, and to purchase your own copy.  Also at the website, http://www.thereadinggame.com/  you will have access to free assessment worksheets and recording sheets. To read more reviews of this product, click here.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of The Reading Game at no charge in exchange for my honest review.