We’re all about quick reading games – try this set of freebies for reading short a words!
(This post contains affiliate links.)
So I’ve been teaching my Five to read for a while now, and I’ll let you know that it’s been pretty slow going. It’s been a little different than my experience with his three older siblings, who were all reading fluently by this age.
Here are some reasons that our pace has been a little slower:
- I haven’t spent as much focused time teaching him to read – simply because our family has grown. And because our toddler is now getting into the garbage and likes to splash in toilets. (Sigh.)
- My Five needed a lot of time learning concepts of print – more than my other kids did. So we slowed down and spent time doing voice to print packs, pocket chart sentences, and learning with nursery rhymes.
- My Five is very easily frustrated. I really have to be careful not to overwhelm him, or he shuts down.
- We only spend a 10-15 minutes a few times a week learning to read. (And some weeks, we don’t do any structured learning at all.)
- And finally, I think he’s normal. 🙂
All this to say … we are still on short a words. He can sound them out pretty easily now, but it’s not automatic yet.
So here are some free games to help kids read short a words. Not with flash cards (no thanks!) but with a board and a die.
It’s amazing how simple these games are and how willing my Five is to play them.
Just take turns rolling a die and reading the words in the corresponding column. Doesn’t get any simpler than that!
The games progress in order from easy to hard. The first game (not pictured) has just four words in each column. Game 2 (above) has six words per column.
And we have even more CVC words in Game 3.
Game 4 has just four words in each row because each word begins with a blend or digraph.
In Game 5, children read a mix of words – some begin with a blend or digraph, and some don’t.
The last two games are the hardest of all because each column has words in different word families. Rhyming won’t work this time!
Believe it or not, we played a few rounds of every game in the pack in one go. I don’t necessarily recommend this, though, unless your reader is as interested as mine was.
*TIP! Definitely take turns reading, even though of course you don’t need the practice. It gives your learner a rest.
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We hope you enjoy these too!
Psst… looking for an affordable curriculum to teach kids to read short vowel words? We’re loving this one!
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Katie says
Dear Anna,
I’m really inspired by your website. I love the way you offer free things to your readers that will be of genuine value to them – in fact this whole site feels like a genuine enterprise that will enrich the lives of it’s subscribers. This might sound weird but I want to thank you because I feel that coming across your site (after researching ways of making money through a blog for the past 7 hours) has prevented me from going down a dark, potentially soul-sucking path with the website I am now planning to build and monetise. At first all the advice I found online led me to believe the best way forward was to monetise with Google Adsense and put in as many keywords as possible to try and get clicks. I know you’ll be shaking your head in dismay at this, but I’m less naive now I promise- and really looking at your website has confirmed for me how I want to go forward. I can see that you’re providing something genuinely useful for your readers and that the adverts on your page are carefully controlled to provide more quality options for your audience if they choose to click. The layout is not overwhelmed by the adds and the most evident thing here is you are using your genuine talents to provide a real service. I realise now that this is how I want to go forward – to make something that is really of use and not, well, morally corrupt basically. So thank you for showing me the way forward and good luck in all you do. Best Wishes from the UK, Katie
Anna Geiger says
Hi Katie! I definitely think the key to my success (besides God’s gracious blessing) is providing a large free resource for many months before I even looked at monetizing. You’re right that there are quite a few “slimy” ways to monetize a blog, but people will see right through it, as they should. It’s so important to think of the reader first. If you are looking for a good resources, I recommend anything you can find on this site. I really like her perspective! http://justagirlandherblog.com/blogging-tips/. Also, I really love what this blogger has done with her site. I really love her work too: http://startablogstayathome.com/
Katie says
Hi Anna,
Thanks so much for referring me on to those websites, I’ll look into them now. Best Wishes, Katie
Tanya Penney says
Thank you for the website.
Anna Geiger says
You’re welcome, Tanya!
marisa says
Thank you very much this is my big problem of students this way can improve them sure althought make them fun 8n Englis you are great
Yedid says
I love this! can you tell me how I can get this game for the other vowels (e,i,o,u) ?
Kate Dowling says
Hello Yedid!
This is Kate, Anna’s assistant. You’ll find that each short vowel section of the Free Printables page has this game for that particular vowel. Here is the link: https://www.themeasuredmom.com/print-2/#short-a