You don’t have to spend a lot of money on a great literacy game.
5-min. ideas
Rory’s Story Cubes
Here is a simple, elegant, wonderful game that’s great for: • Story-building • Fostering imagination • Putting events in sequence • Inspiration for writing a story • Staving off boredom while you’re waiting at a restaurant • General all-round silliness. There are nine dice. Each one has six simple pictures. For instance, a happy […]
Fun online Hallowe’en “differences” game
Terrific Hallowe’en is an easy, fun and speedy online game. The goal is to find the differences between the two, similar-looking pictures. You click on each thing that’s different. It might be a missing leaf on a tree, a missing house in the background, or a different-coloured tie. When you spot the five […]
Fun online spelling bee
This one’s for kids who are already good spellers and who think spelling is fun. (To me it’s a no-brainer, but I have to remember that not everyone reads the dictionary for fun.) Anyway, that kid will appreciate this great online spelling bee from Oxford. It’s fast and it’s fun […]
Literacy opportunities are everywhere
You don’t always need books to help your kid read better.
QR codes – reading fun for the whole (nerdy) family
OK, this is a great tip but it might be a bit… er… nerdy. But then, so am I. And so is my kid, who wears it like a badge of honour. You’ve seen these QR codes, right? They’re on ads, posters, marketing material. Maybe you never knew what they […]
The news, in kid-friendly language
Kids love reading about what’s happening in their world. But so often, the newspaper is full of inappropriate and difficult articles. Teaching Kids News (TKN) is a sister website to Getting Kids Reading. We offer kid-friendly news articles, taken from the headlines of real newspapers. One of the great things […]
Five minutes to bridge the racial achievement gap
I’ve been reading this book – Choke. (Because I tend to choke at tennis, that’s why.) But it’s got some really interesting things to say that will help your kid with test anxiety. Researchers were studying what happens to African-Americans, for instance, who experience racism throughout their life. These students can have something […]
One-sentence journal is perfect for kids
I guess the idea of a one-sentence journal isn’t new. But I’d never heard of it before I read about it on Gretchen Rubin’s Happiness Project blog. She started a one-sentence journal because she wanted to jot down happy memories but knows she could never sustain keeping a normal journal […]
Children’s book apps for your cell phone
Children’s book publishers are creating cell phone apps for books like The Velveteen Rabbit and The Cat in the Hat. Kids can read the book on their parent’s phone and enjoy some interactive features. For instance, they can touch a word they don’t know and hear it or touch the picture […]
