5 Ways to Make Reading Practice Fun

Students who have reading difficulties often have a lot of negative feelings associated with reading. This can create a sort of negative feedback loop, wherein they avoid practicing reading, thereby further slowing down their progress. We want to find ways to make our struggling readers want to practice reading.

Before we encourage our struggling readers to practice reading, we have to make sure that we are setting them up for success. Reading sessions should be kept short to avoid overtaxing them. You can also help avoid over taxation by taking turns reading the material together (child reads one sentence, parent reads the next while pointing to each word).

It is also essential that reading material be at their level. This means choosing decodable material that applies skills acquired during structured literacy intervention. Reach out to your tutor/therapist/interventionist for specific suggestions.

Lastly, practice sessions should always be kept very positive. It can take a lot of positive reading experiences to even start to outweigh the constant barrage of negative reading experiences that struggling readers go through. Avoid criticism and punishment if your child refuses to practice. Instead, offer fun incentives to do so, make the duration shorter, and offer lots of praise and encouragement for their efforts.

The goal should be to make reading practice sessions as crazy fun as possible. Doing so will increase positive associations with reading, and make it more likely that they will want to read in the future.

Here are 5 examples of ways to make reading practice fun:

1. Build a special reading fort

Gather some blankets, pillows, stuffed animals, and flashlights! Make a special fort just for reading because... who doesn’t like forts?

2. "Wordify" games

Just about any game can be “wordified”. Add word cards/sticky notes from your reading list to objectives in games like Tic Tac Toe, Snakes and Ladders, and Bingo. (You can use sound cards instead to practice letter and sound associations.)

3. Act (and overact) the story

Take turns acting out what you read in a story. Make it even more fun by wearing costumes, using ridiculous voices, or completely exaggerating and overacting.

4. Go on a reading adventure

Choose a destination, like a park, and take turns choosing a different spot to read at. For example, start on a bench, read a sentence, move to a flower bed, read the next sentence, etc. Make it more fun by racing each other to the next spot!

5. Incorporate art

Tap into your child’s artistic interests by mixing them into reading time. If your child loves to doodle, make a comic strip/doodle after every page. If they like to sing, make up a silly song together about the story.

If you’re looking for another way for your child to have fun with literacy, while also socializing with other like-minded kids, I host one-hour, small-group games sessions every weekend.

Let me know if you think of any other ways to add crazy, silly fun to reading practice. I would love to hear your ideas!