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1) Sight Words Pizza
What you need to know: Sight Words Pizza is a board game that focuses on memorization of sight words, which are commonly found words in the English language that don’t follow the rules of phonics.
Goal of the game: Eat all your pizza slices and score points. Pizza slices can be eaten once you read all the words on the toppings correctly.
Skills it works on: Turn-taking, following directions, reading, visual memory.
2) What Letter Do I Start With
What you need to know: What Letter Do I Start With was one of my favorite finds of last year. It incorporates the wonderful idea of Eye Spy with early literacy.
Goal of the game: Choose a letter then race to cover all the pictures that begin with that letter.
Skills it works on: Visual perception, attention, letter and sound recognition, and creativity (finding different colors, shapes, etc within pictures that begin with the letter).
3) Sight Word Swat
What you need to know: Sight Word Swat is a fast-paced game that will excite and challenge early readers. It comes with 110 double-sided sight word cards (color-coded by difficulty) and four swatters.
Goal of the game: Be the first player to swat the sight word called.
Skills it works on: Reading fluency, reaction time, auditory processing, and visual scanning.
4) Zingo Word Builder
What you need to know: Zingo Word Builder challenges kids to create words while reinforcing spelling patterns. It comes with six double-sided cards. One side is simpler with only one letter missing per word, and the other alternates with 1 and two missing letters.
Goal of the game: Be first to create six words on the card and yell “Zingo!” to win the game.
Skills it works on: Vocabulary, spelling, attention, reaction time, problem-solving.
5) Pop for Blends
What you need to know: Pop for Blends is one of the many early learning Pop game variations by Learning Resources. This game focuses on building words out of blends. It includes 92 blend cards, 8 pop cards, spinner, and guide.
Goal of the game: Pull word blends out of the pop corn box and create words that either begin or end with those blends. The spinner will tell you how many words you need to create 1, 2 or 3.
Skills it works on: Vocabulary, spelling, reaction time, problem-solving, and phonological awareness.
6) Word Search Junior
What you need to know: Word Search Junior has 3 different game variations. The easier one focuses on finding patterns instead of words, the second has words with picture clues, and the third game is a regular word search puzzle. To play: players take turns spinning the rotating board, and searching for the word that the board lands on. The game is a race and players have to search for words at the same time.
Goal of the game: The player who finds the most words at the end wins.
Skills it works on: Reading, spelling, matching, visual scanning, reaction time, visual perception, and attention.
7) Snap It Up
What you need to know: Snap It Up is a fast paced card game that requires players to make words out of the endings provided.
Goal of the game: Create more words than your opponent to win.
Skills it works on: Spelling, reading, reaction time, and attention.
8) My First Bananagrams
What you need to know: My First Bananagrams is the junior version of the popular Bananagrams game. It comes with combo letter tiles as well as single letter tiles and instructions for different game ideas that even the youngest of players can play (3 and up).
Goal of the game: To work your way up to creating a word grid out of 15 tiles without spelling mistakes or proper nouns.
Skills it works on: Reading, spelling, visual scanning, attention, working with others, and persistence.