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Spelling training allows children to practice vocabulary words at their own pace. The child or the teacher can type weekly vocabulary words into a list, and this website creates fun games and show pictures for the words. This website is great for visual learners. This is a great website to include in station rotation.

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We are teachers is a website that was created for teachers by teachers. There are fun printable read alouds and games to help build fluency in the classroom and home.

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Learning to read starts kids on a lifelong learning journey, but literacy is more than just understanding the words on a page. Reading fluency involves comprehension, speed, accuracy, and prosody (reading with expression). There are many ways to help kids develop reading fluency, both in and out of the classroom. Here are some of our favorite reading fluency activities.

1. Start with a reading fluency anchor chart

Introduce the basics of reading fluency with an anchor chart you can hang in the classroom. It's a good reference for kids throughout the year. Here are more fluency anchor charts to try.

Learn more: Oral Reading Fluency/Teaching With a Mountain View

2. Model fluency with read-alouds

Reading aloud to kids is important for so many reasons, but one of the best is that it teaches kids what fluency sounds like. Adults can model expression, phrasing, pace, and so much more when they read to kids. Try some of our favorite read-alouds, or check out this list of the best read-alouds on YouTube as part of your reading center activities.

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3. Hang reading fluency posters

Post these in your classroom reading center to remind kids what reading fluency really means. They're simple but effective. Get your free set of reading fluency posters here.

4. Try sentence trees

Sentence trees are terrific reading activities that build fluency in younger students. They allow kids to focus on each word, improving accuracy and speed along the way.

Learn more: Sentence Trees/Fun in First

5. Put together poems and nursery rhymes

Kids often memorize nursery rhymes long before they learn to read. By breaking those rhymes apart into individual words and putting them back together again, kids see how words build into sentences and stories in a natural flow.

Learn more: Fluency To Improve Comprehension/Mrs. Winter's Bliss

6. Use line tracking and word pointers

For some kids, focus is a challenge. Their eyes wander around the page, and they have trouble developing the speed needed for fluency. Use another piece of paper to help them focus on the line they're reading, or try pointing to the words one by one.

Learn more: Reading With Fluency/Katelyn's Learning Studio

7. Read and reread ... and reread

Fluency involves lots and lots of reading and rereading. When kids read a passage over and over again, they build up their speed and accuracy automatically. One fun way to work on expression is to try rereading with different voices.

Learn more: Improve Reading Comprehension/Teach123

8. Add a timer to rereading

Combine repeated reading with a timer. Students read a passage for 1 minute, working to increase the number of words they read correctly each time. This is a nice tool for working on speed and accuracy.

Learn more: Build Reading Fluency/1st Grade Pandamania

9. Track student progress

While you don't want to overemphasize numbers, tracking a student's fluency is helpful to both you and them. Parents can help with this one at home too.

Learn more: Reading With Fluency/Katelyn's Learning Studio

10. Work on those sight words

One of reasons elementary readers focus so much on sight words is that they help to build reading fluency. Find a roundup of all our favorite sight word activities here.

11. Look to punctuation for expression cues

Punctuation makes passages easier to read, but it also gives a reader cues on proper expression. Help your kids recognize what each punctuation mark sounds like when reading fluently.

Learn more: Teaching Expression in Fluency/The Owl Teacher

12. Answer the fluency phone

These are such a fun tool for helping kids really hear themselves read! They're great for busy classrooms and reading centers. Kids talk softly into the phone, and the sound is amplified in their ear. You can buy fluency phones or make them yourself from PVC pipe.

Learn more: Fluency To Improve Reading Comprehension/Mrs. Winter's Bliss

13. Read with partners

Whether kids are reading together or you pair an adult helper with a student, taking turns reading is a terrific way to get more fluent. When one reader is stronger, have them read the passage first and have the other reader echo it back.

Learn more: Ways To Improve Reading Fluency/The Measured Mom

14. Get a reading buddy

Shy kids will especially appreciate the chance to practice reading out loud to a stuffed animal pal. Encourage them to read as if their fuzzy friend can hear everything they're saying.

Learn more: Ways To Use Stuffed Animals in the Classroom/Stories by Storie

15. Give kids a reading fluency rubric

Use this free printable rubric when evaluating students' reading fluency, or send it home for parents. Kids can even use it to self-evaluate!

Learn more: Reading Fluency Is Not Just About Speed/Teacher Thrive

16. Use a fluency bookmark

A handy bookmark keeps fluency strategies front and center when kids read. We love this idea for kids who are ready for chapter books.

Learn more: Focusing on Fluency/Upper Elementary Snapshots

17. Introduce the concept of scooping phrases

Pointing to words is good for building speed and accuracy, but scooping phrases takes things to the next level. This practice is a great help for developing expression and comprehension.

Learn more: Reading Fluency Phrasing/This Reading Mama

18. Hold a school-wide fluency challenge

Make literacy and reading fluency something the whole school focuses on. Have PE teachers post sight words for kids to read out when they run past. Invite cafeteria workers to join you for story time. Track fluency and celebrate milestones with individual and whole-school rewards! Learn more about holding a school-wide fluency challenge here.

19. Set up buddy reading

Pair older students with younger students to practice and model reading fluency. Older students can read picture books, which have longer sentences and higher vocabulary that challenge older students but are still out of reach for younger students. The older students will get practice with fluency, and younger students will benefit from hearing picture books read aloud.

20. Use highlighter strips

Highlighter strips, bright tape-like strips that students can use to follow along as they read longer books, can help upper elementary students keep their place. And keeping their place helps them read fluently.

Buy it: Highlighter Strips at Amazon

21. Teach robot vs. non-robot reading

Help students understand the prosody or expression part of fluency with a lesson on robot reading vs. fluent reading. Have students practice (silly) robot reading and then fluent reading to hear (and feel) the difference.

Learn more: Arlene Neubarth/Pinterest

22. Put on a play

Readers theater, with a script or a favorite book, is one way to practice fluent reading. Choose a book with lots of dialogue and encourage students to really feel the story.

23. Use the BEST strategy for multisyllabic word reading

When students get to multisyllabic words, they may struggle to get past longer words like "momentarily" and "topography." Teach them a strategy to sound out longer words:

Break the word apart into syllables.

Examine each part.

Say each part.

Try the whole word.

24. Host a poetry jam

Poetry is a great way to practice fluent reading, and it can be used at any grade level. For younger kids, work with simple poems and rhymes. For older children, use poems from Shel Silverstein or Jack Pruletsky. Have each child choose a poem and practice reading it with flare, then host a poetry jam where students read the poems they've practiced.

Learn more: Poetry Cafe/School and the City

25. Record students' reading

Recording audiobooks for your classroom library is one way for students to see how fluent reading benefits everyone. Have students record reading a book on an audio recording app, and save it for other teachers to use with their students.

Learn more: Fluency Activities for Your First Grader/Reading Rockets

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25 Fantastic Reading Fluency Activities To Build Literacy in Young Readers

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Help kids improve their reading fluency with these fun activities and center ideas that cover a wide range of proven strategies.

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This website gives parents six tips for learning at home. Scholastic explains why phonics is important and how it is taught at school.

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How to Practice Phonics With Kids at Home

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Support your child’s reading success at home with these 6 tips on how to teach phonics to kids.

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Starfall is an amazing website that allows children to work on comprehension skills at their own pace. Starfall also has different interactive games for ages K- 3rd grade

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Starfall I'm Reading develops comprehension and reading fluency in beginning and advanced readers. This app will help your child make the leap from learning to read, to reading to learn. Includes Plays, Folk Tales, Greek Myths, and Chinese Fables.

See Accessibility Information for children with disabilities.

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Starfall I'm Reading develops comprehension and reading fluency in beginning and advanced readers. This app will help your child make the leap from learning to read, to reading to learn. Includes Plays, Folk Tales, Greek Myths, and Chinese Fables. See Accessibility Information for children with disabilities.

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Read brightly gives four ways that parents at practice vocabulary at home. This website is for ages 0 to 13 plus. This suggest playing word games with your child. They also suggest different books to read to your child.

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What image comes to mind when you hear, "learning vocabulary words?" A dictionary? A stack of flashcards? I think of the exhausting list of words to "define and write in a sentence to prepare for the quiz on Monday" assigned to me when my eighth grade class read To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Today's research has changed educators' understandings, though, about how to best help students learn new words - not just for Monday's quiz, but permanently. Many of those strategies can easily be turned into family habits. Consider trying these ideas at home:

Cultivate a fascination with words. Fostering kids' interest in words encourages a lifelong habit of noticing new ones and retaining them. Whether it's a tart apple or a mischievous face, simply commenting on interesting words or sharing just the right word for a particular circumstance is powerful modeling.

There are also plenty of book characters to emulate, too. My boys love Fancy Nancy by Jane O'Connor and illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser. Nancy would never say great when she could say stupendous. She even boasts a whole book of favorite words, Fancy Nancy's Favorite Fancy Words: From Accessories to Zany, by the same team, which could inspire kids to compile their own dictionaries. Our newest favorite vocabulary star is Jerome, featured in Peter H. Reynold's The Word Collector. As avid collectors of anything that can be squirreled away in a bag or box, my kids love how Jerome writes words he likes on slips of paper and tapes them into categorized scrapbooks. The many appealing words in the text, from "short and sweet" drift to "two-syllable treat" hover can spark discussion and kids' own word collecting.

Become (better than) a walking dictionary. In their acclaimed resource for educators, Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction, researchers Isabel Beck, Margaret McKeown, and Linda Kucan highlight the importance of intentionality when introducing new words to kids. It's not realistic to stop and teach children the meaning of every new word they hear. Plus, they'd definitely get sick of it. Honing in on select high-utility words - one or two that are crucial to making sense of a picture book, for example - works well. Your best bet is to offer a brief and straightforward definition right when the word comes up.

Speaking of picture books, reading aloud is well documented as a powerful vocabulary booster. Studies show that picture books contain more diverse word choices than spoken language - even conversations between adults! Consider , a delightful new title by Holly Hobbie about a friendless porcupine. Precise, useful words like solitary and discouraged pepper the story, which provides the perfect context for explaining them in kid-friendly terms.

Work vocabulary into conversation and play. As the long-term ineffectiveness of cramming before a big test illustrates, Beck, McKeown, and Kucan emphasize that repeated experiences with a word help vocabulary learning stick. Experts Susan Neuman and Tanya Wright echo this in a review of research about vocabulary learning in early childhood, saying, "...frequency of exposure in a variety of meaningful contexts over an extended period of time enhances word learning."

For parents and caregivers, this means the interactions you have with children every day are prime opportunities for vocabulary reinforcement. My oldest son recently discovered professional sports in a big way. A conversation about the impact of his favorite basketball player's recent injury was the perfect opening for, "Gosh, that must be so discouraging not to be able to help your team!" My younger sons love to serve up unique concoctions in their pretend restaurant. I think Fancy Nancy would agree that their lemon-orange-mushroom pizza is simply stupendous. Repeating new words in meaningful contexts makes them more memorable for children. It invites them to try using them, too.

Play word games. Finally, in addition to being useful for filling wait time, word games are excellent for flexing children's vocabularies. A family favorite of ours is "The Question Game," a relaxed version of "Twenty Questions." One person picks something in a designated category, like a sport, superhero, or animal, and the others take turns asking questions to deduce it. Crafty grown-ups can work in previously learned or new vocabulary words, such as "Does the bird you're thinking of swoop down to get its food or does it hover over a plant to eat?" Nothing motivates kids to hone in on using just the right words to request the information they need like some competitive spirit!

Incorporating a few vocabulary-focused habits into your family dynamic is good for kids and satisfying for you. Not to mention, you'll save a bundle on SAT prep courses down the road.

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4 Easy Ways to Build Your Child's Vocabulary at Home | Brightly

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Today, educators have a new understanding of how to best help kids learn new words. Here are some of their strategies that you can easily turn into family habits at home.

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ABCya is website that allow student to practice sight words. Children have to read the sight word and then find its corresponding image in the fun illustrations. The website also have bingo and dolch sight words games to practice fluency.

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Out of Sight Words is a beautiful, quirky game that allows children to practice their knowledge of sight words! Kids have to read the sight word, and then find its corresponding image in the fun illustrations. Simply click on the word at the bottom of the screen and then find it in the picture!

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Teaching expertise provide eleven ways to teach to comprehension skills inside the classroom. This is great for reading intervention, station rotation, or one on one tutoring

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There can be a hundred teachers in a room and ninety-nine of them will have different ideas on how to help with reading comprehension. Some of them might argue that rigorous testing is the best methodology, whilst others will argue that regular pop quizzing is the best way to go. Truth be told, there is no "one" exact way to ensure that your students understand what they are reading. Instead, it's best to adopt a variety of different solutions.

Here is a list of the top 11 reading comprehension activities. You can use them to introduce new reading comprehension techniques, or simply to check your students' understanding so far. They are all fun, innovative ways to approach reading comprehension and demonstrate your students' skills.

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11 Free Reading Comprehension Activities For Students - Teaching Expertise

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Here is a list of reading comprehension activities. You can use them to enhance your students' reading comprehension as well as introduce new techniques.

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Readability is a free personal tutoring website. Your child can work at his or her learning pace. This website ensures your child enhances by doing a reading assessment that gives feedback after your child reads to the computer. This website also has a gain comprehension part that reads books to your child.

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For some children, reading comprehension can be a struggle . As they progress through elementary, the expectations for reading comprehension will focus more on reading between the lines and abstract understanding. Children will need to think about what they read and perhaps relate it to other themes; they may analyze characters or learn to make predictions.

Even children who are just learning these more difficult comprehension techniques might need more help and guidance to ensure mastery. Here's how children can work on reading comprehension at home and become more fluent at analyzing details and deciphering meaning.

Older children who need to work on comprehension can use the following strategies:

Younger children will typically focus on the more basic aspects of comprehension. To help kindergartners and younger elementary-age children work on comprehension skills, try these at-home strategies :

Answering the wh questions

Creating story illustrations

Reading illustration-only books (aka 'wordless' books)

Basic Reading Comprehension at Home for Younger Readers

Younger readers in lower elementary grades will likely focus more on the basics of comprehension. Children might need to be able to retell what happened and answer the w/h questions related to comprehension. These questions are:

For younger children, games and other activities can be a fun way to help master comprehension. In addition, younger children can use tools like graphic organizers for reading comprehension bookmarks, too.

Reading Rockets offers some great suggestions to help kindergarteners with reading comprehension. Ideas include :

Family History Tales

Tell children a story about family members or stories that are from the family's own history. These also could be cultural narratives that have been passed down. Then talk to children and encourage them to ask questions.

Use Books Without Words

These books are called 'wordless' books and they encourage storytelling. Using the pictures, children must create their own stories. Not only can stories change each time, but these books also promote creativity and imagination.

Create a Mind Movie

Reading Rockets recommends that parents have children close their eyes and envision the book or story as a movie. The site recommends that parents read sections and then ask children about them.

Wh Questions on the Hand

Five fingers represent five prompts of comprehension: who, where, where, when and why. While Reading Rockets notes that the setting, characters, events and ending are focal subjects, the site also includes the fifth prompt as the child's favorite parts of the story. Parents can focus on the prompts suggested by Reading Rockets or just use the wh questions for this activity.

Practice Predictions

Kindergarteners and other young readers also should work on making predictions. This is a key element of comprehension, as children need to learn how to read between the lines to figure out what can happen next.

Parents also can explore immersive games and activities to encourage children to explore the story and dig deeper into meaning. Other ways to work on comprehension and have fun in the process include:

Host a puppet show. Children can re-enact the story using puppets.

Play comprehension Twister. Place comprehension prompts on the circles and have children answer the prompts when they land on a space. This game should be played by more than one person, though!

Illustrate the story. Encourage children to draw a favorite scene of a story, then have them talk about it.

Write a book. The child can be an author. Write a story together, then talk about what will happen next and why. Don't forget the illustrations.

How to Work on Reading Comprehension at Home with Older Children

Playing games and drawing pictures might not be helpful for older children who may need to read between the lines and start analyzing stories in more detail. In upper elementary grades, students may begin discussing characters in depth.

Scholastic explains that fifth graders also will need to understand metaphors, compare similar books, use context to decipher vocabulary meaning and even determine the stance of the author and its importance for the book.

Older children must understand the stories and books they read far beyond answering those simple questions and prompts. While games or fun activities might not be the best resource for fourth and fifth graders, parents can help older children work on comprehension with these strategies:

While these strategies might seem basic, they can be beneficial across subjects. Comprehension bookmarks, for example, can be created to include basic questions with spaces for students to make notes as they read.

Comprehension bookmarks, though, also can just be a visual prompt to help children think as they read. Sometimes having a reminder can be beneficial.

Graphic organizers can provide a roadmap to a story. These are typically worksheets that focus on a certain aspect of comprehension like character, theme, etc. Graphic organizers include spaces for students to write details as they read.

For some students, listening to the story also can be beneficial and help with comprehension . Children can listen to a book as they follow along. Hearing the narration can help children better understand emotion, conflict and more.

Chunking the text, rereading and taking notes also can be beneficial strategies for older students who might struggle with comprehension. Chunking the text simply means reading sections of the text at a time; students can use a piece of paper to cover up parts of the page and focus on a single paragraph. Then they can focus on the content of bits of the story at a time.

Rereading is a strategy that can aid students across all subjects. If a child finds that they simply don't understand what they have read, rereading can help them review the content again. They may even decide to chunk the text to make it easier and help improve their comprehension. Rereading can be a strategy used into the college years and beyond.

Some students like to take notes as they read. Colorful sticky notes can be used to mark a page and include important details about the plot, characters, etc. Students might even use a different color for each chapter to better help them and organize their thoughts.

Reading Apps Can Be Used For All Elementary Readers

A comprehensive reading app like Readability can be used at home to help readers from preschool to fifth grade improve reading comprehension. Readability includes a built-in AI tutor that is programmed with voice recognition; the tutor learns each child's voice and provides assistance during reading lessons.

With Readability, children read stories aloud. If a child stumbles, the will help them. The tutor also asks questions at the end of each book to test a child's comprehension. If a child misses a question, the tutor will show the text from the story that can help them correctly answer the question; the tutor also reads the section aloud.

Readability is designed for mobile devices, which means that it can go anywhere . Children can practice reading in the car on the way to a sports practice or on the couch during a rainy day.

Parents also can follow their child's reading progress via a parent portal called the Progress Dashboard. This portal displays the child's reading data, including reading fluency (measured in words read per minute), comprehension, the child's reading level, how long the child used Readability and more.

Interested in exploring Readability to use at home? Sign up for a free seven-day trial period today!

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Here's How Children Can Work on Reading Comprehension at Home

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For some children, reading comprehension can be a struggle . As they progress through elementary, the expectations for reading comprehension will focus more on reading between the lines and abstract understanding. Children will need to think about what they read and perhaps relate it to other themes; they may analyze characters or learn to make predictions.

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Kids Connect is a resource website that gives teacher ideas about how to introduce vocabulary in the classroom. All teacher can learn from the this website as it does provide ten resourceful ways to teach new words.

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Vocabulary is not only the foundation and key element to learning any language but also an important tool in learning other subjects as well. As a teacher, searching for fun and meaningful ways to improve the children's vocabulary in any field is an essential task. And, while traditional lesson plans for teaching vocabulary are the starting-point, vocabulary games are becoming more and more valuable.

To help you out, we decided to find and share some of the best vocabulary games for the classroom. First, we'll take a look at the benefits of using vocabulary games in a typical school environment, and then we'll list our favorite vocabulary games with detailed explanations on how to implement them, and how the students will benefit.

Benefits of Vocabulary Games

Without a solid vocabulary in their native language, children will read slower, have a hard time understanding complex sentences, won't be able to express themselves in a clear manner, and might even have trouble organizing their thoughts and memorizing new concepts.

A young mind learns new words by developing a mental network that builds elaborate ideas hierarchically. This is why using newly learned words frequently is the best way to reinforce that mental network and make new connections.

Vocabulary games are perfect for that task, as they provide a communicative atmosphere where children can express themselves. But the popularity of using vocabulary games in a classroom goes beyond that.

Vocabulary games provide a fun-filled and relaxing learning atmosphere. Learning can be stressful for kids who are anxious when answering in front of authority or in front of their classmates, which is why learning through games is a wonderful opportunity. Plus, you'll get a chance to evaluate the children's progress in a spontaneous setting.

Another reason why vocabulary games are so beneficial is that they're unpredictable. Instead of memorizing a certain word order, or several definitions, children will have to actively construct the answers from previous knowledge.

10 Interactive Vocabulary Games for the Classroom

Games are challenging, motivating, and amusing. This means that most of the time, children will be learning new words or reinforcing newly acquired knowledge, without even realizing it. Here are some easy-to-implement, fun, and meaningful vocabulary games for the classroom.

Guess the Word

You might know this game under the name "Who am I?" where players use yes or no questions to get clues about a person or fictional character that the other player has in mind or has written on a piece of paper. Our "Guess the word" variation works the same way, except children have to guess which word is written on the piece of paper that's attached to the child's forehead.

You can play this game with a time limit or not, depending on how hard you want to make it for the kids.

To play, divide the classroom into four or five groups of four to five children. After this, instruct the children in the group to come up with a word on a specific topic (something they've recently learned). Each member of the group should write a word on a piece of paper attached to the forehead of the member on their left (without them knowing what word they got). After this, one by one, students take turns asking yes or no questions (example: Is my word a verb?), trying to guess the words on their forehead.

Memory Cards - Vocabulary Edition

This game works just like a regular memory card game. The only difference is that children will have to match words with their meanings, instead of two identical objects. Aside from practicing their memory skills, children will have to quickly recall the word when seeing the definition and remember it so they can match it once they find the appropriate word in the cards.

To play this game, you can divide children into small groups, or let them play in partner-groups. The player that matches most cards wins the game.

For practicing English skills, you can buy word cards online. However, if you want to personalize the game and make it much more effective, you can make your own cards with words that children have recently learned in science, math, geography, history, and other subjects.

Word cards and matching definition-cards.

Explain This! - Lightning Rounds

Lightning rounds are super fun and adrenaline-packed games or contests where children, especially hyperactive ones, will get a lot of excitement and laughs. This game is most suited for topics that children are well familiar with.

To play, you'll need to divide the classroom into two groups. After this, one player from each group comes forward and competes in defining most words in a specific time limit (one or two minutes). The words can be drawn from a bowl, or as a teacher, you can pick the words, while the players try to define them. The player who succeeds in defining more words wins a point for their group.

To make it more fun, you can make categories from which the players can choose a topic.

An extensive list of words.

Pieces of paper and bowl (alternative).

Vocabulary Jeopardy

This is a game that the whole classroom can enjoy, or you can divide students into two or three groups. Just like the classical and famous Jeopardy game, our vocabulary version is just as fun and challenging.

To play, draw a table on the whiteboard, with different categories as rows and the points as columns. The word cards should be taped on the board facing down. This means that the players can choose a category and the number of points they would want to receive, and they'll receive a word. More points mean the words are harder to define. Alternatively, you can choose to make different answers for a different amount of points; one point for telling a synonym, two points for spelling a word, and three points for defining a word. The group with the most points wins.

Vocabulary Dice Game

While some games depend entirely on the children's knowledge or memory skills, this simple vocabulary game adds the element of luck, which means anything is possible. It's a wonderful game because it evens out the field to a certain point, so children who have a harder time learning new words won't feel too far behind the overachievers.

To play, you need to divide students into small groups or play in partner-groups. Give each group a dice and a stack of word cards. Players roll the dice and draw a card. If they can correctly define the word (if given a definition - to guess the word), they receive points according to the number on the rolled dice. Time for answering should be limited so it's more challenging and fun. If the answer is wrong, the student gets zero points in that round.

Dice (two or more, depending on the number of groups).

Word cards.

Vocabulary Checkers

Everyone's familiar with regular checkers, but did you know there's a vocabulary version that's just as popular? Vocabulary checkers is much more stimulating, challenging, and exciting.

To play, you'll need a special vocabulary checkerboard, which is just like the regular board, only with blank spaces in the middle of each field that you can fill out with words. The spaces can be predetermined, with words of your choosing, or you could give students the opportunity to write the words themselves (for the opponent player). The added challenge comes with the fact that a player can only move or occupy the square if they correctly define the written word in that square.

Other than that, the rules are the same as a regular game of checkers. To take an opponent's piece, they must say 3 synonyms of the written word or use it in a sentence (since the word is already defined by the opponent).

Checkerboard and pieces.

Printable vocabulary checkerboard.

Vocabulary Pictionary

In our vocabulary edition, we don't make a strict distinction between Pictionary or Charades, because the rules can be flexible - the main aim is to have fun and go through a lot of vocabulary words.

To play, you need to divide the classroom into two groups and assign a topic. One member from each group has to come forward and describe a word or a phrase to its group. The words are given to the players by the opposite group. Whichever team guesses correctly first, gets a point. If both groups fail to guess the words in a specific time frame, neither group gets a point, and new players get new words to describe.

In order to make it more educational, you can set some specific rules. For example, players need to use a synonym, define the meaning, or use descriptive sentences. They shouldn't use clues like the number of letters in the word or point to clues without using words.

Two whiteboards and markers, or

School board and chalk.

Conversation Competition

The conversation competition is probably one of the most advanced vocabulary games, which means it might be more suitable for middle schoolers or even high school students. The main goal of this game is to improve the children's ability to publicly speak, debate, and construct better sentences.

To play, divide the students into pairs. After this, one pair comes forward to compete. As the teacher, you'll give one of the students a list of 10-20 vocabulary words one minute before speaking. Their task is to analyze the words and share a logical, meaningful story with their partner using the words from the list. Their partner (not knowing the words) can ask questions, or reply with their own opinions, which can help the other student use the words faster, or make it that much harder. Once they use all of the words, they sit down and another pair comes forward. The teacher should measure the time for each conversation and the pair that uses all the words in the shortest time wins.

Word lists (for each pair).

Word Train

This vocabulary game teaches children the importance of individual effort for the success of the whole group.

To play, divide the blackboard into two sections, left and right, and write 20-30 vocabulary words in each section. After this, divide the class into two groups and make them form a line (each group in a separate line). Upon your instruction, the first student from each group approaches the board (each in their separate section) and chooses a word for the student behind them to define. Once the second student defines the word correctly, the first student erases the word and goes at the back of the line, while the second student comes to the board and chooses a word for the third in line. The first group that manages to erase all the words in their section wins.

Chalk or marker.

Eraser.

A list of vocabulary words.

Newspaper Detectives

Give each student one page of a newspaper and a vocabulary word. The students should circle every word, phrase, picture, or name that relates to their vocabulary word. After five or ten minutes, each student should present their findings in front of the class - tell them the vocabulary word and explain how the marked words relate to the word. The student that has the most valid and meaningful connections, wins the game.

This is also a more advanced game suited for middle school students or older. It's a multi-purpose game where children work on their reading, analytical and critical skills, as well as their creativity. They'll improve their vocabulary, not just by reading, but by actively thinking about new connections between words, and listening to their classmates.

Before You Leave

Hopefully, you liked our list of vocabulary games for the classroom and we guarantee your students will love them. We made sure the games are very easy to implement, don't require too much set-up time, and can be adapted to large and small groups, as well as partner groups.

Also, most of the games are simple variations of famous and classic party or family games, which, most likely, children will already be familiar with. This is going to make things a lot easier, as they'll feel comfortable and ready to start playing. But, even if they're not familiar, the games are so simple that kids of all ages can enjoy them.

Last but not least, vocabulary games are just one way to engage children in classroom activities, but if you want to find more, check out our blog and subscribe to our newsletter. We can also cover you with educational, interactive worksheets for any subject or grade.

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10 Interactive Vocabulary Games for the Classroom

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Teaching vocabulary in a fun and innovative way is crucial, which is why we share with you 10 interactive vocabulary games for the classroom.

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Turtle Diary have tons of printable worksheets to print for small group or reading groups. It is perfect for one on one in the classroom and for reading intervention.

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sort the long and short vowels worksheets

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Sort The Long And Short Vowels Worksheets

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Check out Turtle Diary's large collection of Sort The Long And Short Vowels worksheets. Make learning fun and easy with these great learning tools.

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Making learning fun does precisely what the name says. This website has tons of printable for popular children books. You can create name puzzles and letter sound puzzles to do at home.

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Kids academy is a great video to play for your children if you are introducing them to syllables. It explains syllables to children. This activity is great for visual learners.

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There are total of 6 types of syllables out there and if you are about to start teaching your little one about syllables then we'd recommend you to start with the open syllables and the closed syllables.It's just that these are easier to understand and your kid will learn quite fast. Not only this, in fact, after learning these two types, your kid will be able to speak a hundred different words.For starters, you need to tell your children what is a syllable. It basically is a unit of pronunciation that comes with a single vowel only. For more details, you can refer to the internet and watch videos on Youtube that tell everything you need to know about a syllable.

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Learning Video: Dividing Words into Syllables - Kids Academy

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There are total of 6 types of syllables out there and if you are about to start teaching your little one about syllables then we'd recommend you to start with the open syllables and the closed syllables.It's just that these are easier to understand and your kid will learn quite fast.

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This website have fun and easy to print phonemic awareness games. It includes printable segmenting, sounds, and blend words. The printable games can be use in a literacy center or small reading group

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In continuing my posts on phonological awareness, we're focusing on phonemic awareness activities. If you missed my posts on What is Phonological Awareness and What is Phonemic Awareness, you might find it helpful to begin there. All of the activities in this post are without letters/print. When working on beginning phonemic awareness tasks, I believe it's beneficial to do some practice without letters. The cognitive load required to do the phonemic awareness task and connect it to the appropriate grapheme makes the task more complex. As students increase their phonemic awareness and letter-sound correspondence, however, they are better able to apply their work with print. While I include phonemic awareness work (in the form of segmenting and blending) with all reading and spelling (or word building) activities, I also include some non-letters based practice for those students that are truly deficient in phonemic awareness. It can be difficult to find resources and activities for practicing phonemic awareness without print, especially with phoneme manipulation tasks. I created this post with that in mind.

My Building Phonemic Awareness through Phonics post explores how you continue to build and reinforce phonemic awareness through your phonics and word work. Phoneme manipulation tasks are most often done with letters as students build their understanding of how changing out one specific grapheme changes the word. With that said, in my experience as an interventionist, I often worked with students that had weak phonemic awareness skills. It was critical that we reinforce those skills without attaching them to print- in addition to our phonics work. For students that are struggling with phonemic awareness, I recommend continuing practice without print in short time frames, always using something concrete. Also, reinforce phonemic segmenting and blending while sounding out words for decoding and encoding.

PHONEMIC AWARENESS ACTIVITIES

These phonemic awareness activities are presented from the least complex skill and build to more complex activities. There's a variety of materials presented: online games, printable centers, and digital practice. My go-to resource for printable practice is the Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR). For phonics and phonemic awareness skills, their resources are pretty much ready to print with very little extra work. Their phonemic awareness activities include phoneme matching, isolating, segmenting, blending, and manipulating. All of the resources are research based and are high-quality. I have linked a few activities below, but spend some time looking at all they have to offer.

Funbrain Jr. is a great app that offers different games and activities that build phonemic awareness skills amongst others. If your students have tablets, this would be a good app to add to their collections.

Some of the linked digital activities showcased below come from Education.com. It allows restricted access on the free version. So it's a nice resource to practice specific skills, but won't be able to be used regularly without a subscription. The same is true for the activities on TinyTap.

Activities for Initial Sounds

Odd One Out is an initial sounds matching game. Students identify the pictures and identify the one picture that starts with a different initial sound than the rest.

This activity is called Beginning Sounds and is on Tiny Tap. Students identify which picture does not begin with the same initial sound.

Activities for Middle Sounds

Word Gobble on Funbrain Jr. gives students practice matching medial short vowel sounds. The printed word is displayed but the letters are not a strong component in the game.

Hopper is a series of online activities from Education.com that has students clicking the image to match a short vowel sound. The sound, such as /e/, is given in each activity. Several different short vowel versions are included.

Activities for Ending Sounds

There is also a Ending Sounds Hopper activity from Education.com. Like the other Hopper activities, students click the image to match the given final sound.

Final Phoneme Find is a great, ready to print activity from FCRR.

This final sounds activity from IXL has students identify the two words with the same ending soZund. Pictures are given and can be given orally.

Phoneme Isolation Activities

These activities have students isolate sounds in all locations in words. This mixed location review helps build the skills necessary for later work with segmentation and blending.

Segmenting Quiz is another activity from education.com. This one practices isolating different sounds in words. The oral prompt identifies which sound students are identifying. An example is "Which word has an ending sound of /p/?"

These Digital Phoneme Matching Sorts have students practice isolating a specific sound in words and sorting pictures into the correct categories. There is no connection with print in this activity. 25 different pages are included in both Google Slides and SeeSaw. 3 different files are included: initial, medial, and final sounds so you are able to practice each skill separately. Because these are digital activities, they are perfect phonemic awareness practice during centers.

Segmenting and Blending

Segmenting and blending are the phonemic awareness activities that correlate with reading and writing the most. I focus much of my phonemic awareness work with these two skills.

Finger Phonemes from the University of Texas is a great strategy for making phoneme segmenting and blending concrete.

Elkonin Boxes are a tried and true resource for phoneme segmenting and blending. Students use a concrete manipulative in each box as they practice breaking apart the sounds in words.

Say It & Move It is similar to using Elkonin boxes but without the clear visual of the number of sounds. It's a way to remove the scaffold of sound boxes and working towards independent segmentation while still using concrete manipulatives.

These Black & White Phoneme Segmenting and Blending cards are easy to print and prep! They are black and white and are printed 3 to a page. They are organized by number of sounds so you can scaffold or differentiate cards based on students' needs. The given dots give students reinforcement with the number of sounds as they practice segmenting and blending the given sounds in the words.

Blending Segmented Words is available through TinyTap. Students listen to the given sounds in a word and choose the correct corresponding picture. The game doesn't change with continued play, so it's more of a resource that can be used just a couple times.

Blending and Segmenting words is a similar game from the same user on TinyTap. Students listen to the sounds in a word and find the corresponding picture.

I have an in-depth post on successive blending. It supports those students that struggle with blending, but does use letters. For these students, I find practicing both with and without letters beneficial.

Phoneme Manipulation Activities

Phoneme manipulation is the most complex on the phonemic awareness continuum. According to Dr. David Kilpatrick, manipulation activities are the most important to measure. Students that struggle with phoneme manipulation will struggle to apply their phonics learning to decoding and encoding. Often, many phoneme manipulation activities are done with print- especially with work with word families and adding, deleting, and substituting initial sounds. But it's important for young or struggling students to practice phoneme manipulation without print as well. This post from Reading Rockets has a variety of phonological activities. It has a superb sequence for phoneme manipulation activities.

Phoneme Deletion

What's Left is a phoneme deletion activity from FCRR. Students use the given picture cards to match the word with what's created when the initial sound is deleted.

Final Phoneme Pie is another phoneme deletion activity from FCRR. Students use the given picture to delete the final sound.

Phoneme Substitution

In these Phoneme Substitution Task Cards, students identify if the initial, medial, or final sound changed between two given pictures. There are 120 different task cards included in both printable and digital versions. Each of the task cards works with words with 3 phonemes, though some contain digraphs and long vowel sounds. The digital versions are provided in both Google Slides and SeeSaw so you can use whichever platform works best for you and your students.

I hope you have been able to find several phonemic awareness activities that you can add to your repertoire. My next post will showcase how you can continue to build and reinforce phonemic awareness during your phonics work. For students to be efficient decoders and encoders, it's critical that they're phonemic awareness skills are strong.

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18 Non-Print Phonemic Awareness Activities for Early Readers - Tales from Outside the Classroom

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Phonemic awareness activities and resources without corresponding letters or graphemes - perfect for kindergarten and first grade!

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This website includes fun and enjoyable and enriching activities that provide opportunities for children to learn inside the classroom at their own pace. It also provide multi-sensory exposures using auditory, visual and tactile learning. Imse website is excellent for all learners.

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Research supports the positive effects of early, explicit, systematic instruction in phonemic awareness to increase a child's attending to sounds. In grades K-2, teachers can make phonemic awareness activities a highly anticipated part of the daily schedule. Phonemic awareness activities should:

Include enjoyable, enriching activities that provide opportunities for children to engage in language play,

Provide multi-sensory exposures (10-20 minutes per day) using auditory, visual, and tactile learning modalities,

Incorporate songs, chants, poetry, and rhymes to support metalinguistic awareness

Use data to inform instruction

Vary complexity for different learners

Examples of Classroom Activities to Facilitate Phonemic Awareness

Nars from Mars (Rhyming)

This activity helps to model rhyme generation to students in the classroom. Make a puppet from a sock or paper bag and give the puppet antennae to represent "Nars". When Nars visits the class from his planet, the students will help him learn the English language. As Nars approaches various objects in the classroom, he will identify them incorrectly by rhyming. For example, when Nars selects a book, he will label it as a "nook," a pen as a "chen," a table as a "lable," and so on. Each time, the students will help him by stating the correct (rhyming) word. Students will look forward to visits from Nars.

Going to Grandma's (Rhyming)

Have the students sit in a circle on the floor and get ready to pack a basket full of rhymes to take to Grandma's house. The teacher will start the string of rhymes by saying, "We are going to Grandma's, and I am packing a ________." The basket will be passed to the next student, who will say, "We are going to Grandma's, and I am packing a (word that rhymes with the former word)." As an example, if the teacher said "skirt," then the next student might add "shirt," and then "dirt," and so on. This will leave the students in giggles, and the round will end when no other rhyming words can be generated. The basket can get passed again with a new starter word.

1, 2, 3, 4 Syllables are on the Floor (Syllable Counting)

Place four hula-hoops on the floor and place a number 1, 2, 3, or 4 in each hoop. Place various objects in a box and model the first turn. Take the object and label it (example = elephant). Clap the syllables in the word and place the object in the hoop marked with a 3.

Sort the Sound (Phoneme Categorization)

Using sets of four pictures (or objects) per sound, the teacher will model how to complete the sound sort. If the target ending sound is /t/, the teacher will name each picture and select the three pictures in the set that ends with /t/ while removing the one picture that does not fit. This activity may be done with beginning, medial, or ending sounds.

Sound Boxes (Phoneme Segmenting and Blending)

The teacher will provide students with (cubes, chips, stickers) and a sound box template. The child will listen to a spoken word and move a token to represent each sound. For example, if the teacher dictates the word "step," the student will move four tokens, one for each individual phoneme /s/-/t/-/e/-/p/.

Stretching or Repeating (Phoneme Deletion and Substitution)

The teacher will dictate a word, in sound or with phoneme cards , while stretching one of the sounds "/s/-/a/-/a/-/a/-/t/" and ask the student to identify the word. The student is then asked to replace the stretched sound /a/-/a/-/a/ with another sound /i/-/i/-/i/ and identify the new word. For phonemes that cannot be stretched, the teacher may repeat the target sound "/h/-/o/-/t/-/t/-/t/." Once the student identifies the word, the teacher may have him replace the repeated ending sound /t/-/t/-/t/ with /p/-/p/-/p/ and state the new word.

Make a Change (Phoneme Manipulation-Deletion and Substitution)

The teacher will lead the class in a series of phoneme manipulation tasks, which will, in turn, activate the other phonemic awareness tasks. (From Kilpatrick's book, Equipped for Reading Success)

Say enter. Now say enter but don't say ter. Student: en

Say pin. Now say pin but don't say /p/. Student: in

Say smile. Now say smile but don't say /s/. Student: mile

Say club. Now say club but don't say /l/. Student: cub

Be sure to check out the rest of our blog series on How to Teach Phonemic Awareness:

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Classroom Activities to Facilitate Phonemic Awareness | IMSE Journal

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Research supports the positive effects of early, explicit, systematic instruction in phonemic awareness to increase a child's attending to sounds. In grades K-2, teachers can make phonemic awareness activities a highly anticipated part of the daily schedule.

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My three readers is a fun website that have digital resources reading games like spelling and letter matching games that are accessible to your child on his or tablet. They also provide printable versions of the activities

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Does your child sound choppy, slow, and labored when she is attempting to read? Then you are in the right place to find a bit of help with these reading fluency activites with reading fluency games online, reading fluency passages, timed reading games, printable reading fluency games and more!

This article explains more about how to teach reading fluency, in particular. (For more general strategies on teaching reading, check out this page on .)

Know what good reading fluency looks like before you start.

B efore we even begin, let's talk about what reading fluency is exactly. Fluency is typically defined by the ability to read accurately, quickly, and with proper expression.

Reading fluency is an indicator that you understand and can convey to listeners what the book or passage you are reading is about. Hand-in-hand with automaticity (the ability to automatically recall written words quickly), reading fluency combines automaticity with expression when speaking, which indicates that you understand, and are "into" the book.

So to recap, if you are a fluent reader, you can read:

A child by the end of 1st grade may be expected to read approximately 60 words per minute, increasing as he or she grows. T he average adult can read about 300 words per minute.

Accurately - If you are an accurate reader, you have the ability to recall many words by sight, and be able to decode words quickly and efficiently without stumbling, missing, or substituting words in the text.

A reader who understands the book or passage & With Expression - as they read it will inject personality with proper voice inflection, volume, and timing to the meaning of the text and while properly using the punctuation and sentence structure utilized by the author to convey the message. (Prosody is another word for reading expression you may have heard.)

Reading fluency goes along with great reading comprehension, so as you work on fluency, know that you are impacting the comprehension skills of your child also!
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15 Quick Reading Fluency Activities to Make Excellent Readers

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15 reading fluency activities you can do in minutes a day with strategies to improve reading fluency in your slow, choppy reader. Reading fluency games online, printable reading fluency games, reading passages and more! Education ideas - what are the 3 components of reading fluency? Wanting to know how to help your child read faster?