Give your Child a Love of Words for Christmas

There is no greater gift than a love of reading. Spend time with your children this Christmas and encourage them to play games with words - let them find out for themselves how English works. It can be just as much fun as an electronic game if you play it with them.

Play word games with your children while you have time off work. Here are some ideas for different ages and reading abilities – but inventing your own is even better. The important thing is that you spend time, have fun and share an appreciation of our mad, quirky language with youngsters and encourage them to read more (and play computer games less maybe?)

Labels
Label items around the house such as chairs, tables and windows with a tiny spot of blu-tack or a “yellow sticky”
 Mix the labels up and ask the child to sort them out
 Leave letters out (ch**r) and get them to supply the right ones
 Make up anagrams (ocadubpr and aletb)

Coded messages
Write a message to the child – telling them something that’s going to happen, a joke, or a silly comment
 Replace each the vowel with a different number (d21r S1m)
 Leave out all the vowels
 Represent every letter with a number or symbol
 Shift the alphabet along so you use a code like this: a=c; b=d; c=e etc)

Depending how difficult the child finds your code, you may want to supply hints, such as:
 The commonest letter in English is “e”
 All words have at least one vowel - normally a, e, i, o, u and occasionally only y (words like sly and fly).
 A limited number of letters can be doubled (for example not a, i or w)

Slow reveal
Type words in quite big letters and cover them with a sheet of paper. Reveal them gradually from top to bottom and see how quickly your child can recognise them. Which is easier of capitals and lower case letters? Which are the hardest letters to distinguish? Get the child to challenge you (this game does make spelling quite important!)

Sounds the same
Think of groups of words that sound the same, such as:
 Their, there, there
 Pause, paws, pores
 Pear, pair
 Hear, here
If you run out of ideas, try this handy list. Write sentences or stories with the wrong ones in, for example: The dog has just come in with cold, wet pause. See if your child can spot them. If the game catches on, accept a return challenge.

Have fun.
 

Comments

• These are all good ideas, but they are transparently didactic; they may help a child learn to read, but won’t, of themselves, nurture a love of words or reading.

  I think books are paramount. Lots of them, in a wide variety of styles. As well as reading to your children often and in an unhurried way, they need to see that you enjoy reading for your own private pleasure too, so that it’s as normal a part of life as breathing.

  By Cecily on 2010 05 05