sight word games to prepare for kindergarten: go fish!

Owen has been really interested in reading lately, so I’m trying to roll with it without pushing him or having him lose interest–so games have been my go-to.

He’s trying desperately to grab the words that he can, whether it be words in the book we’re reading, words on the screen of his Leapster Explorer, or words on Mario Kart–it doesn’t matter. He’s in a really cool stage right now, and it’s been an absolute riot.

So very simply, we’ve been doing some work with family names, with basic word families, with fun reasons to write, and with words in the environment. But I’ve also added something a little more focused and ‘kindergarten-prep’ to the mix, and for the time being, the O-Man’s loving it: Early Emergent Words.

I know it sounds like a laugh a minute, but when thrown in at the just-right times and in just-right ways, word play can be pretty rockin’.

All we need are a few fun sight word games to prepare him for Kindergarten. Go Fish is one of them.

Here’s one thing we’ve done:

Early Emergent Word Go-Fish!: Yes, it’s true. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again–Go Fish! can be played with just about anything, for just about any reason. So maybe it’s not as colorful or crazy as our Family Card Go Fish!, but Early Emergent Word Go-Fish! is not to be scoffed at.

In fact, if you’d like to play it at home with your soon-to-be-kindergartner, go for it! The early emergent words are here to download if you’d like.

Owen prepares for game two–the BIG game with all of the cards!

The way we play is very easy–I print out two copies of each set of words so that there are two of each word. Then we turn all of the cards face-down in the big ‘fish pond’ and we each pick five cards.

If we have any pairs, we lay them down and choose other cards so that before we start, each player has five cards in his or her hand.

Then we get rolling–no monkey business when Owen plays games. We say, Do you have the word, ‘look’ (or whatever)? If the other person does have the card, she hands it over. If not, she says, Nope. I don’t have ‘look’. Go fish!

And if the player is lucky enough to pick up the desired card, we say You fished your wish!! If not, it’s the next person’s turn. At the end of the game, the only pairs that count are the ones that the player reads–no pressure–we always help if necessary, but it just sneaks in one more reading of a word that will soon be committed to memory!

And that’s it–just 10 or 15 minutes every few days to make learning to read fun and doing what we can to get our kiddos ready for school! Woot!

If your children are at different stages of the literacy game, consider using these cards for Go-Fish!: