Homemade Easy Reader Books and a Free Sight Words Memory Match Game: Fun Ways to Support Literacy Learning

My daughter is a kindergartener working so hard on learning to read at school, and I wanted to come up with some ways to support her learning at home in addition to the suggestions from school. Since I’m sure there are others of you out there in the same position, I thought I’d share what I did this week.

I made little eight page easy reader books for her, with basic stick figure illustrations, easy words and stories about her and her little brother. Here are a few pages from each book:

Now, I’m not the world’s best illustrator (duh!) but you know what? My daughter didn’t care that the pictures were very basic – she enjoyed reading the books and especially enjoyed being able to share them with her brother. Each book only took a few minutes and two books together were only 2 sheets of paper so it was an easy way to support and reinforce the lessons she’s learning in school each week. She can even color in the books if she wants to.

I made the books by stacking two sheets of paper together, folding them in half the short way, then cutting them into two books by cutting the sheets horizontally. I used a few staples in the fold to “bind” each book.

The second thing I did this week was make up some sight word flashcards, using the list of sight words her teacher sent home. I made up a .pdf with the words spaced evenly on the pages so that when they’re cut apart they’re all the same size, and they can be used as a memory match game as well (if you print duplicate words). I’ve linked to the .pdf below if you’d like to use it or know someone else who might.  I’d love to hear more ideas about fun learning activities – if you’ve got some you’ve tried with your family, please let me know!