abu & rabad

Rabad dislikes reading. More accurately, I think she would love to be able to read a lot, but is currently not able to, and hence finds reading frustrating. She loves me reading to her, but does not want to read herself. Mainly because she hasn’t yet mastered the basics of sight reading, and hence reading is a chore for her.

We were trying various ways to get her to read, and not getting anywhere. One approach that we thought might help was gamification. It’s easy to find “educational game CDs” in bookstores, but I’ve found that most of them are kind of boring, and I don’t really want to encourage my kid to spend even more time alone with the computer.

Searching on the internet, we found http://www.printablereadinggames.com/ a place with lots of interesting games that can be printed onto cards and papers and played.

So, we created a game based on the 4-in-a-row phonics game described here, and she has been loving it. She can play the game with her friends, or with Abu. The fact that they’re older and much better readers is not a problem, because there’s enough of a luck factor in the game. Even we can play the game with her. Yesterday, I had to drag her away from the game because it was late for dinner. She kept begging, “Daddy… just one more game…”

And no, we’re not trying to trick her. She knows that this game is to help her read better. But that hasn’t negatively affected the perception of the game. A fun game is, apparently, a fun game. (At least at this age.)