After getting math tips from my son’s teacher last week, I then met with the reading support teacher who gave me all sorts of handy tips for helping kids with their reading. She introduced me to the game of SWAP… which has since become an obsession in our house (and has helped enormously with reading skills!). The game is easy — it’s like UNO but with words, and you can buy different games for different skills (there are currently 35 different games). Game 1 focuses on the vowels so you get words like hot, cup, den, cub, sat, etc., and you have to match the different vowel sounds.  Game 2 focuses on ‘ch’, ‘sh’ and ‘th’ sounds and includes words like fish, path, thin, crash, chin, chop, etc. Both my 4-year-old and my 6-year-old are hooked on the game — my son even asked if he could bring SWAP to the park this past weekend!! And, in only one week, both boys have improved their reading skills by leaps and bounds.

The games are available to purchase here (the website is unimpressive and somewhat clumsy, but seems to be the only place to get them).

-Courtney