While it’s important to learn to sound out words, it’s also important (and useful!) to know a lot of words by sight. Since kids often see the color words in print, it makes sense to add them to the list of sight words that beginning readers can read automatically. Here’s a simple free game to teach kids to read color words.
This game is based on a game in Peggy Kaye’s fabulous book Games for Reading. (If you buy any book designed to help parents teach their kids to read, this one should be it! Peggy, a reading tutor, shares over seventy games, many of which I used in my classroom before I became a parent.)
In the free download you will find this single page game board and a set of cards with the color words red, green, yellow, blue, purple, and orange.
The rules are simple:
1. Put the color word cards face down in a pile.
2. Get a playing piece for each player.
3. Take turns picking up a card and reading the color word. Follow the arrows on the path as you move your playing piece to the closest coin of that color. Players may share the same space.
4. If a player is near the end of the path, and there is none of the color he draws ahead of him, he moves ahead to the pot of gold and wins the game.
This game was easy and enjoyable for my Five, who could follow the path without any trouble. My Three was not excited about it, but I knew he could figure out the color words by looking at the first letter of each word. We helped him find the right direction on the path. As he realized he was going to win, the game suddenly became more fun.
Get your free game here —> Rainbow Game
To find more free reading resources, visit my Teaching Reading page.
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