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The Dotty Board Game: Encouraging your child to read

How can I encourage my child to read?

Creative Resources for primary children| Education
June 30, 2024•2 min read

Very often the challenge isn’t just in finding something that they are willing to read,
but in the actual act of reading itself.

I was talking about reading the other day with a mum. Very often
the challenge isn’t just in finding something that they are willing to read,
but in the actual act of reading itself.

A lot of children struggle with reading. Especially reading
out loud. All enjoyment goes out of the story as all you can think about is the
effort of what is to come. Sounding our words, recognising letters, remembering
what the story was about, keeping your place in the text. And people regard
this as fun, how!!

Since the beginning of tutoring, we’ve used the ‘dotty board
game’. We have a page of A4 paper and around the edge/ across the middle we
have 6 yellow dots, 6 blue dots, 6 green dots. You can be green, I’ll be
yellow.

You roll the dice and that determines how far you can move.
You can go in any direction, but you can’t change direction halfway through a
go. If your counter lands on a green, you will need to read a sentence,
paragraph, page, or whatever we deem to be appropriate. If anyone lands on a
yellow, I’ll have to read.

Encouraging your child to read with this fun and simple game

If someone lands on a blue, they roll the dice again and
there is a selection of forfeits which are determined by the number on the
dice:

1)     have another go

2)     go forward 3 spaces

3)     go back 6 spaces

4)     miss a turn

5)     other person reads

6)     you need to read again

 

My idea when I came up with this was to take the onus off one
person having to put in all the effort as I knew as a child how I used to hate
reading out. In my head, no problem. As soon as I started reading out loud, I
became a bumbling buffoon. I also felt that if you never knew when your turn
was coming it would mean in you had less of an opportunity to sit there in
dread because you would also become too caught up in the game.

 

We’ve adapted the game and use it for answering other
questions as well, but this was the original purpose. You may decide to change
the dots for images of each player, or if you are a particular fan of dogs have
a different breed instead of different colours. If you’re following the
football, you may choose different teams which are playing.

Readingencouraging readinghome educationprimary educationreluctant readerseducational gamesneurodiverse learners
blog author image

Dawn Strachan

For the past 20+ years I have been a firm believer that learning should be an enjoyable experience. I appreciate that traditionally education has revolved around worksheets, textbooks, listening to teachers. But a grounding in early years and working with children who had a variety of learning styles from I learned that it is an individual activity that is personal to all of us. We don’t all learn in the same way. Our influences, our experiences, our capabilities all influence how we retain information. But through it all, I believe that if we can make it enjoyable and engaging, they will want to participate. With participation comes practice which in turn boosts skill and confidence. With an increase in skill and confidence comes a willingness to have a go. This in turn leads to more practice which leads to a positive spiral of success. The moral, we need to make learning fun, engaging, use a range of techniques.

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Morning,

 

I hope the week is going well.

So many people seem to be doing D of E and work experience
at the moment, good luck if that’s you and if you’re at Marlow Camp next
fingers crossed for good weather!

 

I’ve just finished a lesson on division. It seems to be
something that messes with the brains of so many people.

I found it got easier when I stopped thinking about it as
division and instead thought about it as multiplication. So, if for example I
had the question 396 divided by 3, I would look at it as 3x what = 3. My answer
would be 1. How many times would I need to multiply 3 to get to 9, (my answer
would be 3). Then 3x something = 6. My answer would be 2. Giving me the overall
answer of 132.

I know that’s a really simple example but hopefully it explains
my point.

 

Thankfully in schools they don’t often seem to need to do
long division, but I’ve worked with a couple of adults (generally nurses for
some reason) who have needed it.

 

I think I’ll explain this one in a video, as it will be too
complicated to explain it with words as bits get put all over the place. I hope
this makes sense though:

https://youtu.be/cxkN_C5Ecwc  

Enjoy the rest of the week and speak soon,

 

Dawn