Little Homeschool on the Prairie: The Reading Game, 2nd Edition from Allsaid & Duun, LLC Review

Disclosure: I received this product free through the Homeschool Review Crew

I absolutely love incorporating learning games in our homeschool. They have helped my kids over many academic hurdles throughout the years. Our latest game The Reading Game, 2nd Edition from Allsaid & Duun, LLC has been a great edition for my struggling reader.

The Reading Game, 2nd Edition was created by Kenneth Hodkinson who is the author of the popular Wordly Wise series. The game has won many awards. The game is intended for ages 4 and up and requires 2+ players.

I like games that have an easy format and are engaging to play. The game plays like a memory game and doesn’t take very long to play. It can easily be incorporated into your homeschool day without taking a chunk of time out of your school schedule.

Your child should already know their alphabet. They don’t need any phonic learning to play the game to succeed.

Inside the box you have:

Storybooks-6

Memory Word Card Games-6

Captioned Picture Flashcards-6

Parent/Teacher Guide and a Word Family Activities

You can also download optional free worksheets online for each individual using the game. It has pre-test and post-test for all six books. Also, a sheet to keep track of your students progress. It is a classroom format but, can easily be used with one student.

The game comes in a very sturdy box. I wish all games had boxes like this. I would not have to tape up corners of every game box or worry about the cat sitting in the box and busted it out to fit their form. Inside the box is just as impressive with a place for each deck of cards in a sturdy divider. You don’t have to worry about putting the cards in plastic bags or rubber bands. The cards stay snug in their place and are easily removed.

Storybooks:

The 6 storybooks are black and white illustrated. The books are Skunk, Snake, Bear, Penguins, Unicorn, and Zebra. Each book corresponds to the card deck that is the same color and theme. The pages don’t have a lot of words on them and consist of a sentence or two. Each reader has a total of 32-pages.

The words are all high-frequency words in the Storybooks, game cards, and flashcards and correspond to one another. In the first book, Skunk teaches words like run, is, to, and what. The second book, Snake has words like big, no, tree, hide, and mouse. In the last book Zebra progresses to words like fair, goose, alphabet, dolphin, and once.

The stories use the 30 words that are used throughout the book. A list of the words is available in the books. The books do add in more difficult words as you progress in each book.

Memory Word Card Games Cards:

The cards are color-coded but it is also a theme by an animal on the front of the card. One word is on each card.

There are 60 cards in each deck with 2 of each of the same cards. You should have a total of 30 unique card sets in your deck. The front of the card is numbered from 1 through 6 which makes it easy to gather the cards for each of the 6 levels in a book.

Captioned Picture Flashcards:

These also correspond with each level and are color-coded. The flashcards are more information about your story for example Bear ones give you some facts and information about bears. They have a short paragraph or two for your student to read.

How to Play the Game:

The game should be played with a parent, teacher, or an older sibling.

In each memory game, you have a six-stage (levels) play that you will learn five words. At the end of the book, you will know a total of 30 new words to read. With all 6 books, your child should know a total of 180 words. They will learn to read complete sentences while playing The Reading Game, 2nd Edition. There are also corresponding Captioned Picture Flashcards that are much larger than the Memory Word Cards.

To play you grab the 10 cards for your level and lay them face down. You take turns turning over two cards. If you match the cards the player who flipped them over says that word several times out loud. For kids who don’t know how to read you can prompt them to say the word. If they don’t match the cards are put back into play.

After all the 10 cards have been matched, you keep playing those cards until the student can read the five words quickly and have mastered them. After they have mastered 10 words you use the Captioned Picture Flashcards for them to read. You continue this with all 6 levels in each set until they have mastered the words. At this point, they should be able to read the words and sentences. You then have them read the corresponding Storybook. You proceed forward with the other levels the same way.

How Did I Use The Reading Game, 2nd Edition in My Homeschool?

I used this with my 18-year-old daughter with special needs. She currently reads at around a second to third-grade level. Her confidence with reading isn’t very good and she needs reinforcement often as she regresses in her skills often.

We started in the third level which would be yellow and the book is Bear. This level covers words like after, eat, gold, honey, shock, and other words. My daughter has no problem reading the majority of the words. Her problem is usually putting together words to form a sentence while reading as certain words slow her down. The game did a good job getting her comfortable with the words before she reads the book. Which in turn gets her excited. We continued with the next couple of levels the same way. She picked up the words and books quickly within a few games. We have went through all of the levels several times already. She enjoys the game and the success she gets out of each game.

Her favorite part was playing the matching game and she was able to quickly make matches. My son helped me out with administering the game. Sometimes he put two levels together to make it more challenging for her.

She also liked reading the Captioned Picture Flashcards and finding out interesting facts about the animals.

She wasn’t as fond of the books but, I felt it was because the illustrations didn’t grab her attention. She is a very visual person and illustrations tend to grab her attention quickly. She thought they were a bit creepy. However, the reading was good enforcement to follow up with the words she learned in the game.

Throughout the years I have bought and made-up games, and done numerous activities for reading with my daughter. The Reading Game, 2nd Edition has been by far my favorite. I think that it does a great job of not overwhelming with information. The game plays quickly. The Captioned Picture Flashcards adds another reinforcement to the skills, and the books are great with the content. I have to agree with my daughter that the illustrations aren’t my favorite. I would love to see the book full colored. I think it would be more appealing.

I’m not a big fan of learning words/reading by sight words. Let me clarify this-I have learned throughout the years with my daughter that sight words have their place and can be very beneficial to struggling readers. It took me a few years to come to terms with sight words being beneficial. Breaking down words with phonemes can be challenging for a child who struggles. For some kids, you just need to get them reading to build up their confidence first. My daughter now does a combination of both and I have done a combination of both in teaching her reading. You can use the game alongside learning phonics easily. The kids can easily decode the words if you want to add that aspect to the game. My daughter's biggest challenge is her regressing in her skills. She can be doing great with reading and suddenly we are back at square one. This is where we struggle with getting her up to speed again. Games tend to be a easy and engaging way to help her with being frustrated with struggling with reading all of a sudden.

What I love about The Reading Game, 2nd Edition is that it works and it doesn’t take a huge amount of time to play a game and we see results quickly. The books and the font size are the perfect sizes for my daughter who has some vision impairments too. I wish I would have known about The Reading Game many years ago!

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