If you’re planning on traveling this summer, you may be wondering how you can continue polishing your child’s reading skills on the road without filling your vacation with workbooks. After all, losing any skills they’ve already acquired would be a shame.
Therefore, I’m going to use this article to introduce you to some reading games and activities that have helped my son polish his reading skills while roadschooling and traveling full-time.
Reading Activities for In the Car
As a traveling family, we spend more time than most in our vehicle moving from one place to the next. This means hours upon hours of potential learning time could easily be eaten up by road trip boredom. Fortunately, we have developed a few car games and activities that keep us busy while also helping our son fine-tune his reading abilities:
The Alphabet Game 2.0
Everyone knows how to play the classic alphabet road trip game. You know, the one where the first person to find every letter of the alphabet wins? Well, that game is actually ideal for preschoolers who are just learning their alphabet, as it helps with letter recognition.
However, as a child gets older, this game becomes a bit less educational. Therefore, we have invented a slightly more difficult version of the game for new readers.
In this version, the child must make the sound the letter makes after finding it in order to receive a point and move on to the next letter. Already have letter sounds down? Make it even more difficult by requiring the student to sound out the word the letter was found in before he or she earns the point.
License Plate Letters
This game is great for those who are just learning letter sounds. It involves looking at the letters on a license plate and deciding on an acronym that fits those letters. For instance, “EGB” might be “eating green bananas”. This is one letter game that gets pretty silly, so be prepared for some serious giggles.
If your child is already pretty good with letter sounds, you can make the game a bit more challenging by having them write the phrases down. If you go this route, it can also be fun to string your made-up phrases together into a short story.
Mad Libs
Best for older kids, the classic Mad Libs game books are absolutely perfect for fun reading practice. The stories are quick enough for those with short attention spans, and their silliness makes them more fun to read. As an added bonus, these games also help kids understand parts of speech and even require a bit of spelling and writing.
Reading Apps for Tablet Time
Although we try to limit screen time, there are times during our travel days when we allow our little guy to play with his tablet. We do our best to make his tablet time as productive as possible by providing him with educational games to play. Here are our favorite reading games so far:
Teach Your Monster to Read
This is one learning app I swear by. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that Teach Your Monster to Read is the tool that helped my son most when he first became interested in learning how to read. .
Reading Eggs
Another amazing reading app, Reading Eggs comes in second only to Teach Your Monster to Read, in my opinion. However, many prefer using this reading game for various reasons. Both are colorful and fun, so I recommend downloading both to see which one your child prefers.
Reading Activities for Daily Life
Of course, we aren’t always driving from one location to the next. Much of our time is spent exploring amazing new places. Therefore, we find ways to weave schooling into our adventures. Here are a few of the ways we’ve worked on reading skills while going about our day-to-day business.
Letter Writing
Because we don't see our friends and family as much as we would like, we make a point of sending letters and email messages on a regular basis. This is perfect writing and spelling practice for our son, and the messages he receives in return make for great reading practice.
HINT: Make it fun by getting them their very own kid stationary set!
Literacy Promoting Attractions
When choosing which attractions to visit, the educational value of each option is always taken into consideration. We seek out places that offer the best learning experiences, and often, this means the attractions we choose tend to focus on promoting literacy.
For instance, the ImaginOn children’s library in Charlotte, NC gave us an amazing afternoon surrounded by books. Meanwhile, the DoSeum in San Antonio had an entire exhibit dedicated to reading and storytelling.
Reading Together
Even on our busiest days, we make a point of reading together at some point. The simple act of curling up as a family with a good book is so comforting that it’s something our entire family looks forward to. I believe this habit has played a large role in developing our little guy’s love of reading.
There you have it! With these simple tips and tricks, we have helped our kindergartener learn to read on the road. Knowing this, I am sure you’ll agree that these fun reading games and activities will be the perfect addition to your family vacation!
Chelsea enjoys full-time RV living and traveling with her tiny tribe.She homeschools her son as they travel, and takes full advantage of their unique situation by using the entire world as her son’s classroom. Besides traveling and learning with her little one, Chelsea enjoys Irish dance, singing, riding bikes, finding new coffee shops, and sitting around the campfire. You can follow her adventures at Wonder Wherever We Wander.
