Beginning Reading Help: Literactive - Free Early Reading Program with Games and Animated Stories

I can't believe this site is free. Register today and look around. http://www.literactive.com/Home/index.asp

Don't miss the Flash activites. Look in the left column for pre-reading to level 7 activities. I checked out numerous games. There is one problem I found. The sound made for a short a by the computer sounds more like a short u. I suggest sitting with a child and making the correct short a sound during these games.

There are animated stories with games. There are different types and levels of stories in the left column if you are using this site from a computer. The stories are grouped by nursery rhymes, traditional stories, poetry and level 1 to level 5 stories. You can turn the sound on or off to let a child listen to the words or read the words him or herself. There's a scope and sequence guide available for these online stories here.

This site makes it easy to start at any level. You don't have to go from beginning to end in this program. Play some of the beginning reading activities until a child is ready to read.

Use the Hiding Snails game found in level 3 activities to practice reading high frequency words.

Hiding Snails

Go to site to find this game. Click on activities at the top and level 3 in the left column.

Play some CVC games found in level 3 activities like Sliding Penguins.

Sliding Penguins

Have a child read some predictable pattern books from level 1. Picture clues help a child know if a word is right, but a child should be encouraged to use letters when figuring out words. Many children learn to guess at words without using letters in books of this sort. Click on the last word in the story, Dad, to have the computer break the word into sounds. Have a child repeat, point and read these words a few times with and without the computer.

The word wash is good to teach about words that start with wa. Many words that start with wa sound like "wo". (walk, want, water, watch) Talk about what the dad is washing. Make sure a child looks at pictures when reading early reader stories.

The letters ch make one sound and the o in the middle of a CVC word will usually make a short sound in the word chop. Ask a child what the dad accidentally chopped. Discuss the box the boy is holding is a first aid kit.