I couldn’t let National Literacy Month pass without talking about the very fun PBS site for kids. PBS games are fun, colorful, easy to play, and educational. Many support reading skills. There are so many games for so many ages that I can’t list them all. Here though, are a few of my favorites.
In Global Gizmo, under the Arthur Section, the player matches pairs of musical instruments from around the world. When you click on the pictures you hear what the instruments sound like. There is a link that explains where the instruments come from. Some are familiar like the electric guitar; others are things like the didjeridu from Australia, or Peruvian panpipes. For the first game you match pictures, for the second you match the sounds. It’s much harder, but families can play together. And it practices auditory awareness which is a good skill for reading. In the third game you match the picture to the sound.
The Virtual Goose game involves matches patterns. It’s a good exercise for the brain and gets progressively harder.
In Travels with Buster you can play State Bingo and learn about state flags, animals, state shapes, and state foods. Your children can design their own flag, or a flag for the family in Build A Flag.
In the Between the Lions section, you’ll find alphabet review games like ABCD Watermelon, and jokes mixed with letter in Alphabet Soup. One of my favorites is the clever game Word Play. You see words like “erase” get erased, and “melt” melting. I also love that parents and teacher can search the site for grade levels and categories. Games are divided into phonological awareness, vocabulary, comprehension and more.
Besides games and stories to read along with, you and your children can send e-cards, draw pictures, write and share poetry, and much more. A lot of people discourage computer time, but these PBS sites can be fun for the whole family, and you can all learn something too.
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