How to Make a Reading Game

A fun reading comprehension activity to work on with your child is to create a reading game about a book or story they have read.

You can make a game with questions that would work for any story, such as questions about the characters, the plot and the setting. You could also make a reading board game for a specific story with questions just for that story.

You'll need to decide on the rules for your game, in class we would look at and talk about rules of other games we had played.

You'll also need to decide on the games pieces, you can use pieces from old games, buttons or coins as game tokens.

Another decision would be to use dice, to make a spinner, or write in the game board how many spaces to move with each turn.

To make a reading board game, you’ll need a sheet of poster board, a ruler, markers, crayons, and maybe some stickers.

A half or a fourth of a sheet of poster board works very well for this project. When we made these in class, I would suggest to my students they draw the design with pencil and then go over it with marker or crayon.

The easiest reading board game to design is one that will work for most any story. Remember to look at board games you have for ideas. Then draw your game board on poster board and color it in.

If you are going to write the questions on the board, make sure the squares are large enough for you to write. You can also write the questions on index cards.

Here are some suggested questions:

Who is the main character?

Where does the story take place?

What is an important event in the story?

When does the story take place?

What did you like best about the story?

What did you not like about the story?

What would you change about the ending of the story?

Also, put some fun spaces on your game board, for instance you move forward or backward a certain number of spaces just because you land on them. You could have activity spaces; maybe the player has to jump up and down three times if they land on it. Use your imagination and have fun!

Don’t forget to decorate your reading board game! If the game is to be used for different books, then some drawings about how much fun it is to read a good book. If you’re like me and don’t have the talent of being able to draw, you can decorate the board with stickers or some clip art.

For a reading board game about a specific book, write the questions on index cards or on the game board itself. Start with specific questions about the story and then fill in with some general questions, like the ones mentioned earlier. Then decorate the board with pictures of the characters and setting from the story.

If your child is reading a series, like Amber Brown, Cam Jansen, or the A-Z Mysteries, you could design a reading game board for the series.

Begin with the general questions, and then add questions about more stories they have read. Keep the earlier questions to check if they remember details about the books they previously read.

After they have read two or three books in the series, some of the questions could be about comparing the characters and events of the stories. Also, more decorations could be added as they read more of the books in the series.

Remember with your reading game, the object is to have fun with reading and improve your child’s reading comprehension.

As I would tell my students, the reading game board doesn’t have to be perfect, but the game does have to be fair to those who have read the book. Have fun playing reading games!

If you found this reading game actvity helpful, click here for more comprehension ideas.

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