Reading Development Through Games
Discover the best board games that not only entertain but also improve reading and literacy skills across all age groups. Dive into our curated list of engaging games that promise fun learning experiences and effective skill development in reading comprehension.
The PlayWise team believes that almost anything can be developed through board gaming. Social skills might be the first thing that comes to mind, but the field of mathematics quickly follows, which is why we've already written several articles about it. Now, we will discuss how reading motivation and comprehension can also be enhanced with board games. What board games help with reading? How can I make reading comprehension more fun? We will answer these and similar questions on this page.
Educational board games for literacy
Apples to Apples is a fun party game where players match red object cards with green descriptive cards, aiming to create humorous or fitting combinations.
Age, Playing Time, Players
Recommended for ages 12 and up, 20-30 min, 4-10 players
Tools
The specific number of cards in the game can vary depending on the edition, but generally, there are several hundred red and green cards included in the box, ensuring variety and replayability.
Skills
The game enhances language skills, creativity, and social interaction as players debate and choose the best matches.
Instructions
Each round, one player acts as the judge, selecting the green card, while other players choose the red card from their hand they believe best matches the judge's card. The judge then picks the winning combination, and the player who submitted it scores a point.
Bananagrams is a fast-paced, Scrabble-like word game where players race against each other to build a grid of words using their letter tiles, without the need for a board or a turn-based system.
Age, Playing Time, Players
Recommended for ages 7 and up, 15 min, 1-8 players
Tools
The game includes 144 letter tiles, all stored in a unique banana-shaped pouch for easy transport and storage.
Skills
Bananagrams enhances vocabulary, immediate word formation skills, anagram creation, linguistic creativity.
Instructions
The game begins with a number of tiles drawn face-down and proceeds as players draw and rearrange their tiles to form words in crossword fashion, adapting as new tiles are drawn until the pool of tiles runs out.
Scrabble is a classic word game where players earn points by creating words from individual lettered tiles on a game board marked with a 15x15 grid.
Age, Playing Time, Players
Recommended for ages 10 and up., 90 min, 2-4 players
Tools
The Scrabble game set includes a 15x15 grid game board, 100 letter tiles, 4 tile racks, a tile bag, and optionally a scorepad and timer.
Skills
Scrabble enhances vocabulary, spelling, strategic thinking, and mathematical skills through word formation and scoring.
Instructions
In Scrabble, players take turns drawing letter tiles to create words on the game board, with each word laid out either horizontally or vertically. Each letter has a point value, and players aim to make high-scoring words based on the board's bonus squares to accumulate the highest total points.
Board games to improve reading
Of course, knowledge of letters alone is not sufficient for reading. The following games are excellent examples of creative, story-centric gameplay, which can greatly contribute to children's willingness to read and provide them with more reference points for understanding stories and texts.
Dixit is a card game that invites players to rely on their intuition and imagination to guess which card one player, the storyteller, is describing.
Age
Recommended for ages 8 and up, 30 min, 3-8 players
Tools
Dixit includes a deck of 84 unique, beautifully illustrated cards, a game board, six wooden rabbit tokens as player markers, and 36 voting tokens in six different colors.
Skills
Dixit develops creativity, abstract thinking, and social interaction skills as players interpret and guess the story behind the images.
Instructions
In Dixit, one player is the storyteller for the turn and makes up a sentence or phrase that might describe one of their cards. Then, each player selects a card from their own hand that they feel best matches the storyteller's description, and after shuffling and revealing the cards, all players except the storyteller vote on which card they believe belongs to the storyteller.
This is a narrative card game where players create their own stories while playing cards from their hands.
Age, Playing Time, Players
Recommended for ages 8 and up, 30 min, 2-6 players
Tools
Includes a deck of cards featuring elements, characters, and events to weave into tales, along with ending cards to conclude the stories.
Skills
The game aids in the development of reading and storytelling skills, encourages creative thinking, and fosters an understanding of language structures.
Instructions
In gameplay, players use their cards to tell a story together while trying to steer the plot towards their own secret ending. The game encourages improvisation and creativity, with players interrupting each other to take control of the story and guide it toward their conclusion.
A dice game that encourages players to invent stories based on randomly rolled symbols.
Age, Playing Time, Players
Recommended for ages 6 and up, 20 min, 1-12 players
Tools
A set of nine dice, each adorned with unique images on their six faces.
Skills
Story Cubes promote linguistic creativity and understanding connections
Instructions
Players roll the dice and then, using the images on the upturned faces, weave together a story, connecting the symbols in creative ways. The aim is to integrate all images into a coherent narrative, encouraging imagination and narrative skills.
Author and his game
From Letters to Paragraphs
Board Games for Reading