Let’s face it: no matter how much children love reading and writing, learning literature is quite tough for most kids these days and parents have little time or often no skills to help them improve their literacy skills at school. My theory is that screen time is guilty of making children more passive and less engaged when reading. But there’s a game by Learning Resources that will get all kids (and parents alike) to enjoy a traditional board game while learning literature. If you don’t believe me, check Diego’s video here and try it for yourself.
Play by the Book is simply an action-packed game that gets children talking about literature. It makes participants reflect on any fiction book, chapter, film or clip they’re studying at school in a fun way (you can tell by Diego’s playing the characters from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory).
The video
How it works
Players travel around the game board through four regions, each representing a different genre and inhabited by familiar fiction characters.
Fun ‘action spaces’ encourage multi-sensory learning through talking, singing, acting and sketching.
Teacher often use it at school to enhance guided reading sessions.
There are 2 levels of play to develop skills for:
- Drawing conclusions, making predictions and inferences
- Asking questions
- Comparing and contrasting
- Summarising and retelling
- Identifying language, structure and presentation
- Justifying with evidence
- Connecting prior knowledge with text
- Familiarity with a range of fiction genres
Kids can play during after school play dates and learn while they spend a few hours together. It is suitable for 2-6 players in the age group 8 to 12.
Monica Costa founded London Mums in September 2006 after her son Diego’s birth together with a group of mothers who felt the need of meeting up regularly to share the challenges and joys of motherhood in metropolitan and multicultural London. London Mums is the FREE and independent peer support group for mums and mumpreneurs based in London https://www.londonmumsmagazine.com and you can connect on Twitter @londonmums
