post-it-tag

This is a very simple game/activity to play and to set-up! The purpose of the activity is to help your young one develop familiarity with the written form of words they already know. For example, Ariya loves to read books, but she doesn’t know how the word ‘book’ is spelt. It’s pretty much completely unrecognisable for her. She can read out the letters with 100% correctness, but can’t read the word. This activity works really well because your child will see the word, hear the word and move around the room to find the object which enganes their brain on many levels.

Below is a step-by-step set up for this activity. Oh, it also doesn’t require any fancy materials, just post-it notes and other objects laying around the house.

Time to set up: 2 minutes

Materials required: Post-It notes, a marker and objects for target vocabulary.

Goal: Improve reading skills and word recognition

Teaching methodology: Audio, Visual and Kinesthetic

Step 1)

Decide what words you want your child to learn and write them down on a post-it note. The words should be very objects that you have so your child can stick the post-it notes on it. You can see the picture for some examples.

I recommend using no more than 6-8 words for the first time. It will of course depend on your wee one as you will know them best.

Step 2)

Have your wee one read out the letters of the word and test them to see if they know/remember what the word is.

If they do, then great! Just have them find that object in the room and stick the post-it note on it.

If they don’t, then just read the word out, have them read it back a few times and then let them find the object in the room and stick it on.

Do this with all of the post-it notes.

Step 3)

Once you have finished tagging all the objects with the post-it notes, do a quick review by reading out loud each word. Then take the post-it notes off the objects and then redo step 2.

You can repeat this as much as you want.

Bonus Round!

These are mostly things I just thought of after doing this activity with Ariya. I’m kind of kicking myself know that I didn’t think of it before, but here they are:

  • Add a small mark to the post-it note to score how well they remember that word. For example, a tick on the back means they remember it well whilst a horizontal line could mean they need more practice. That way, you know which words they need to practice more. This can be done on the back.
  • Do the activity outside. Watching Ariya slap the post-it note on an actual dog would have been more fun for everyone or the mischief she could have caused with the word ‘water’.
  • Put the words on the wrong objects to see if they spot the mistake.
  • I should have used a marker instead of my pen…
  • A reward system. For example, if they could get 5 right by themselves then they could have an ice-cream.
  • Hiding the objects in the room so they have the extra fun of looking for it.

I hope you and your wee one enjoyed this activity! If you did it, then good for you! I’d love to have your feedback and suggestions below.