Journey Trail Notes Game Time

Play to Learn:

How Simple Games Strengthen the Language Comprehension Side of Reading

Reading comprehension develops wherever children engage in meaningful talk, problem-solving, and play. Simple games strengthen the language comprehension side of reading by building vocabulary, reasoning, inferencing, and narrative understanding. This post explores the research behind play and shares practical, low-prep games that parents, teachers, and homeschoolers can use immediately.

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Literacy Landmark

Spotlighting strategies and research to support all adults who are a part of a child’s reading growth.

Research consistently shows that games support the cognitive and linguistic foundations of reading comprehension, including oral language, reasoning, motivation, and narrative development.

Key research insight:
Dickinson and Tabors (2001) found that children who regularly engaged in rich, conversational play developed significantly stronger vocabulary and later reading comprehension than peers with fewer language-rich interactions.

This work highlights that play is not peripheral to literacy. It is a primary context in which language and thinking develop.

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Resource Roadmap

Offering practical books, guides, and downloadable resources that families, teachers, and homeschoolers can use right away.

Here is a practical, research-aligned resource that translates theory into everyday practice:

Einstein Never Used Flashcards (Hirsh-Pasek & Golinkoff)
This book explains how simple, low-prep games and playful interactions build vocabulary, reasoning, and flexible thinking. It offers concrete examples that families and educators can use immediately, without specialized materials.

🖋️ I have no affiliation or compensation associated with this recommendation.

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Practical Play Pathways for Reading Development

All activities below can be used at home, in classrooms, or in homeschool settings by adjusting group size and materials.

Trail Tots (Birth–5)

Sound & Letter Play: Letter Go Fish
Use index cards, sticky notes, or letter tiles. Ask for sounds first (“Do you have /m/?”), then letter names, then objects that start with that sound.

Why it works:
Builds phonological awareness, letter–sound connections, and early decoding readiness.

Language & Talk: Spot It! or Picture Bingo
Have children describe, compare, and categorize images before making a match.

Why it works:
Strengthens vocabulary, oral language, categorization, and expressive language.

Trailblazers (Grades K–3)

Word Building: Boggle Variations
Generate words, then extend learning by:

• Adding suffix -s

• Sorting rhyming words

• Using words in oral or written sentences

Why it works:
Reinforces phonics patterns, early morphology, and vocabulary development.

Story & Meaning: Story Boggle
Use generated words to create short stories with a beginning, middle, and end.

Why it works:
Supports narrative structure, sequencing, and comprehension.

Trail Masters (Grades 4–8)

Reasoning & Inference: Inference Detectives
Provide clues that imply an idea without stating it directly. Students identify and justify their reasoning.

Why it works:
Strengthens inferencing, background knowledge, and verbal reasoning.

Vocabulary & Meaning: Dixit, Codenames, or Scattergories
Connect cards or words to themes, characters, or concepts from current reading.

Why it works:
Builds semantic networks, figurative language, and flexible thinking.

How to Use This Across Settings

• Parents: Choose one game and play for 10–15 minutes while talking through thinking.

• Teachers: Use as a literacy warm-up, station activity, or discussion starter.

• Homeschoolers: Rotate activities weekly to build consistent, low-prep routines.

Why this matters

Games do not replace reading instruction. When used intentionally, they prepare the language, reasoning, and motivation systems that reading comprehension depends on.

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Journey Trail Notes Simple View of Reading

Welcome to the Journey To Better Reading Trail Notes Blog! This blog will make it easier for parents, teachers, and homeschoolers to find practical tools grounded in research to ensure that every moment you spend trying to improve reading does just that. We will start with one of the most important topics for anyone supporting a child’s reading growth: how the brain actually learns to read. Understanding this process helps parents, teachers, and homeschoolers know why certain approaches work and what to prioritize. Whether you teach in a classroom, guide learning at home, or support readers as a caregiver, you’ll find insights here that make reading instruction clearer and more purposeful.

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Literacy Landmark

Spotlighting strategies and research to support all adults who are a part of a child’s reading growth.

Reading does not develop naturally in the brain. Children must build new neural connections that link speech sounds, print, and meaning. Understanding how this process works helps parents, teachers, and homeschoolers know what to prioritize and why certain approaches are effective. One of the most influential frameworks explaining this process is the Simple View of Reading. A fantastic place to begin to understand reading development better is by watching this short video, “How the Brain Learns to Read.”

The Simple View of Reading (Gough & Tunmer, 1986) explains that reading comprehension depends on two essential components:

Decoding × Language Comprehension = Reading Comprehension

Both components must be developed intentionally. If either decoding or language comprehension is weak, reading breaks down.

Key research insight:
Decades of neuroscience and reading research show that explicit, structured instruction supports the brain in forming the sound–symbol–meaning connections required for fluent reading. This is why approaches grounded in phonics, vocabulary, and rich discussion are effective, especially for struggling readers.

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Resource Roadmap

Offering practical books, guides, and downloadable resources that families, teachers, and homeschoolers can use right away.

A foundational, research-aligned resource for understanding how reading develops:

Speech to Print by Louisa Moats
This book explains the speech and language foundations of reading, clarifying why explicit instruction in sounds, letters, and word structure is critical for reading success across ages.

🖋️ This recommendation is not sponsored and reflects evidence-based practice.

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Practical Pathways for Supporting Reading Development

All strategies below can be used at home, in classrooms, or in homeschool settings with minimal materials.

Trail Tots (Birth–5)

Try “Repeat and Extend.”
When a child says a single word (e.g., cup), repeat it slowly by sound, then blend it, and extend the language:
“Yes, a blue cup with cold water.”

Why it works:
Builds phonological awareness while expanding vocabulary and sentence understanding.

Trailblazers (Grades K–3)

Blend one word during reading.
Pause during story time to blend a word aloud (“/s/…/ă/…/t/ → sat”), then use it in a sentence and ask a simple W-question.

Why it works:
Strengthens decoding pathways while reinforcing meaning and comprehension.

Trail Masters (Grades 4–8)

Be a word detective.
Break multisyllabic words into meaningful parts (e.g., con + struct). Discuss how each part contributes to meaning.

Why it works:
Supports accurate decoding, vocabulary growth, and deeper comprehension through morphology.

How to Use This Across Settings

• Parents: Use brief, focused language moments during reading or daily routines.

• Teachers: Integrate decoding and language work within the same lesson block.

• Homeschoolers: Build consistent routines that connect sound work, reading, and discussion.

Why this matters

Reading instruction is most effective when it aligns with how the brain learns to read. When decoding and language comprehension are intentionally developed together, students gain stronger, more sustainable reading skills.

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Reading About Reading

It might sound funny, but I spend a lot of time reading about reading. I’ve always been curious about how kids learn, and I love finding new ways to help struggling readers succeed. Here are some of the books that have shaped the way I think about teaching reading, and why I recommend them to parents, teachers, and anyone who has a child in their life. Just so you know, I don’t earn anything from sharing these books. I recommend them simply because they’ve made a big difference for me, and I think they can help you too!

💡 Dyslexic Advantage

When I first read Dyslexic Advantage over ten years ago, it completely changed how I saw dyslexia. I learned that dyslexia isn’t a vision problem or a sign of low intelligence; it’s an unexpected difficulty with reading caused by differences in phonological processing. The book also showed me that many people with dyslexia have remarkable strengths in other areas. If you’ve ever wondered what dyslexia really is or isn’t, this book will really help you understand.

If you are thinking you don’t know someone who has dyslexia, guess again! Dyslexia affects 20 percent of the population and represents 80–90 percent of all those with learning disabilities.

I now think of dyslexia as simply a different way the brain works. People with dyslexia often have incredible strengths in creativity, problem-solving, and big-picture thinking, which is why so many highly successful people have dyslexia. At the same time, dyslexia can make working with language, reading, spelling, and even learning another language more challenging. This article explains the different areas of the brain that are involved in learning a language. If this topic interests you as much as it does me, I’d love to keep the conversation going!

The authors of Dyslexic Advantage also publish the free Dyslexic Advantage Newsletter, which I highly recommend. Each monthly issue is packed with insight for parents, educators, and anyone interested in supporting kids who learn differently. There is also a Premium Magazine chock full of even more information.

📖 Shifting the Balance (K–2 and 3–5)

I read Shifting the Balance K-2 in 2022, and when Shifting the Balance 3-5 was published, I immediately bought that too! These two books are must-reads for any K–5 teacher. They show how to shift from balanced literacy practices to approaches grounded in the Science of Reading, and they explain the “why” and “how” behind each change. Practical, thoughtful, and teacher-friendly. You can learn more about the books on their website.

🔑 7 Mighty Moves

Over the summer of 2023, I read 7 Mighty Moves. This concise, practical book is full of strategies, anecdotes, and QR codes linking to real classroom examples. It’s aimed at K–3 teachers but is helpful for reading specialists and interventionists too. I love that the author is currently teaching, she writes from experience, not just theory.

Watching students put all the pieces together and start reading confidently is a joy like no other for me. If you want to understand how to make that happen, whether you’re a teacher, parent, grandparent, or caregiver, these books are a great place to start.

📩 Share this post with someone who cares about a child’s reading journey. And if you want more tips, book picks, and strategies, make sure to follow along here at Journey to Better Reading and on social media.

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Welcome to Journey to Better Reading

Hi! I’m Cheryl, a literacy specialist who has spent decades helping students, teachers, and families understand how reading really develops, and what to do when it doesn’t come easily. Journey to Better Reading is a place where I share clear, practical guidance rooted in how the reading brain works, so every child can become a confident, capable reader.

I’ve been teaching children to read since 1992, and I still love this work as much as I did on my very first day in the classroom. From fourth grade to eighth grade, from middle school reading classes to elementary interventions, I’ve seen firsthand that reading success isn’t about luck or guessing or being “a reading kid.” It’s about giving children the instruction their brains need to connect sounds, letters, and meaning.

Early in my career, I realized that simply surrounding kids with books wasn’t enough. Many students, especially those with dyslexia or persistent reading difficulties, needed explicit, systematic teaching to truly make sense of print. That led me back to graduate school for a master’s in reading, where the research aligned with what I had been observing all along: reading is a taught skill, and every child benefits from instruction that is clear, structured, and responsive.

That belief is now at the heart of Journey to Better Reading.

Here, you’ll find practical tips rooted in the Science of Reading, strategies teachers can use right away, and routines that families and homeschoolers can put into practice at home. You’ll also find explanations of the key ideas behind learning to read, like how the brain forms reading pathways and why approaches such as phonics, phonemic awareness, and morphology matter so much.

My hope is that this site becomes a reliable companion for anyone supporting a reader:

• Parents trying to understand why their child is struggling

• Teachers looking for routines that actually move students forward

• Homeschoolers wanting clarity and confidence

• Anyone learning how to build strong language and literacy foundations

No matter where you are on your journey, you’re welcome here. I’m glad you’ve found your way to this space, and I look forward to walking alongside you as we explore research, routines, and resources that make a real difference for kids.

Let’s keep moving forward, one step at a time, on the journey to better reading.

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