The importance of reading can not be understated. It is of utmost value to function within our society but more importantly, reading provides the lifelong ability to learn, to explore, and to enjoy. As a parent, reading with our children is a bonding activity and it ends up being some of the most fond times we spend with our children. Cuddling up, reading to them, or listening to them read is special time to cherish. Today, I want to share with you a special storybook series that teaches early reading skills with fun phonics games for kids. This post is brought to you be Alpha-Mania but all opinions expressed are my own.
It Is Easy To Teach Early Reading Skills With Alpha-Mania Books
Alpha-Mania Adventures is a play-based storybook series. While you read these fun books to your children, they are learning phonological awareness and phonics through listening and through fun interactive games.
Phonological Awareness
These phonological skills are crucial to pre and emergent readers (3 to 8 years old) to learn to read properly. In fact, research shows that children with strong phonological awareness learn to read quicker and more easily. The merits of teaching phonological awareness have been proven time and time again by research from the National Department of Education, The National Reading Panel, and the National Early Literacy Panel.
If you are wondering, “What is phonological awareness?”, the answer is not as complicated as it sounds. Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize, identify, and eventually manipulate the sounds of spoken language. You don’t have to know all the terminology or have special teaching skills. Alpha-Mania books make it easy for kids to learn phonological awareness and phonics as they progress through each book in the series. These are fun storybooks that just happen to be educational as well but not at all in a didactic way. Rather through fun phonological awareness and phonics games for kids that are built into the story.
These fun story books are aimed at children in the 3-8 age group to help them develop early reading skills. However, they are also just fun books that even my 9 year old and 11 year old enjoy. They regularly read books over 600 pages, but they still have fun reading the Alpha-Mania books. In fact, the first night that I read them an Alpha-Mania book and then tried to tuck them in, they kept wanting me to read the rest of the books too!
Phonics Games For Kids
The five book series is called Alpha-Mania Adventures and it centers around a collection of engaging pirate stories that teach early reading skills. As you read, your child will encounter play-based exciting adventures that teach phonological awareness and phonics. These are the first two components necessary to become a good reader.
A different phonological awareness skill taught in each book (rhyming, blending, alliteration, segmenting, and sound manipulation). All this is fit into the storyline naturally and there are fun phonological awareness and phonics games for kids built into the story and at the end of the story.
Phonics games are activities designed to help children learn and practice phonics skills, which are fundamental to reading and spelling. These games typically involve tasks that focus on recognizing and manipulating the sounds of letters or groups of letters (phonemes) in words. Here are some examples of phonics games: Word Bingo, Rhyming Relay, and Sound Sorting.
My kids and I really enjoyed the additional phonological awareness games and activities at the end of the book. They are designed to make storytime fun and educational and it totally works. They loved playing the rhyming game where they had to fill in the blank with a rhyming word as I read. Then we enjoyed a round of I spy with my little eye, something that starts with the sound.. (or that rhymes with…). There were also more active phonological awareness and phonics games for kids and even fun bedtime activities. These really are more than storybooks- they are loaded educational fun and a great way to make children love reading.
You can learn more about the books in this short video:
Conclusion
The storybooks were written by certified teachers at Ruth Rumack’s Learning Space, an academic support center that has been teaching early literacy for 20 years. The Alpha-Mania Adventures series is specifically designed to capture a child’s imagination. The Alpha-Maniacs meet lively and amusing characters and creatures that each address an important component of phonological awareness. I love this book series and I give it two big thumbs up. Here is my affiliate link to the books with fun phonics games on Amazon.
Do you think your kids would enjoy learning to read with storybooks that include fun phonics games for kids?
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