One key skill in third grade reading is identifying and making sense of homophones. Homophones are words that sound the same but are spelled differently and have different meanings. For example, horse and hoarse are homophones. In this game, you write two homophones on the top of a blank piece of paper and have your student draw a picture that involves both homophones. A child might look at horse and hoarse and draw a picture of a horse losing his voice singing at a microphone. This will familiarize your student with the idea of homophones and the rule that two different words can, in fact, sound the same.
In this game, you put all the children in your remedial class on one side of the room with their backs to a blackboard and a bunch of cut out letters with magnets on the back on the other side of the room. You begin the class by reviewing the spelling of different words. Once the review is complete, you call out different words and for each word the students must rush across the classroom to pick up the letters they need to spell the word. Once each student has the letters, she must rush back to the original side of the room and paste the letters on the board in order to correctly spell the word. The first student to complete the task wins.
Sit down with your student and pick up a grade-appropriate book. Tell the student that occasionally, as you read him the story, you will mispronounce a word or use a word that is not written in the sentence you are reading. The student must yell "I caught you!" whenever you make an error. Students will enjoy playing a game that involves pointing out a teacher's mistake.
This game can be played either with one or many students. Each day the teacher selects a word of the day. Whichever student uses the word accurately the most times in an original sentence wins. If played with only one student, you can set the competition between yourself and the student. This will accustom children to thinking creatively about word usage. A strong vocabulary is an essential component of effective, fluent reading.