Show your child games about letter sounds. Starfall has a full complement of games relating to the letters of the alphabet. Choose a letter, for example "A," and click on it to be taken to a game that will teach children about the sound of the letter. Click on the "Forward" arrow in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen to advance to the next part. Click on the red letter "A" to hear it used in a word, such as "apple." Work through the examples of letters in use for each letter to give your child a basic understanding of letter sounds.
Use games about diphthongs to help children understand the different sounds letters make when placed together. Diphthongs are pairs of vowels, such as "ea," "oa," "ee" and "ai" that sound out in a single syllable. Soft Schools has a couple of diphthong games that can help children understand how they are used in different words. Click on the diphthong from the column on the right-hand side of the screen that fits into the word displayed on screen. Teach your child to use the pictures to work out which word they are trying to make. Click "Check Spell" to see if the answer chosen is correct, and press "Next" to move onto a new word.
Show your child punctuation games to help her understand basic parts of the written text, such as a period, comma or question mark. "Comma Chameleon" is a game that can be used to improve punctuation skills. The game presents the child with a sentence with all of the punctuation missing. Several different punctuation marks are displayed at the bottom of the screen. Click on the punctuation mark you wish to add to the sentence. Comma the chameleon then eats the punctuation mark and climbs up the sentence. Click the location where you wish to add the punctuation mark, and it will be put into place. After you've completed the sentence, the relevant grammatical concepts are briefly explained.
Use guided reading games to help your child tie his knowledge together. The "Clifford the Big Red Dog" games on the Scholastic website are good examples of guided reading games. Choose the desired story and then click "Begin" when it has loaded. Click on the speaker icon beside each sentence to hear it spoken aloud. Select the desired ending to the third sentence from the three options at the bottom of the bone that contains the text. The word will then be placed into the sentence. Click "Next" in the bottom right-hand corner to advance to the next portion of the story.