Soccer Reading Games

Combine the fun of soccer with literacy learning. Practice sight words, spelling, letters, and name recognition with these soccer reading games.

Read and Kick the Sight Words

Aiden played soccer for the first time this past year and he really enjoyed it. I took the opportunity to add in a little learning to his soccer play time outside. Our soccer reading games were a big hit. We started off with some sight words. I created cards for the first grade Dolch sight word list using the lists on sightwords.com. You’re welcome to download my first grade sight word cards for your personal or classroom use.

Choose a handful of the sight word cards. Then, grab some tape, practice cones, and a soccer ball. Tape the sight words to the practice cones and set the cones up in the yard.

Have your child read a sight word and then kick it down with the soccer ball. Read the next word and kick it down, too.

You could also call out a word and have your child knock it down.

Soccer Word Building

We also used the same technique to practice spelling words. Aiden’s teacher grouped together their spelling words into word families. This makes learning to spell similar words a lot easier. We were working on -ell words so I created a quick set of cards for practicing them. The card set has -ell on one card and lowercase letters on the rest of the cards. (The Measured Mom has a great set of word building cards that would work well for this game.)

The goal is to combine one lowercase letter with the -ell ending to make a word. Place letters on the practice cones (we placed one on the front and one on the back). Add the word family ending to one cone.

Call out a word. Then, have your child spell it out loud. Kick over the beginning letter(s) and the ending. Reset the cones. Call out a new word and go again.

Letter Practice

Since I had lowercase letters printed out, I created cards with uppercase letters to match. I had Lily kick over a lowercase letter and then find the matching uppercase letter. Having a small set of cones allowed us to focus on just a few letters at a time.

Name Recognition

Our last soccer reading game involved practicing Lily’s name. I placed the letters of her name on the cones. As she kicked over the letters, we spelled out her name.

More Alphabet Learning Activities

ABCs and 123s is a collaboration of several kid bloggers (including me). It has 40+ hands-on play ideas that will help your child build letter and math skills. The literacy and math activities incorporate play, imagination, science, sensory, and art.

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