Features•Teaching with Games

Encourage Reading with Games

Whether you have a budding book worm or a reluctant reader, games are a great way to help kids practice their developing reading and comprehension skills.

Rule book reading, in game storytelling, or even creating your own original tale, there are lots of great games that fit into this language arts category.

We’re sharing a list of some of our favorite games that encourage reading to help you find one perfect for your scholar!

Tales and Games Series by IELLO

The Tales & Games series published by IELLO are a series of games based on classic fairy tales. Each game looks like a book on the shelf and comes with a copy of the fairy tale to read together. By reading the fairy tale before the game it can help young players understand the theme of the game and keep their attention while playing.

There are nine games in the Tales & Games line and each one has both standard and advanced rules. I love the inclusion of the advanced rules to increase the difficulty and/or interaction later as younger players get more comfortable with the game.

We have two games from this series: The Hare and the Tortoise and The Three Little Pigs.

In The Hare and the Tortoise, players will manage the cards in their hands to maneuver their secret charters to win the race. Each character has special ways they can move that are thematic to the characters in the story. For example, the Tortoise will move during each movement phase, while the Hare will take a nap if it is in first place during the movement phase. Kids learn how to manage their hand and learn when to play cards out to move the character they want to without being too obvious about who they want to win.

In the Three Little Pigs, players will roll dice to build either straw, wood, or brick huts. Like in the story, straw and wood huts are easier to build than brick huts, but brick homes are worth more at the end of the game. However, if a player rolls too many wolf symbols on the dice during their turn, they turn into the big bad wolf and try to blow down an opponent hut that isn’t finished yet.

We love these games since the kids are familiar with the theme, the rules are straightforward, and strategy is required to win. The game time is just right for kids’ games at about 20 minutes.

These two can be hard to find, so also check out the more widely available games in this series: Aladdin and the Magic Lamp, Jack and the Beanstock, Oliver Twist, Little Red Riding Hood

Hocus & Pocus Books: Comic Quest

Our kids have been loving the Hocus & Pocus books since we discovered them two years ago. These are graphic novels where the reader will follow one of the main characters on their quest earning stars and resources along the way. The adventures offer many branching paths, so after playing it multiple times our kids kept discovering new areas to explore. There are fewer puzzles in these books than in our next entry, which makes this line of books more accessible for beginning readers.

Graphic Novel Adventures by Van Ryder Games

The game books by Van Ryder Games are stunning. The art is top notch, puzzles are tricky, and the stories are engaging. Similar to the Hocus & Pocus books, readers will choose what the characters on the adventure do and need to solve puzzles to reach the conclusion of the story.

IMPORTANT NOTE —not all Graphic Novel Adventure books are kid-appropriate. Please check Van Ryder Games’ rating to ensure the content level is right for your family.

Here are the books we want to highlight:

Classic Detective: There are several graphic novel books based on the adventures of Sherlock Holmes that are rated all-ages.

Novels for Multiple Players: Most graphic novel adventures are designed to enjoy as a solo activity, but the Crusoe Crew and Sherlock Holmes: Baker Street Irregulars can play 1-4 players. Each player experiences the same story, just from their own unique characters point of view. Certain path or opportunities are only available to specific characters so you have to work together to solve the puzzle.

Roller Coaster Tycoon: The Book: In Your Theme Park you can choose to build your own theme park by hiring employees, building rides, and exploring other amusement parks. This adventure is more involved experience than just reading a story, but still a lot of fun. You can read our full review here.

Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger

Our family really enjoyed our experience playing House of Danger, you can read our full review here. Just like in the books, players will read bits of story and then get to choose what to do next. The game adds in unique challenges that players will roll dice to complete. If you are successful you can level up, if you fail you can take damage. You can also discover items along the way to aid you in your journey. Since the story is more of a board game than just a book, it was simple to get the entire family involved making decision and rolling the dice.

What’s even better, this game sparked an interest in the CYOA series! Our kids looked forward to picking out a new adventure every trip to the library for weeks!

Stuffed Fables

Out of all the games on our list, Stuff Fables is the best at blending strong gameplay with an interesting narrative adventure. This is a cooperative game where players take on the roles of stuffed toys to battle the Lord of Nightmares. The players’ choices drive the narrative in this campaign game. In each game you will advance the overall story and level up your character as you play depending on the choices you make and if you were successful.

In each game, there is the main story objective and side quests to discover on the gameboard. Players will play through the story, triggering new narrative elements based on their movements and outcomes. With multiple stories to explore, there is a ton of content to play and replay again and again. From the detailed miniatures to the spiral-bound storybook, the components in this game are wonderful. Since everyone is playing together, it is easy to enjoy this game/story as a family.

Rory Story Cubes & Untold Adventure Awaits

If your kids are anything like ours, after reading a bunch of stories it inspired them to write their own! Rory Story Cubes and Untold Adventure Awaits are wonderful activities to help create a collaborative story.

Rory Story Cubes are great for all ages. Each dice features icons of recognizable objects without the need to be a fluent reader. Players will roll out all the dice and then take turns picking dice to add into the collective story that is being told together. It is fun how to watch kids blend unique unrelated elements into the story. Rory also has licensed versions of their story cubes so you can add Batman, Star Wars, and the Looney Tunes to your family’s tale.

Untold: Adventures Awaits takes Rory Story Cubes to the next level and is for ages ten and up. Untold uses story cubes to help generate ideas but also helps players learn about character development and story structure. It’s a great resource in teaching kids the steps in the story and provides guidelines to create thrilling, one-off epics.