Reading has a magical ability to transport you to different worlds and forgotten times. It can teach you new things and provide an escape from reality. The writing process can provide authors with alternate forms of communication and imagination. However, for some students, reading and writing can feel like a chore. In order to build excitement around reading and writing, let’s explore our top 5 resources for gamifying literacy.

Bookroo

Think Goodreads or Storygraph, but for kids, and with a whole bunch of extras! Bookroo is geared towards K-12 learners and encourages independent reading. The site has a host of reading tools including challenges, digital rewards, and even book quizzes to verify student reading. There are so many ways to use the site!

Parents can view students’ reading stats such as unique books they’ve read, books finished this year/month, pages or minutes read, and more. The interactive site allows you to curate digital bookshelves and list books you own or want to read! You can find reading recommendations and even earn points, gems, and stones. Bookroo allows readers to unlock new avatars, trading cards, bookmarks, postcards, 3D models, and even coloring pages. After you’ve finished reading a title, you can also make your own printable mini book!

With Bookroo, teachers can see full class data, create unique reading challenges, and involve parents in their student’s reading journey. Along with that, the interface is user-friendly, easy to navigate, and aesthetically pleasing. Trust us, you have to check it out!

Prodigy English Game

The Prodigy game provides various game-based learning activities for students grades 1-6 to practice their English skills. Prodigy is also looking to expand and cover more grades and skills in the future. For ease of access, they utilize the same dashboard/account login to access their math portal. Free teacher tools include the ability to align your lessons with in-game learning and assessments, get real time reports, and meet Common Core reading standards.

In the game, students gain “energy” by learning and answering skill-based questions. “Energy” allows students to gather materials and craft decorations. Students can even buy and sell outfits, decorations, materials, and recipes as they build their own unique world. We had fun play-testing and enjoyed the in-game character interactions, challenges, and customization options. Testing the games left us wanting more, so we kept answering questions! We think your students will be inclined to do so too!

Duolingo ABC

Duolingo ABC is an app developed by a team of learning scientists, engineers, literacy specialists, illustrators, and parents. The focus of this app is to teach students aged 3-8 how to read through play. According to research from the Education Development Center, the application improved literacy scores by 28% after just 9 weeks. Additionally, students were able to learn phonics, phonemic awareness, sight words, vocabulary, fluency, reading comprehension, and handwriting through fun, bite-sized lessons that take 5 minutes or less.

Some additional benefits include that students can work at their own pace and learn independently without Wi-Fi. There are 9 levels to start from, which can further differentiate learning. Plus, lessons are scaffolded and have silly characters and illustrations. Check out their website to download their full scope, sequence, and access the apps. In the Resources tab, there are even fun alphabet coloring pages that you can download for some off-screen fun!

Teach Your Monster

Available on your computer or through a mobile app, Teach Your Monster provides learning resources and a gamified platform for your early learners. Engage your little ones with games such as “Teach Your Monster to Read” and “Teach Your Monster Reading for Fun.” While both games are awesome, we especially enjoyed the latter game. In this activity, students can use their reading skills to stop the “book-eating goblin” from causing chaos in the village. These fun and imaginative games have a variety of activities. Plus, players get to meet silly characters, follow recipes in the bakery, and collect over 70 books as rewards. The site also has a teacher’s area with additional printables, resources, tutorials, and helpful articles.

All About Learning Press

While All About Learning Press has paid resources for reading and spelling, they also offer a variety of free resources. These include e-books, checklists, “how-to” articles, quick guides, posters, and other resources. We especially enjoyed their free activities to gamify literacy. Some examples include:

• Banana Splits: Have Fun with Compound Words
• Bingo Smash-Up!: Discover Portmanteaus
•  Mashed Potatoes: Listen to Comprehend
• Pirate Ship: Review Spelling Pirate-Style
• Silly Sentence Match-Ups: Make Silly Sentences

However, these are only a few of their many great offerings. Check out their website to discover more!

Additional Options

In addition to the above resources, you can also create amazing literacy games with Quizizz, Lumio, and Breakout EDU. Search their libraries and put your creative powers to the test.

There are a lot of resources out there – from MAD-Libs printables to Scholastic’s Story Starters. We hope this list helps you narrow the search to your next game-changing tools! Don’t forget to tune into our OTIS session, Ready, Set, Read! – Gamifying Literacy, to see these resources in action!

For more tips, tricks, and tools for teaching in and out of the classroom, check out more content on the Teq Talk blog or our YouTube channels OTIS for educators and Tequipment.

We also offer virtual professional development, training, and support with OTIS for educators. Explore the technology and strategies that spark student success — no matter where teaching or learning are happening!

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