Reading Activities
Independent Readers

Learning life skills can provide fun reading activities, and these practical and fun activities can also be used as reading activities for students in home school settings.

Sometimes when we think of reading activities, we think a child has to be sitting on the couch reading a novel.

But you and I do lots of reading in our day-to-day activities.

Here are some activities that will help your child use his reading skills—and improve them! Browse through the fun reading activities to find some that are age-appropriate for your child:

• Help your child use a map to mark a route to a special place, such as his school, the football stadium, the mall or his grandmother’s house. Help him to figure out the distance to the place.

  Next, give him a bus, subway or train schedule and have him find departure and arrival times and the rates. Have him figure out how long the trip takes and how much it costs.

• Let your child read the menu in a restaurant, and order on his own.

• Use games to promote reading. Word Roots is a CD

• Help your child develop a timeline of his own life. This involves a lot of reading and writing and can be fun.

• Let them create a special book of quotes, jokes, advice, or whatever they want to write in it.

• Reading activities independent readers (intermediate) - Give your child a shopping list of their own the next time you go to the grocery store. Have him find the items and read the labels to find the best prices on the crackers, milk, glue, paper or his list.

• Help your child create a homework chart. This shows her that homework is important to you, helps her learn to manage her own time, and requires functional reading and writing skills.

• Hang a family message board in the kitchen. Offer to write notes there for your child. Be sure that he finds notes left there for him.

• Help your child write notes or e-mails to relatives and friends to thank them for gifts or to share his thoughts. Encourage the relatives and friends to answer your child. This is one of those reading activities for independent readers that you should start early. Unfortunately, thank you notes are becoming a lost art!

• Help your child to turn his writing into books. Paste his drawings and writings on pieces of construction paper. For each book, have him make a cover out of heavier paper or cardboard, then add special art, a title and his name as author. Punch holes in the pages and cover and bind the book together with yarn or ribbon.

• Scrapbooking with journaling can be a great activity for any age. You can find inexpensive supplies at your dollar store, or buy nicer supplies as gifts for birthdays and holiday.

• Help an older child start a blog with your supervision.

• Create and mail a family newsletter to family and friends.

• Make a quiz game of trivia for your child's favorite subject. As they write the questions and discover the answers, they will improve their reading ability. They also have the satisfaction of being an "expert" on something!

• Show your older child the newspaper help wanted ads. Have him find ads for three jobs that he might want to have in the future. Have him read aloud the requirements for a job and talk with him about the skills, education and training he would need to have to do the work.

• Reading activities independent readers (teens) - You can also get a job application and help them fill it out. Or create a resume and have a family friend evaluate it for your child.

• Watch the news together and then look up the locations mentioned on a map. Go online or to encyclopedias and learn more about stories that grab your child's interest.

• Cook together and have your child read the recipe to you (great for math and science, too!) Cook for your dog, using recipes from Best Dog Treat Recipes or this Kid Friendly Recipes ebook.

• Next time you put together some furniture or a project, let your child read the directions with you.

Use your imagination, and you will come up with dozens more reading activities independent readers can do. You and your child will have fun with this—and she'll be learning to read better and to do life skill activities!

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Reading Activities Independent Readers to Childrens Books

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