Five versions of Woosh: a game to improve word recognition and fluency

Posted by C ⋅ October 7, 2012 ⋅ 2 Comments

Filed Under fluency, reading, three little pigs, word recognition

Woosh game instructions

Recently I’ve been reading a lot of research about how re-reading builds students’ fluency and confidence, and how this has a great knock-on effect on their learning in other areas. Re-reading books is great, but I wanted to give students more variation of activities. Playing Woosh requires students to read the same sentences or words several times, which is a sneaky way to build up their fluency and confidence without them noticing. If you use the traditional tales versions of the game, it also gives students a handy summary of the story that they can tell their parents and other teachers. Once students have learned the rules for woosh, they can independently play many variations of the game.

Before using the games, make sure students are very familiar with the vocabulary in the game. I’ve already posted my lesson plan and vocab cards for head, shoulders, knees and toes. For introducing the traditional tales, I always use Twinkl’s Little Red Hen, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Three Little Pigs printable books. *Edited to add* – I’ve just seen that these fab printables from Twinkl are no longer free! They’re still great, but I’ll be on the lookout for a free equivalent for you. Please let me know if you find one! My resources are still all free though 🙂

I’ve made Woosh templates and cards for 5 variations of the game: ‘colors’, ‘head shoulders knees and toes’, ‘Jack and the beanstalk’, ‘the little red hen’, and ‘the three little pigs’. Choose which variation you want to play and then click the thumbnails to download the template and player cards for that variation of the game. You’ll need to print or copy one set of cards and one template for each player.