Crazy A's Card Game

I am a reading teacher and LOVE this game! It is very fun way to have children practice blending CVC words. Seriously all primary teachers needs this game. It is quick to play but yet gives children the practice. I would also recommended it to parents with a Kindergartener or First grade students as well. Great FUN educational game. After playing this game I bought the rest of the sets!!!!!

I've been a home schooling mom for 30+ years and I've taught many children to read - my own as well as other children I know. I am a firm believer that phonics is absolutely the best method for teaching a child to read. Whole language, IMO, has too many limitations so I start a child with strictly phonetic words initially. This card game has the simple, 3-letter words that are perfect for young learners. There are consonant-vowel-consonant words like red, cat, man, etc. There are 50 word cards - 10 each of a, e, i, o and u words. The remaining cards are action cards that skip a turn, draw a card, etc. Basically, this is a Crazy 8s card game. For a child who knows their letter sounds and is just being introduced to sounding out words, I recommend using just the word cards initially as a reinforcement tool. For example, focus one day on the "a" words and pull just those 10 cards from the deck. Use them as flash cards and run thru the ten cards at various times in the day. It only takes a few minutes, which is better for most children than longer sessions. In fact, the way I teach young learners to read is I make my own flash cards like this on index cards (being careful to only use words that follow the phonetic rules initially) and I encourage parents to do likewise, even if your child attends school and is learning there. I haven't met a kid yet who didn't love having their set of flash cards with a rubber band around them. Once they are even moderately competent, they delight in running through the cards with anyone who will take the time. You can find a good word list to make your own flash cards at montessorimom dot com. From the home page, search for phonetic word list. All you need is some blank index cards and a marker and that list. Work your way through all 5 vowel sets until your child is relatively comfortable sounding out all of them. At that point, you can begin playing the card game with the entire deck as further reinforcement. I think it is crucial that the child be very comfortable sounding out all of the word cards before playing the entire deck as a game. The game is best seen as kind of a reward for all their work learning to sound out the words. It can be used as an incentive when helping your child learn to sound out the word cards. ie: "I can't wait to play cards with you when we learn to sound these words out." If you try to play before the child is competent in sounding out words, it can feel like a big failure for your child, which you want to avoid at all costs. A child who feels successful is an eager learner. Understand that this game will not teach your child to read, but it can be a fun reinforcement tool and a pleasurable way to spend time with your child.

This game is a bit hard for me to understand. Maybe it is too simple but I just couldn't get it and had a difficult time explaining it to my son.

Can't say enough good about this game. I play it every day with my kindergartener and is has improved her reading ten fold. She is so confident from winning this game that she's now willing to try and read any book I give her.

This card game is way over priced!! I thought it was actually a board game. I'm not sure why it gets so many good reviews. My students do not like enjoy playing this game at all.

We have absolutely loved this game. My 5 year old son who is just learning to read, has picked up so many words with this game. It's just like uno, but uses three letters words in place of numbers on the cards. As the mom, I actually really enjoy playing this with him, and look forward to getting the next levels as he advances in his reading skills.

This is a little and very portable card game. My son is in kindergarten, and just learned how to sound out his first words, so I thought the game would be perfect for him. Although the rules seem to be clear to me, I could not explain it to him clearly enough for him to understand it. We tried to play a few rounds together with my husband, but he lost interest and did not want to play. On the other hand, he liked to play with the set as with flashcards, sounding out the words. It is rather expensive for being just flashcards, though. Hope my son will like the game better when he gains more fluency with simple words. Right now, his favorite learning to read game is http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B008RU8GC4/ although many of the words cannot be sounded out and it confuses him a bit. But he likes the game very much and I see reading progress with it. There is an offer in the box to buy the next sets as one package for $10, for more advanced reading.

This game is very much like Uno. This is a great tool for vowel practice with my 6 year old son.