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Whether it’s a simple winky face or an encouraging thumbs up, emojis can bring a bit of fun to everyday communication. But did you know that you can use emojis to improve your child’s reading, too? It’s true! Here’s how.

Preparing Your “Fun with Emojis” Activity

1. Download the “Fun with Emojis” Activity and print either the color or black and white emoji cards.
2. Cut out the emoji cards, place them in a hat or basket, and shake them up.
3. Print the practice sheets that most accurately represent your students’ reading levels.
4. Cut out the sentences and place them in another hat or basket.

Playing “Fun with Emojis”

It’s time to have some “emotional” fun! Have your child choose an emoji card and a practice sentence.

Encourage your child to read his sentence with expression, using the emotion displayed on the emoji card.

Continue choosing emojis and sentences, giving your child plenty of practice reading with expression. If needed, consult the Emoji Key on page 2 for help with identifying the emotion represented by the emoji cards.

Check out how much fun our activity testers had reading with expression in the video below!

More Ways to Play

Get really emotional! Turn up the fun a notch by having your child choose one sentence and four or five emoji cards. Then have him read the sentence multiple times, with a different emotion each time.

Can the other players guess which emotions are being expressed? Give it a try!

Here’s another idea: act it out! After your child chooses a sentence and an emoji, have him read and act out his sentence … with expression, of course!

Are you an All About Reading user? Here’s a bonus idea for you: laminate your emojis and store them in an envelope. Then whenever fluency practice needs a bit of spicing up, just pull them out and emote! Fluency practice and fun at the same time? That’s what I call a win-win!

What’s your favorite way to make fluency practice fun? Let me know in the comments below!

Photos by: Christine Zell