Reading trackers are a fun and helpful way to aid your young readers! Children begin tracking words with their finger before their eyes to follow along with text. Finger tracking is a natural progression of training your child’s eyes to track words on the page. For children developing literacy skills, adding a silly tracking tool into the mix makes reading fun!
Teachers use reading trackers in the classroom to read aloud, identify words, to assist in partner reading, and even for literacy games. Helping children focus and track their words when they are learning to read is a beneficial tool for all children. Trackers also let the parent or teacher know if the child is stuck on a word by watching the tracker.
With trackers being such a useful tool for parents and educators, why not make them fun? The ones we chose to make use googly eyes. We’ve dubbed these our sticks to “keep your eye on reading”. By letting your children get in on the fun, they’ll enjoy using their trackers as well!
Making your reading trackers is simple, which is what we all want right? You and your children can make these in a few minutes or teachers can make several to use in their classroom.
Here’s what you need:
-Colored medium size popsicle sticks
-Adhesive googly eyes
-Crafting tape(I prefer the Duck tape brand)
-Scissors
First, choose your popsicle sticks that you’d like to turn into trackers. Next, while leaving enough room for your googly eye at the top, press the edge of the tape into the center of the stick. Roll down near the bottom and snip with scissors. Press tape firmly down, especially around the sides of the stick if it hangs over. Press your sticky googly eye into the top middle portion of the stick and PRESTO…you’re done! Let’s get tracking!
Not only do these decorated sticks make fun reading trackers but they’re flat enough to be used as bookmarks as well. My daughter really enjoys the eye peeking out at her from above the book! Anything that gets kids excited about reading is a win in my opinion!Happy reading and crafting!
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