I am currently living in Japan. I used to teach Japanese kids English. One of the best ways to teach kids is through playing games. We decided not to send our son to preschool, so that he could learn to read and write in English with me prior to going off to kindergarden to study only in Japanese.
The best way to teach a child to read is to read to them every day. I started reading to my son when he was 2 months old. By the time he was 6 months, he was getting five books per storytime before his two naps and bedtime. So, 15 books a day. He is five years old now. As the books have gotten longer, we now do about 3-5 books per daytime storytime. He gets a storytime with me in English during the day for about 20-30 minutes, plus two bedtime story sessions: 2-3 books in Japanese with his dad and 1-2 book(s) in English with me before bed. So any given day, he gets 6-10 books read to him. He is also reading at least one easier book to me everyday as well now. (One of the graded readers, Dr. Seuss books, something out of the Kids National Geographic magazine he gets, or one of his old board books.) My son also sees me reading often. Kids love to copy their parents.
When you are helping your daughter learn to read, I recommend not just focussing on the site words. I would review or teach her phonics as well. We used the Starfall and Reading Teacher websites. They have lots of printouts as well. I also used the Mes-English website for making my own phonics cards and various games to play. Does your daughter like to play boardgames? I answered a question about games for younger children ealier. I posted that answer at the end of this. It includes the websites I mentioned. Use her favorite games to practice reading and site words. When doing the site words, you can focus on a few words at a time, gradually adding more words as she learns them. I started out with five words with my son. We did memory first. Then we played tic tac toe. Fishing pole game is another fun one to do. When it was my turn, I made sure my son was looking at the card when I read it to him. When it was his turn, I let him try to read it first. If he didn't know the answer, then I would read it and have him repeat. We spend at least a few minutes every day playing games, even on the weekends. At least 3-4 times a week we will spend about an hour total time per day playing games, writing, and reading now (no more than 15 minutes writing which usually includes him drawing a picture to go with whatever he writes, about 10-20 minutes reading, and the rest for games) It really doesn't take much time to prepare after you make the games and cards. I keep a notebook with what I have covered with my son each time.
Previous answer about games kids can play:
My son likes playing HiHo Cherry-o and Jenga. Those are the only two games that we bought for him. We play all kinds of games though. We even play games for learning the alphabet sounds and to read as well. I used to teach English to Japanese children, and we used all types of games in the classroom. I found that my son really likes playing those games, too. So it is possible to get some learning into the games as well. Here is a list of some of the games my son likes to play and how to play them, or where to find the resources to make the games yourself. It doesn't cost a lot to make them as well. It does take a little time, but you can do it together.
http:/www.education.com/
The site has a lot of great ideas for games for children of all ages.
http:/mes-english.com/ and http:/mes-games.com
You can get all types of cards and games here. They were designed for teaching English to Japanese students, but if you don't mind having some Japanese in the credits for each print out, they have great ideas. They can be played just as games as well. You don't have to use them for teaching, but that is an added plus.
http:/crayola.com/
They have several different varieties of Bingo games. There are other games and activities as well. Lots of free coloring sheets as well.
http:/kids.nationalgeographic.com/
They have great animal cards that you can make. My son now has them all!
Rock Paper Scissors (a great way to decide who gets to go first)
Go fish
Memory matching game (You can make your own version focusing on any theme you like, or just a general anything goes version.)
I spy (There are many variations to play this game.)
Search and Finds (Make a list of 5 items and have your child go find them. It can be played inside, or outside.)
Bean bag toss
Treasure hunts (You can decide a small treasure. It doesn't matter if it is one of your child's toys, or a small snack. My son loves finding out what today's treasure is. I made a little treasure chest card that I hide with whatever the treasure that day is. You need paper and crayons to draw a map. I also let my son hide a treasure, and then I must follow the map that he has drawn.)
Animal theme games: Guess what animal I am? You can pretend to be that animal or you can describe the animal and try to guess which animal. You can also do animal poses. You freeze in the same pose as the animal is on the card. We use the cards from the National Geographic site for these games. You can try the Play animal exercises on the education.com site as well.
Hide and seek using something small (We have four little Winnie the Pooh stuffed animals that we hide. Great for practicing counting and giving directions too.) At Easter, we do this game hiding five colored plastic eggs. Same game, different face.
An inside version of Builders and Bulldozers-a game I found on the education.com site. We use the ten little stackable cups that he has had since he was six months old. Five of them are standing, five are tilted on their sides at the beginning of play. We place the cups around our living room floor. Decide who is a bulldozer and who is a builder. You must go back and forth from one side of the room to the other each time you build or knock over, you must not do two moves back to back on the same side of the room or you loose. Turn a Cd on. For the duration of one song, builders try to stand the cups up, bulldozers try to knock them down. Whoever has the most standing or knocked down is the winner when the song finishes. If you don't have stackable cups, you can use old pet bottles. Great exercise on a rainy day!
Kim's game: You can use cards or small objects. You need about 20 items. You need to have a small blanket or towel to cover them and a non-see-through bag for hiding one or more of the items. Put the items on a table or the floor. Have your child try to remember the items. Cover them with the blanket and take something away. Hide it in the bag. Then your child must guess what is missing.)
Dice games using cards- We have regular dice and a big soft one as well. version one: Do rock paper scissors to decide who goes first. Roll dice. You take the same number of cards as you rolled. You must tell what the card is, or you can aslo try to make a story using those cards, endless possibilties. The person with the most cards after the cards run out is the winner. You could also do a hot number. Decide the hot number. If a person rolls that number they must give their cards to someone else. version two: Make a board game out of the cards, decide a starting card and a goal card. Roll the dice and move along the cards. You can decide what to do with the cards.
Bounce around board game: from the mes-english site. We made ours using animals. I printed out two copies of the game, laminated them, and cut one up to use when the player captured that square. Again, you can decide how you want to use the cards and dice.
We also have the honeycomb game and spiders and candy game (although we used catapillars and ice-cream cones) from the mes- english site.
Snakes and ladders (Also called chutes and ladders) You can get the snake version free on line. Type in free snakes and ladders game. There are several versions available.
Tic tac toe: You can use different cards and do a 3 by 3 or 4 by 4 grid. Do rock paper scissors and winner starts. You can tell stories about the cards, practice letters, counting, shapes, colors, etc.
Fishing pole game: You need string, a long strong stick, and a magnet to make the pole. We used a sea creatures coloring sheet from crayola to make the items to fish. I had my son color them. Then I cut them out and laminated them. Put a paper clip on each sea creature. You can simply fish, or make point cards to put on the back of the fish. You can also do a memory version. Put two of the same pictures, or the picture and a word. You will need a lot of fish to do the memory version. Kids love this game.
When you play board games that you handmake, you can use small items as markers. We use small animal figures, duplo people, matchbox cars, etc. You can also make some markers by putting stickers on cardboard and cutting them out.
I hope you can find a fun way to teach your child to read. Please don't drill her with only the cards. Playing games really does work. Make it fun whenever possible. You can have your daughter help make the games too. If she helps make the rules and gameboards, she will be more interested in playing them as well. Let her decide which game she wants to play, but try to take turns on choosing games to prevent any given game from becoming boring. You will discover that certain games work better for introducing new words, reviewing old sets of vocabulary, etc... You want your daughter to have a good image about learning to read, so that she can enjoy learning and hopefully reading too for her whole life.
