Encourage Independent Reading with this Cute Activity

ED has finished her phonics programs and is now moving into independent reading. I was chatting with my friend and she had a wonderful idea to encourage this new-found independence. She suggested creating a reading garden.

ED decided she wanted flowers, puppies and kittens in her garden.  I chose some coloring pages, reduced them to the size I wanted, and printed them out. Whenever ED finishes reading a book on her own, she cuts out one of the characters, fills in the title of the book and glues it onto her garden.

Of course, if you have a child wild about trains they could have at train track and add train cars… or add stars to a night scene… or add leaves to a tree… or add colorful raindrops under a rainbow…  You get the idea!

You could use clipart from SweetClipart.com to create a scene like this for your kids:

My older two asked why they didn’t get to do this when they were new independent readers! 🙂 ED’s been really proud to see her progress. Pretty soon we’ll have to add another row for her.