My son is 8 years old. He has a learning disability in reading. Looking for something I can use his weekly spelling words in as games to learn them. Make it more fun for him and less stressful for us both.

I don’t know of any “product” out there that does what you’re thinking of, but with a little creativity, you can do it yourself. Isolate 5-8 of his spelling words and find ways to repeat, repeat, repeat without making it seem like all you’re doing is drilling words. Any card game–Go Fish, Hearts, Rummy can be played with a set of hand-made “word” cards. “Do you have any cards with the word ‘there’ on them?” Matching games also work great. As he matches them or gets a pair, he has to spell the word for you in order to keep the pair. Work on just a few words at a time. Treasure hunts through the newspaper/magazines looking for certain words are also another way to get him to identify the words he needs to learn. Give him a marker and let him go to town on the newspaper. Have him circle his spelling words. For every spelling word he identifies he gets an M&M or whatever small reward that will motivate him. Have him play teacher and give you a spelling list that you work on all week too–teaching him that learning just doesn’t stop when you’re out of school. Almost any board game can be turned into a spelling/word search game. Pull out the game and think about if for a minute and I’m sure a few different options and rules will come to your mind to help you play. Creativity takes a minute sometimes to kick in, but once you’re thinking along those lines, you’ll be amazed at how many “games” you can think of.

Be satisfied with the progress made. Maybe you don’t get past the first 5-8 words you picked to work on that week, but if he remembers those on the test and spell them correctly–Hurray for him, and don’t worry about the others he didn’t do so well on. Lots of praise and lots of patience will go a long way. Best of luck to you!