Word and Picture is a reading game. A single word is written on the board, and underneath are four pictures. Which one does the word say?
What your child is learning
This is reading for meaning at its simplest. Your child has to turn letters into a spoken word and then connect that word to a thing. There are no sentences and no clues from a story. The word has to be read.
The words range from very short ones that can be sounded out letter by letter, such as "sun", "pig" and "bus", to longer ones such as "rainbow", "elephant" and "umbrella". A beginner will manage the short ones. A more confident reader will enjoy the long ones.
How to help
Sound it out together. Point under each letter, say its sound, then blend them: "s - u - n, sun".
Use the first letter. If the word begins with "m", which picture begins with that sound? This is a real reading strategy, not cheating, and it narrows four pictures to one or two.
For long words, cover part of the word and read it in pieces: "rain" and "bow".
Name the pictures first if your child is not sure what they all are. The game tests reading, not vocabulary.
Some words cannot be sounded out neatly, such as "house" or "guitar". Help with those, and point out the tricky part.
If a wrong picture is tapped, it fades and the others remain. Read the word again together.
Taking it further
Label things at home with sticky notes: door, bed, cup, book. Reading words attached to real objects is the same skill.
There are forty-eight words, and each round picks eight. As HTML5 games for early readers go, it grows with the child.