Lovevery Reading Skill Sets Review | Teaching Kids To Read | BEST PHONICS GAMES!

Looking for the best way to teach kids how to read? Enter the Lovevery Reading Skill Sets!

A carefully created selection of games, activities, and books teaching reading skills to preschoolers and beyond. Each kit targets a specific set of reading skills from preschool, kindergarten, first grade, and second grade. We've been testing these out since June 2024 with a 3 year old and 5 year old at the time and are utterly impressed!

Watch Lovevery Reading Skill Sets Review Youtube Video:

What are the Lovevery Reading Skill Sets?

Lovevery just released their new Reading Skill Sets which are essentially carefully crafted games, books, and educational materials to get your kids reading in 18 months. 

Currently, they offer 3 parts:

• Sounds to Reading
• Words to Books 
• Advanced Rules to Chapter Books

And each retails for $155 you can purchase here and bundle to save $45.

NOTE: These are not subscription based like Lovevery's Play Kits (which you can use code TCM for a discount on here!)

How fast will my child learn to read with Lovevery’s Reading Skill Sets?

Lovevery claims to have your child reading in 18 months with this program.

But I want to offer clarity on this – it’s something I talked about in my “mistakes to avoid when teaching preschoolers to read” and that’s the idea of pushing things too early on children.

In other words, you can work six weeks with a 3 year old on learning their letter sounds, or you can wait until they are 6 years old and they learn it in a day. So while Lovevery’s first skill set is for preschoolers, I want to stress it’s for preschoolers TO kindergarten, meaning to reach that 18 month claim, you’ll most likely want to wait until around 5 years old to introduce it.

In doing so, your child would be about 7 years old by the time they are working on the last set which is for first to second grade skills.

It's a fine balance before 6 years old of teaching them to read AND building their self esteem, which is why the most important thing you can do, is follow the child. Getting your child to read isn't a race! It should be experience where kids fall in love with the process and reading as a whole; which I think Lovevery created an excellent program to encourage just that!

What’s Inside in Loveverys Reading Skill Set Part 1: Sounds To Reading

Part 1 is all about isolating sounds, learning letter sounds, and eventually getting into the first spelling and reading exercises. It’s designed to work skills specifically for preschoolers and kindergarteners and this is the one we’ve tested most thoroughly so far with my 3 and 5 year old. 

Isolating Sounds

Compound Word Pairs

A matching game teaching the concept of compound words to build morphological and phonological awareness. You can make it easier or more challenging depending on the number of pairs you set out.

Syllable Race Game 

Take turns pulling cards, saying the word, then clapping the syllables. Take your dog and move it ahead the number of spaces that match the number of syllables per word. This is such a genius way of teaching syllables that truly gamifies it, making it fun for everyone!

Rhyming Leaves Game 

Two games in one, both practicing rhyming with tips for parents to introduce rhymes, correcting mistakes, and setting kids up for success (guide book page)

Follow The Sound Maze

Breaking words into simple letter sounds, where they isolate the beginning or ending sound of a word, and follow the sound through a maze to get from start to finish. A great game for them to play alone, or work together. 

Personal Experience

Both my 3 and 5 year old LOVE all of these games. I found that for my 5 year old, who attended 4 or 5 different preschools over the years where some taught memorization while others didn’t even introduce letter or number shapes until 7, she had some gaps and just sticky points with her reading and language. 

And while she more or less knew her phonics letter sounds, she did not have phonemic awareness really, which basically is the ability to recognize and manipulate sounds in spoken language. So moving us back to learning compound words and syllables I found incredibly helpful as we progressed through the kits instead of just focusing on letter sounds and blending.

Going back to the basics on isolating sounds and parts of a word really boosted her confidence and understanding. I found that when we moved to blending activities she’d reference and ask questions learned in this set; whether that was clapping syllables or asking if things rhymed. 

Learning Letter Sounds 

The ABCs with Mr. Z 

A seek-and-find book that focuses on isolating sounds, and finding things that match that sound. 

Movable Alphabet 

A moveable alphabet that matches the one in The Persister Play Kit, but also includes paired letter blends like /ch/ or /sh/ that kids need to memorize the sound of. These work with other items in the kit. 

Wooden Letter Sound Blocks 

A series of blocks, broken down into letter sets. Choose one letter from the set to work on, then have your child arrange the blocks to form the letter in the middle, using the corresponding pictures to help them practice hearing that letter sound in different words. 

As kids get good at this, let them blend more letter set blocks together for a greater challenge of “sifting” through. 

Skill Tokens 

These go with the letter sound blocks, and build deeper comprehension by asking questions about comparing, describing, identifying, and more. 

Letter Case Beehive

Using the movable alphabet and the honeycomb cards, kids will match the lowercase and uppercase letters together. 

Personal Experience

Also a huge fan of these items so far! I used to play the exact game they play in the ABCs with Mr. Z book and have shared it in past montessori videos. It’s a good reminder, and age appropriate to do with both my 3 and 5 year old. 

The wooden block puzzles gave me such a blast from the past and my inner child geeked out! I had puzzles like this as a kid and LOVED them. My daughter is super into them and can do them independently; my 3 year old needs more hand holding and his attention isn’t there for them, which is totally fine and age appropriate!

I love the addon of the tokens with them, which does require parent or a fluent reader’s involvement.

And the letter case beehive is a great way to get some repetition in with practicing letter shapes and sounds.

First Spelling & Reading

Sita’s Hike To The Beach 

A wordless picture book that builds towards stronger reading outcomes. The focus is on story structure while kids build their listening comprehension and story telling abilities. 

Spell & Check Slider 

A set of tiles and a board you pair with the moveable letter tiles to focus on isolating sounds and blending them into words.

This is truly an incredible item that gamifies the early stages of reading unlike anything I've seen so far.

Book Series 1: Turn-Taking

Five books with parts for the grown up to read, and parts for the new reader to read that expertly build up confidence and interest in developing the skill.

Personal experience

The skills worked in part 1 are intended to target Pre-K to Kindergarten and I was utterly impressed! I went through this kit with my 3 year old and 5 year old so I’ll speak to each.

My 3 year old really loved the BeeHive game, the books, and letter blocks. Some of the activities were obviously too challenging at his age, and he had a hard time sitting through the entire rhyming game or lacked interest in the Maze at this stage.

My 5 year old on the other hand devoured everything in this First Skill Set box and asking to go onto the next one! Interestingly, the Turn Taking Books were actually trickier for her than the books in the next box though! Other than that, I'd say this was a huge hit and gave us an awesome foundation we continuously referenced while moving into the Second Reading Skill Set box.

Overall, I’d say this section was a hit and would feel comfortable introducing it as early as 3, with the knowledge that not all 3 year olds would be ready for all of it, and you may not have a full reader in 18 months. 

What’s Inside in Lovevery's Reading Skill Set Part 2: Words To Books

Part 2 works Kindergarten to 1st grade skills that start with basic blending, comprehensive blending, and storytelling. 

Basic Blending

Mystery Word Decoder

A game with 32 outcomes. You’ll take turns picking up a letter, saying the sound, then sliding it into the decoder to see if it’s a match. Children practice blending the letters to read the word, then find it on the board. To check your answer you pop the picture down and see if the graphics match.

Book Series 2: Totally Decodable

These incredibly simple books are great! They literally have the lesson spelled out for parents in the beginning, and focus on teaching concepts like expressions. I also love that the pictures are on a different page than the text. My daughter kept getting tripped up trying to “tell the story” by looking at the picture. When I noticed her eyes flitting and saying the wrong words as a result, I flipped the book over, so she could only focus on the words, and within a page or two she was actually reading! It was SO cool! 

I also love that this series has lots of rhymes, so when my kids got stuck or needed a confidence boost while reading, I’d ask if a word rhymed and they would get all excited by that.

Personal experience with Basic Blending:

I was utterly impressed with this! I’ve raved about the kid's board game Outfoxed! In my board games for toddlers and preschoolers post, and this basically takes that same concept, but applies it to letters and CVC words. 

While there are many CVC decoder types of activities out there, NOTHING exists like Lovevery’s that I’ve seen.

The mystery aspect was HUGE for my preschooler in actually feeling engaged, and not focusing on her flubs because even after she pronounced something wrong, we quickly got a “win” in finding a match. It’s a great way to really up the memorization of letter sounds, without feeling like memorization, while also building towards basic blending.

My 5 year old was also able to read the books in this section totally on her own!

My 3 year old would also sit and join in, but his attention span was much shorter. I wouldn’t personally introduce it to a 3 year old, I talk about that in my reading tips for parents of preschoolers post, but if you wanted to introduce it as early as 3, you definitely could, though I’d recommend waiting until like 5 or 6 personally. 

Comprehensive Blending

Sticky Word Snack Sticks 

A great game for teaching sight words or sight sounds children will need in their arsenal.

I love that they basically give the script to parents on how to introduce these sounds and explain how to work with them. They even underline the part of the word that needs to be memorized because you can’t rely on traditional phonics for it. 

Wooden Letter Sound Tiles 

A tray of wooden letter tiles, sorted by red constants and blue vowels that are used with other activities in this box.

Sound Swap + Drop Book 

This is probably the most traditional item in Lovevery’s Reading Skill Sets. Basically children will play a game where they are learning how to add, delete, or substitute different letter sounds.

Series 3: Short Vowels Sounds 

5 books focusing on short vowel sounds, with instructions for parents on how to introduce and teach the concepts to the child. 

Crossword Builder + Book 

Using the wooden tiles, and provided Crossword builder book and casings, kids will learn how to blend pairs of consonants within words. 

While I’ve definitely made my own crossword puzzle as a teen before, I’ve never seen anything like this for kids and am in awe of it. 

Kids start by recreating the image from the book, then work to solve the blank spots in the puzzle. The puzzles get harder, with fewer letters filled in, as you go. 

Series 4: Consonant Blends

Five books that re-emphasize blending consonant pairs that they practice in the crossword builder game.

Personal experience with Comprehensive Blending:

We are currently in the middle of this section still and overall love it! It's definitely more of a challenge as kids memorize sight words and learn more complex ways of blending letter sounds together. I'll update this section more later as we move further through it!

Storytelling

The Storytelling portion of this can be introduced at any time in the process and we used it during “brain breaks” when my 5 year old was struggling with blending. 

Story Order Cards 

A set of stories that are color coded and get progressively harder.

Children need to order their cards to tell a story.

I’ve raved in past gift guides about a similar product, this is definitely more structured, but still as fun. 

Set The Scene Storytelling Stage

A turntable with three different story scenes, plus tons of characters and accessories for telling stories. 

Personal experience with Storytelling:

My kids love these! Both the 3 year old and 5 year old play with the items together, with me, or independently.

My 5 year old even uses them during brain breaks sometimes.

What’s Inside in Lovevery’s Reading Skill Set Part 3: Advanced Rules To Chapter Books

Part 3 works 1st grade and 2nd grade reading skills that start with learning vowel rules, progressing to learning prefixes and suffixes, and finalizes with reading chapter books.

Learning Vowel Rules 

Ends With E Adventure Game 

A board game that reinforces how the letter E at the end of a word creates the long vowel sounds which shifts the word meaning and sound.

Book Series 5: Final E 

Five books and a “Red Reveal tool” to reveal mystery text.

Vowel Team Penguin Walk 

A game that increases repetition and memorization of diphthongs and vowel digraphs which are basically when a vowel and another letter come together to make a unique vowel sound.

Book Series 6: Vowel Teams 

Eight books reinforcing the vowel teams from the Penguin game that also utilize the “red reveal tool” to show mystery text.

R Vowel Frog Hop 

A two player board game teaching how the letter R affects vowels.

Book Series 7: R-Controlled Vowels 

Five books reinforcing the way R and vowels work together.

Learning Prefixes & Suffixes 

Prefix & Suffix Story Fix 

A cooperative game that’s sort of a twist on Mad Libs, where you work together to complete the dialogue using the provided magnet tiles to deepen understanding of prefixes and suffixes while enhancing reading comprehension and getting some laughs. 

Book Series 8: Prefixes & Suffixes

Five books reinforcing the concepts of prefixes and suffixes.

Reading Chapter Books

Book Series 9: Chapter Books 

Four chapter books designed in true Lovevery fashion with real people, objects, and situations in full color. One of the books even has a cool interactive feature. Plus a game idea for reading sentences with different emotions throughout the different books.

Lovevery Reading Skill Sets Review

Clearly this program is deep, intense, and detailed and I haven’t gone through the entire thing yet. But what I can say from my initial experience and research into dupes for the items, Lovevery overall has created a really unique product.

While there are loads of cheap options for things that teach or reinforce reading to kids, I’ve never seen things gamified with this depth and breadth; meaning you may find a game for one of these concepts, but to find a game for nearly every concept covered in these sets is unheard of.

My biggest struggle with teaching reading to my kids was two fold:

1. Focusing on phonics of just the sound of the letters, instead of teaching all the things that surround reading like morphemes and graphemes, syntax, and semantics.

This is really teaching so much more than just memorizing letter sounds and blending, but actually working on comprehension of words, language, reading, and writing – not as in like copying letter shapes but as in planning sentence structure, understanding punctuation, building stories, etc. 

2. Repetition. 

Repetition is obviously key with learning to read, but it’s no secret, I’ve shared it on this channel before, it can be very boring teaching reading with the same 3 games over and over. Repeating the same sounds over and over. It’s easy to get stuck with “what’s next” – and all of the games and books in these kits literally spell out “what’s next” for parents while giving you lots of options when you feel burnt out on one. 

The other thing I love about this program is…

That it preemptively addressed some of the challenges I faced. For instance, it says on specific games tips for success which may suggest ways to make things simpler or harder, ages to be concerned about mixups, how to re-incorporate the concept of the game in everyday life. It’s literally all spelled out so perfectly where reinforcement becomes integrated into your life and as concepts are building. 

This system is easily one of the most fun, dynamic, and engaging reading systems I’ve come across. I’ve never seen reading gamified in this way before. It’s literally a homeschooling curriculum with directions for parents to know exactly what to do, how to handle common challenges, and build these skills without the tears or headaches! Get your Reading Skill Sets here!