Picture Pick

What Picture Pick practices

Picture Pick is word reading with a built-in meaning check. A short printed word such as pin, map, dog, pot or sand sits above three pictures, and your child sounds it out and taps the one it names.

The word is never read aloud before the right picture is tapped, so the only way in is through the letters. That makes it honest decoding practice: the picture confirms the reading rather than giving it away.

Who it suits

Children who know their first handful of letter sounds (s, a, t, p, i, n, m, d, o, g) and can blend three sounds into a word, usually around ages five and six. It also works well for older beginners and English learners, because every word arrives with a picture of what it means.

How a round goes

Each round is one word and three pictures. A wrong tap makes that picture wiggle and shows its name in text, and your child simply tries again. A right tap locks the picture in and the word is spoken, then the next word appears on its own.

Five words fill the progress ring, which takes a couple of minutes. One or two rings is a comfortable sitting for a new reader.

A tip for home

Ask your child to say the word out loud before touching any picture, then tap. Hearing themselves read it first builds the habit of looking at every letter, which matters more than speed at this stage.

Try next

• Silly or Right? — two printed words, one sound apart, ask for an even closer look at the letters.
• Stretchy Blend — if blending still feels slow, sliding through the sounds makes it visible.
• Read the Word — the same kind of word, read out loud with no pictures to lean on.
• Heart Words — tricky words like said and was, whose odd part is marked with a heart.

More from “Reading words”

• Flash Word — Read a short word at a glance, out loud.

Read more

Why children guess at words: why children lean on pictures to guess, and how to nudge them back to the letters.