How it works
- Pick a word set, such as animals, the farm or Halloween.
- Leave out any words you don’t want by tapping them.
- Tick the puzzles you want, and choose a theme for the page border.
- Download one PDF with every puzzle, then the answer keys at the back.
Why pictures help early readers
A picture tells a child what the word means before they can read it. Matching the picture to the word, finding it letter by letter in a grid and writing it in crossword squares all make children look closely at the letters of a word they already understand. That is how new words start to stick.
Four puzzles from one word set
Picture word search
The word bank shows each word with its picture. Words run across, down or diagonally, never backwards.
Match the pictures
Pictures on one side, words on the other, in a different order. Children draw a line from dot to dot.
Picture crossword
Each numbered clue is a picture. Children say the word, then write one letter in each square.
Colour and trace
A big outline picture to colour, its word to trace, and an empty line to write it alone.
In NZ classrooms
- Te WhārikiThe Mana reo | Communication strand includes children coming to recognise print symbols and use them with meaning.
- First 6 monthsNew entrants learn letters and their sounds, and read simple words by blending.
- Year 1Children ask about new words and work out what they mean from the story.
Picture puzzles aren’t in the curriculum. With structured literacy, junior children are expected to read words by sounding them out, so choose words that use sounds your class has learned, such as fish or frog, and let children sound each one out before they hunt for it.
The seasonal sets follow the northern-hemisphere calendar. In New Zealand the fall (autumn) set fits March to May, winter June to August and spring September to November.
Year placements summarised in our own words from the Ministry of Education’s guide to the New Zealand Curriculum, Years 0–8, and Te Whāriki (2017).
