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.
MATATAG links
- KinderLetter names and sounds, and seeing that sounding out letters makes words.
- Grade 1Reading and Literacy: vocabulary and high-frequency words in the first language.
- Grade 2English vocabulary about oneself and family, school and community.
The words in these puzzles are English, each with a picture. In Kinder and Grade 1, when most reading is in Filipino, say the Filipino word too (aso and dog, isda and fish), so the picture links both words.
The animal, farm, sea and space sets suit the Kindergarten theme on caring for our world. The autumn, Halloween and winter sets follow a northern calendar that Philippine classrooms do not share.
Summarised in our own words from DepEd’s MATATAG Kindergarten, Reading and Literacy (Grade 1) and English (Grades 2–10) Curriculum Guides (2023).
