[Denis DNT]

Try the following:
Step 1. Pick a unit in their course book and let every one of them open to that unit.
Step 2. Get your class list ready and let them know they are going to win points.
Step 3. Instructions: "I will say a word and the first person to find that word in this unit will get a point; First Close your books. Do not touch the picture, touch the word. Only the first person to touch the word and say it gets the point."
Step 4. Then you start with the very easy words in the unit and then follow their pace.
Step 5. Then move on to segments of two, three or four words like "at home, going to school, singing in class"
Step 6. Move on with them until they can spot whole sentences.
Step 7. Pick the words from two to three units now.
Step 8. Pick the words from all the units you have covered with them.
Step 9. More fun. See if they are smart. Say a word or sentence that does not exist in any unit of their course book and see how quick they can find out.
Step 10. The last level of the game. They don't use their books any longer. So they don't have the guide images in the book usually give them. Now you make a huge poster full of words and sentences you have studied in class. Have it pasted on the board and repeat the game. Now they have to go out to the board with a stick and spot out the word or sentence.
Now sit back and relax. Your kids can now read!!!
It has worked every year with my First Graders.
Step 9. Use

[monica.angel]

Really good activity, I've tried it before.

[Denis DNT]

Really it is Monica, and it's fun when they realize that they can listen to words, understand them, say them, match them with pictures but can't recognize the same words in isolation. From the beginning they don't even know they are about to learn something. It's all like a joke. It's at the end that they realize the change they have gone through. There is nothing I enjoy more with the game than seeing them in their own free time testing their friends with the same game. That's speaking practice now coming in!
Cheers!