🏃 Experience a Japanese Sports Day with This Level 8 Japanese Reader

Sports Day (うんどうかい) is a Level 8 Japanese Reader that takes learners inside a real Japanese primary school 運動会 through authentic photographs and accessible Japanese.

Sports Day is one of the major annual events in Japanese primary schools. Students are divided into red and white teams and compete against each other throughout the day.

Rather than simply reading about Japanese school culture, learners can see it happening.  The reader introduces the excitement of おうえんだん (cheering squads), where the red team beats drums and the white team waves flags:

フレー フレー 白ぐみ！フレー フレー 赤ぐみ！

Learners then follow a variety of distinctive Sports Day events, including giant ball rolling (玉ころがし), ball tossing (玉入れ), tug-of-war (つな引き), きばせん, obstacle races and team relays.

The book also shows another important part of the day: families coming to cheer, joining some events and eating おべんとう together at lunchtime. Students then see performances such as ソーランぶし and school dances before following the final whole-school relay and discovering which team wins.

At the end, learners are invited to think beyond the text:

きみの国に 運動会がある？
日本の運動会と くらべて、どう？

This makes the reader particularly useful for combining Japanese reading, cultural learning and classroom discussion.

🎯 Language Features in This Level 8 Japanese Reader

Students will practise:

• Reading longer descriptive and informational texts using polite Japanese (です・ます)
• Sequencing events using connectors such as そして、それから、最初に、一番目
• Connecting ideas using ～て
• Giving reasons using ～から
• Comparing using ～より and ～ほうが
• Understanding sequencing with ～の後
• Reading conditionals using ～たら
• Recognising listing patterns using ～たり～たり
• Understanding expressions such as ～と言います and ～のは～です
• Encountering patterns such as ～てあげます、～てみます、～ながら
• Learning vocabulary related to Japanese schools, Sports Day events, teamwork, cheering, and performances

📖 Level 8 Japanese Reader Details

Reading Level: Level 8
Recommended for: Developing Japanese learners
JLPT Guide: Approximately JLPT N5–N4
Character Count: 967
Pages: 25
Text Type: Information report
Language Focus: Sequencing, comparison, reasons, connected actions and increasingly complex sentence patterns
Vocabulary Theme: Sports Day, school events, games, teams, family and performances
Cultural Theme: Japanese primary school Sports Day (うんどうかい)
Script: Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji with furigana
ISBN: 978-1-925808-06-3

✅Perfect For

• Developing Japanese learners
• Secondary and senior Japanese students
• JLPT N5–N4 learners
• Learners progressing to longer connected Japanese texts
• Japanese culture and school-life units
• Extensive Reading (Tadoku)
• Guided reading
• Independent reading
• Classroom cultural comparison activities
• Learners interested in everyday life and school culture in Japan

 Teaching & Learning Resources

Every reader includes free access to our Resource Library.

Included with every reader: — coming soon:

•  Audio recordings narrated by Mariko Sensei
•  English translation
•  Quizlet vocabulary activities

🏫 Teaching a Class?

Bring Sports Day into Your Japanese Classroom

Use Sports Day (うんどうかい) for whole-class reading, guided reading, pair work or independent reading with a Class Set & Online Flipbook.

The authentic photographs are particularly useful for displaying the book to a class while discussing Japanese school culture and comparing Sports Day traditions with students’ own experiences.

👉 Explore Sports Day Class Set & Online Flipbook

💜 A Note from Mariko Sensei

Sports Day was always one of the most exciting school events when I was growing up in Japan.

From Year 5 to Year 6, I was a member of the おうえんだん — the school cheering team. But we didn’t wear the kind of cute cheer-leading costumes you might imagine! Instead, we proudly wore hakama, a traditional Japanese outfit with a strong, almost samurai-like appearance. I remember how cool and important we felt cheering for our team. That memory is one of the reasons this reader is special to me.

Through the photographs in this book, I wanted learners to experience the atmosphere of a real Japanese Sports Day—the red and white teams, the cheering, the unusual games, families watching from the sidelines, eating lunch together, and everyone giving their best until the final relay.

I hope this reader makes you feel as though you are there, experiencing a Japanese Sports Day for yourself.

Happy reading!

— Mariko Sensei

📖 Your Next Japanese Reader

🏃 Sports Day (うんどうかい) — Continue building reading fluency through accessible Japanese while exploring an authentic Japanese primary school Sports Day.

🌾 Scarecrow Village (かかし村) — Continue at a similar reading level with accessible Japanese and authentic photographs while discovering a remarkable rural community in Japan.

❄️ Snow World (ゆきのせかい) — Ready for a challenge? Read mainly natural plain-form Japanese and encounter less familiar vocabulary related to snow, winter weather, ice sculptures, and festivals while discovering Hokkaido in winter.

📚 Explore More Japanese Reader Packs

🎓 Senior High School Japanese Readers Pack — Ideal for teachers seeking higher-level Japanese readers featuring richer language, cultural topics, and more substantial texts.

🏫 High School Japanese Readers Pack — A broader collection for secondary Japanese programs, with readers progressing across different levels for students with varying reading abilities.

📚 All Japanese Readers Pack — Explore the complete Japanese Reader collection, from beginning readers through to more advanced Japanese texts.

📌 Important Information

This Japanese Reader is designed for individual reading and extensive reading (Tadoku).

Copyright © Mariko Earle. All rights reserved.

Please do not copy, reproduce, distribute, or share any part of this book without permission from the copyright holder.

The original publication also explicitly prohibits reproduction, storage, transmission or copying without prior written permission.