Here are some games to help children learn the beginnings of phonics and practise spelling.
Very young learners
Letter looker
Twist a pipe cleaner to look like a magnifying glass. Use it as a “letter looker” or “word looker” to frame letters or words on storybooks, course books, charts, and classroom print.
- “I am looking for something in the market that begins with an A sound.”
- “Right, it’s apples!””
Clip It
Write the letters of the alphabet on the clothespins. Write words on the craft sticks. Children match letters and clip them on the stick to make the words.
Note: If you are working with 3-4 year olds, you could use children’s names at the beginning of the school year.
Spelling gym
This is a very active and enjoyable activity written by Carol Read. Children do actions to show the position of each letter (hands on shoulders = letter on the line e.g. ‘a’, ‘n’; arms in the air = stalk of letter above the line e.g. ‘t’, ‘l’; arms by sides = stalk of letter below the line e.g. ‘y’, ‘j’). You could spell words children already know in chorus and children do the actions for each letter, or you could invite them to take turns to spell and guess words in pairs/groups.
Young learners
Listening for letters
- You'll need two sets of alphabet cards with an extra set of vowels. Prepare two sets of alphabet cards with one letter on each A5 sheet of paper (A4 cut in half). Make an extra set of vowel cards.
- Give each student one or more alphabet cards.
- Spell out a word.
- Students must hold up the correct letter when they hear them. Choose words with easily confused letters such as e/i, g/j etc.
- Next, call out a word, ask a student to spell it out and the rest of the class to hold up the letters.
Practising letter patterns
- Prepare flashcards of words containing certain letters or letter patterns.
- Divide the board into sections.
- Show one of the flashcards to the whole class.
- Ask: How do I spell (duck)? Where do I put (duck)? Here, under (‘ck’)?
- Give out the rest of the flashcards to different students. They decide how to spell the word, come to the board, spell it out loud and stick the picture in the correct section according to the way the word is spelled.
- Remove all the pictures from the first section. Ask students to tell you the words that were there. Do the same with the other sections.
Practising spelling with word sets
- Choose a word set you want to revise and practise spelling for, e.g. food
- Ask every student to write three words for different foods.
- Tell students, in pairs, to combine their lists.
- On the board, write up their words in alphabetical order. Does anyone have a food word starting with ‘a’?
- Do the same with the other letters and words.
- In groups, have a competition with students. Ask questions about the words on the board. The first person to put up their hand and give the correct answer wins a point for each correct word.
Suggested questions:
Which is the longest word?
Which are the shortest words?
Which words have double letters?
Which words have the letter “h” in them?
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