Games and activities to help consolidate phonics

Countdown – the numbers game

Reveal a series of phonemes, or if you are willing to make the resources or have phoneme cards, let children choose ‘one from the bottom, two from the top’ etc until they have seven sounds. Children then have to make as many words as possible from the phonemes. This can be changed subtly each time so, with:

Ai l ck s ng a b

1. Any words with any of the phonemes in count

e.g. log, set, crack, ring - this would score 5, for l, s, a, ck and ng

2. Words have to have at least two phonemes in

e.g. lack, sack, nab, luck, sick, pain - this would score 6 points, one for each word

3. Words cannot have any other sounds/phonemes in them

e.g. back, sang, lack, bail, sail, bang, black - this would score 7 points

Write it

Put children in pairs and ask them to stand one in front of the other. Then say three words. The partner at the back has to choose a phoneme from one of the words and write it on their partner’s back. Can the child in front work out which word it was AND explain how they knew.

e.g. prance pole dancer

er I knew it was dancer as none of the other words have the –er phoneme.

Frilly Knickers

This game works like Fizz Buzz in maths. Decide on two defining features, which can be as hard or as easy as you like, e.g.

‘a’ phoneme = frilly and start with the letter s = knickers

or, has a prefix or suffix = frilly and a split digraph = knickers

Then try and read a page of the book replacing the words frilly and knickers where necessary. If a word has both, you say frilly knickers.

When someone gets it wrong, the next person has to explain what they should have said and why.

e.g.

Text - After the last seat had been taken, Mr Smith sat down and ate his dinner.

With example number one this would read as:

Frilly the frilly knickers frilly been taken, Mr knickers frilly knickers down frilly ate his dinner.

If someone were to get ‘sat’ wrong and just say ‘sat’, the next person would explain,

‘They should have said frilly knickers because sat starts with s and has the phoneme ‘a’

You could let children have a few minutes to prepare for this. Last one left in, wins.

Prefix hunt

Give children the meaning of a prefix, e.g. hydro means water. Ask them to make new words that really mean something, e.g. hydropipe and spell them. Once you have a few, children can guess whether they are real words or not and then look them up in a dictionary. (You need an ‘adult’ dictionary for this)

Suffix sort

Give children the list of suffixes (you can change the length of this list)

Ness ment dom ish ance ence craft cian tion sion ssion shiphood ful ism ity ogy ify ate ness en ise ist

Ask them to think of words that have one of the endings or to look them up in a book or dictionary. Once you have a list of a few, start thinking about what the suffix does to the meaning of the word. How would we spell the new word and would we lose a vowel or consonant or add something to help spell the new word?

What do we think it means? Look it up and find out how close to the answer we were. Then, can we think of any more?

Full circle

Start with a word and then either change a letter each time yourself, or ask children to do that until you come ‘full circle’ back to the original word. You can either ask children to say the word or write it.

sat – cat – cot – cod – rod – rot – rat – sat Full circle!

Full Circle – Full Throttle!

Ensure children are changing the phonemes when they play this game – as that is the whole point.

Start with three cvc words, e.g. light, cat and rain

Split the children into two teams and ask them to change one of the words four times and then reveal their final word to the other team. The other team then has to try and work out the four changes that have been made. They also have to segment the word into its phonemes. They get a point for each change, 2 points if they make the transition but in a different way to the other team and 5 points if they get them all.

e.g.

light becomes rake How?

light - m igh t - m a t e - m a k e - r a k e

Venn diagram / sorting

Start by adding a few words to a 2 circle venn diagram. Then ask children to work out what the two circles represent and pick a word that could go in one side. Try it out. Slowly reveal what the circles mean and then ask children for some words that would go in both or round the outside. Are there any that sound like they would go in but won’t – this helps with alternate spellings.

r ai

Where would game go?

The Dictionary Game (Call my Bluff)

In teams, children pick a word from the dictionary that they think the other team will not know. They then have to make up some fake definitions and also re-write the real definition. This is the hardest thing to do here and may require adult support.

Then they read the word out, deciding how to pronounce it, and read out the real and fake definitions. Can the other team work out which is the real definition?

This helps with segmenting and blending and also with working out what root words, suffixes, prefixes and parts of words mean. Encourage children to think of other words that sound like this word,

e.g. truistic

Cross the river

Children are given a sound, word, caption or sentence. They have to say it to be able to ‘cross the river’ (a piece of blue cloth or on a smartboard screen). This can be adapted so the teacher shows a picture and the child with the relevant word/sound has to identify it before they go.

Buried Treasure

Show a word and ask children is it is ‘treasure’ or needs putting in the bin. This is dependent on whether it includes a particular sound, grapheme or follows a certain rule, e.g. does it have the digraph ck?

Back cut look book stuck

Noughts and crosses

Put children into teams and ask them to play the game by saying a word with the phoneme in it. The other team can steal if they can say how they are wrong and think of an alternative, e.g. noughts say they have a word for /ai/ and use say. The other team can steal by explaining it is the same sound but is ay and giving their own version, pain. This game can be used in all sorts of ways and made harder or easier.

ch oo u

igh m ai

k sh ng

Bingo

Children write three words on a whiteboard that use the vowel phoneme /ee/ (Just say it, don’t write it down)

They can write:

Peel reach thief

You then read words and if they get all three they have won. This can then be made harder so they choose the correct graphemes – in which case you would write down what version you want.

Follow me cards

Produce a set of cards with tricky words, a new sound, a variety of sounds you want to consolidate etc. The first child has to ‘sound talk’ the word on the right of their card. The child who has that word on the left of their card, says it. You can use this game in small groups or for a whole class.

cat chin

Ch - i - n Chin

Countdown

Prepare a long list of sounds/words and ask someone to come up and read as many as possible in 30 seconds. You can ask them to sound talk and say the word, or just say the word. (A clock and some music really help this!)

What’s missing?

Gather a selection of pictures under a sheet and give them 30 seconds to memorise them. Then take one away and ask them to identify it and sound talk it/spell it. The old game- with a new twist.

Pictionary/charades

Children have to act out or draw a word or caption they have read. This can be timed or an open ended session.

What’s in the box?

You add objects or photographs (objects are always better but sometimes hard to find) into a box and then show a word card and ask children to find the object – making sure not all of them are in there. You can do this the other way round and you can also put children in two lines and do a variation on cross the river by asking the child with the word card to sound out and say their word and then find their partner.

Gunslingers

Ask two children to come up to the front of class to compete against each other. Ask them to stand back to back. You then play a game where the fastest child to answer stays ‘on’ against a new competitor. You can:

- Sound talk a word and ask them to say the word- Write a word, display it and ask them to say segment it into phonemes- Say w word and ask them to write it on a whiteboard- Say a sound and ask them for a word with that sound in

Runaround

Give children a sound, e.g. /ee/ which has alternate representations ea ie ei e_e

Label one corner of the room YES and one corner of the room NO (You could also use true/false or the treasure chest and bin) and say a word. Children have to run to the correct corner of the room,

e.g. keep – Yes/True/treasure corner

beach – No/false/bin corner.

This is a variation on lots of interactive whiteboard games but gets children moving and involves them all. You can then develop the game so you ask children to segment the word when they have gone to a corner or explain why they have gone there e.g. I thought heat would be ea because seat and treat both are and they all end in /t/.

Battleships

Children play in pairs or as one side of the class against the other. First of all, they choose three words from a given set and place them on their grid. Then the other team give a grid reference and if they hit a sound, the other team have to tell them what it is. (You can do this with spellings and letters instead of sounds). The opposing team have to try and work out the words.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7A c chB a iC t nDEF c a tchG

Wipeout

Display a grid of 16 ‘words’ with a particular sound/digraph etc in. Children or groups take it in turns to identify a real word. It is worth using unfamiliar words as well as easy ones here, as you are trying

to get children to identify sounds and then blend and read them so new words can be introduced. You can say a child is out as soon as they are wrong or give them a few lives.

cheese banch crach cheapchildren advenchure reach lunchchurch choice chalk chainchallen chimp leech meach

Crossword www.crosswordpuzzlegames.com

You can make sound specific ones or you can let children make their own – this is a good game for supporting spelling patterns and encourages children to define words as they have to know what they mean to write the clues.

Sentence substitution

Give children a prepared sentence and ask them to replace a word (either give them the word or the word class, e.g. noun) and then check it makes sense and check the spelling.

Best Bet

Collect a set of words with the same phoneme and then sort them into all the different grapheme representations. List the words and then try and spot any patterns. Do we always use the same one after a consonant? If the word starts with y does is make a difference?

Then give them new words (or ask them to come up with their own) and have a ‘best bet’ on which representation it will be.

Children can then use these words in a sentence or, to make it more interesting, try and use three in a sentence that makes sense.