Phonics Games?

[Julie in Austin]

My 5yo isn't making much progress with CVC words and he is bored. Any ideas for phonics games that I can make or buy cheaply?

[Mom in High Heels]

One that I did to help Indy learn his blends was super easy and fun and would really work with any sounds. I took post-its and wrote 1 blend on each in large letters (sp, ch, etc). and put them randomly on the floor. He stood in the center and I would say a sound. He had to hop to the correct blend. He loved this. I also placed them in a zigzag pattern down a long hall and into the living room and he had to hop along the trail on one leg, saying the sound before he hopped. If he got it wrong, he had to go back to the beginning and start over. Exercise AND phonics!

Another one was to put blends, endings, letters, etc, on post-its and line them in rows on the table. I would randomly place an m&m or 2 on a few of them. I would place 3 or 4 m&ms on the last one. He had to read along the rows, starting with the bottom row, saying the sounds. If he got to an m&m he could eat it if said the sound correctly. If he missed one, he had to start over. Getting to those m&ms was a big deal. If he completed it, I would mix them up (he's really good at remembering patterns) and we'd do it all over again.

[Julie in Austin]

One that I did to help Indy learn his blends was super easy and fun and would really work with any sounds. I took post-its and wrote 1 blend on each in large letters (sp, ch, etc). and put them randomly on the floor. He stood in the center and I would say a sound. He had to hop to the correct blend. He loved this. I also placed them in a zigzag pattern down a long hall and into the living room and he had to hop along the trail on one leg, saying the sound before he hopped. If he got it wrong, he had to go back to the beginning and start over. Exercise AND phonics!

Another one was to put blends, endings, letters, etc, on post-its and line them in rows on the table. I would randomly place an m&m or 2 on a few of them. I would place 3 or 4 m&ms on the last one. He had to read along the rows, starting with the bottom row, saying the sounds. If he got to an m&m he could eat it if said the sound correctly. If he missed one, he had to start over. Getting to those m&ms was a big deal. If he completed it, I would mix them up (he's really good at remembering patterns) and we'd do it all over again.

 

What great ideas! Thanks for taking the time to post them!

[Mom in High Heels]

No problem. I did this with sight words too. He still asks why we can't do the jumping game anymore. It's because we now live on the 3rd floor and our downstairs neighbors would probably NOT appreciate it. :glare:

[Murmer]

I like to make a game board on a file folder. Then make different card sets based on CVc words. When the word is read correctly they get to move, if they make a mistake they get to try again. Then it's the next persons turn. I use this game for CVc, silent e, r controlled vowels, blends and digraphs any phonics I wanted more practice on.

[Julie in Austin]

I did some googling; here are some games:

 

http://www.filefolderfun.com/KindergartenPhonics.html

 

http://www.kellyskindergarten.com/Games/GamestoMake/games_to_make.htm

 

http://teacher.scholastic.com/lessonrepro/lessonplans/profbooks/batball.pdf

 

http://teacher.scholastic.com/lessonrepro/reproducibles/profbooks/hickorydickory.pdf

[ChrisN in NY]

When my youngest was entering first grade, I spent *hours* online researching reading readiness activities because, imo, he wasn't ready for the phonics yet. I could have started it, but I expected to hit a wall fairly soon and this kid is hard on himself.

 

I wasn't interested in letter recognition because he could do that.

 

I wasn't interested in letter sounds because we'd be getting to that.

 

FINALLY, I read somewhere that mazes and dot-to-dots are good brain building activities...helping to build those neuro-connections.

 

So I got enough for the first half of the year. Ds did a couple of pages per day along with his other subjects. We started phonics (WRTR) in Feb, and by June he was reading easy readers.

 

 

So, maybe some dot-to-dots and maze books along with the phonics practice?

[Ottakee]

My 5yo isn't making much progress with CVC words and he is bored. Any ideas for phonics games that I can make or buy cheaply?

 

These aren't games but very simple readers that start out with just 5 sounds and 3 words and slowly build up from there. http://www.teacherweb.com/CA/PomeloDriveElementary/Mrssakamoto/printap2.stm Here you can print them out for free and even let them color them, etc.

 

If you go to http://www.3rsplus.com or http://www.iseesam.com you can find some hints on how to use the books, games to play with the words/sounds, etc.

 

These are fun books for young boys as they have cute characters.

[OrganicAnn]

We have a game that we play occasionally for fun. We call it the Candy Store. My daughter reads something (you choose what). She gets it right (if she gets it wrong she tries again till she gets it right). Then she gets to spin a spinner (1 through 8). She gets the amount of pennies that the spinner lands on. The pennies can be used to buy candy (we set the price of the candy together - something like 2 cents for a jelly bean). It involves counting and reading and candy.

 

At first I did the cvc words, then 2 cvc words on a card and now were are upto sentences that use common sight words with cvc words.

 

All you need for this game is a spinner (you can pull it from a game) or dice, pennies and/or nickels, words/sentences and of course candy.

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

My boys liked the word sort games. I made little "cards" with a picture and a word on each one, like bed, hat, pig, rug, etc. Then I made word cards with other CVC words on them and they would line up the picture/word cards and then sort the rest of the words under each picture card. They had to match either rhyming words, or match the short vowel sound. Then I would have them read all the words down each column. They enjoyed this a lot. If they got them all right, sometimes I'd give them a reward.

[Farrar]

We have a set of Bananagrams tiles that we use for various games - mixed up letters that they have to put into words like a jumble, swapping out letters to make new words, or even playing a scaled down version of Bananagrams. Sometimes I play against them where I have to get more words than them. The game Pairs in Pears is good for this too because the adults can have to pay attention to the patterns on the letters while the kids don't (or other modifications). While I have mixed feelings about rewards, sometimes we also play for chocolate chips - one per word. While you can make the tiles yourself by making cards, this company makes really nice tiles, so it's nice to buy if you can afford it.

[Delighted3]

Reading Games by Peggy Kaye is an excellent book with ideas for games that you can play with very little prep at all levels of reading.

HTH,

Joy

[sbgrace]

These aren't games but very simple readers that start out with just 5 sounds and 3 words and slowly build up from there. http://www.teacherweb.com/CA/PomeloDriveElementary/Mrssakamoto/printap2.stm Here you can print them out for free and even let them color them, etc.

 

If you go to www.3rsplus.com or www.iseesam.com you can find some hints on how to use the books, games to play with the words/sounds, etc.

 

These are fun books for young boys as they have cute characters.

 

This was the absolute best thing for my struggling son! He (and his twin) absolutely love the stories and characters. They are fun to read even for the adult. I do recommend you look at directions (including for the notched cards/slider cards) on the 3rsplus or Iseesam sites. I love these books. It's definitely worth trying the free books with him. I hope he loves them as much as we do.

 

Those links you found with games--some look fun!

[DawnL]

:lurk5: