Kids need to master basic phonics skills before they can become proficient readers. While practice with systematic phonics instruction in the classroom is necessary, many children learn best through play! To help you encourage your child to strengthen their literacy skills at home, here are some fun phonics games to try together.
Letter Recognition Activities
Letter recognition and letter sounds are the first skills children need to learn when entering phonics instruction. The alphabetic principle, or the ability to correlate letters with the sounds they make, is a crucial skill in reading and writing.
Here are some games to help your child learn letter-sound recognition.
Letter Bingo
For letter bingo, make some bingo cards with uppercase letters, lowercase letters, and several objects in the squares. Get some tokens or small figurines your child can use to place on the bingo spaces they match with the item called.
How to play:
Give each player an alphabet bingo card. Choose a literate person to be the host of the game, calling out different letters, corresponding letter sounds, or objects with specific letter sounds. Players will use their tokens to mark off the matching letters on their bingo cards. The first person to fill out an entire row wins “Bingo!” and then gets to be the leader for the next round.
Alphabet Scavenger Hunt
Go on an adventurous treasure hunt with your child to find letters and letter sounds! To set up the game, create index cards with different uppercase and lowercase letters written on them. Secretly choose some small toys, treats, or everyday objects that match the sounds on the index cards. Hide the index card with the item that has its corresponding letter sound. For example, hide the letter <H> next to a helicopter toy, hairbrush, or hat.
How to play:
Explain the rules of the treasure hunt. Give your child clues and then have them search for prizes that match your clues. You might give a directional clue (“This treasure is near something wooden”), a letter clue (“This item starts with <B>”), or a letter sound clue (“Look for something that has the sound, /sh/”). If they find enough treasures, let them choose a prize.
Whack-a-Letter
This is a fun phonics game for beginner readers who love physical activities. You (or another family member or friend) will collect wooden or foam toy letters to arrange on the floor. Give players something to “whack” the letters with. A fly swatter, toy paddle, or plastic baseball bat will do.
How to play:
Explain that you are going to spell out words on the floor with the toy letters. The child’s job is to whack a letter! When he or she knows the sound of a letter, they have to whack it and sound out the letter only one time. If they get the whole word correct, celebrate with a quick dance party or some other physical activity your child loves. Make it fun and exciting like a game of whack-a-mole. This game often results in laughs and lots of fun!
Games to Practice Blending and Segmenting
Blending is the sounding out of letters to form full words. Segmenting is the breaking up of spoken words into their sounds. Both are important skills required for reading, writing, and lifelong learning.
Fishing for Phonics
Go phonics fishing with your kids using only a few household supplies. You’ll need:
- Construction paper
- Markers
- Paper clips
- Magnets
- Craft string
Create a makeshift fishing rod by attaching a magnet to a string. Cut out paper fish and write graphemes of words on them (for example, /sh/ /i/ /p/ for ‘ship’). Choose words that are appropriate for your child’s skill level.
How to play:
Lay out the paper fish in no particular order. Explain to your child that they’ll “fish” for words you say to try to create the whole word. Call out a word and then pay attention to how your child “catches” the letter sounds to blend. Offer guidance and encouragement if they get stuck.
Carnival Blend Cups
This is a fun carnival-style game for kids learning consonant blends and digraphs. To set up the game, get a stack of plastic cups and a few ping-pong balls or coins. On each cup, use a permanent marker to write a consonant blend (/bl/, /tr/, /sm/, /gr/, etc.) or digraph (/sh/, /ch/, /ph/, /th/, etc.). Arrange the cups at random at a reasonable distance so your child can throw something into the opening.
How to play:
You can sound out one of the blends of digraphs, such as /sh/ or /tr/. Alternatively, you can say a word that starts with that blend or digraph. Then, your child tries to toss the coin or ball into the correct “blend cup.” Switch it up as your child progresses their phonics skills and scramble whole word segments they have to find before the time runs out!
Sound Train
This game doesn’t require any materials—just your attention, imagination, and voice. It’s a fun way to strengthen phonological awareness, memory, and comprehension.
How to play:
The goal of this game is to create a spoken sound train with your child. Take turns saying individual letter sounds and then coming up with another letter sound to add to it until you make a word. For example, you say /m/, your child says /i/, you say /s/, and your child says /t/. Then, your child tries to identify the whole word: ‘mist.’ You can make it more challenging after you create a train: see if your child can spell the word on a piece of paper. Get creative and try to see the longest word you can make together.
Rhyming Games
Rhyming helps kids identify similarities in different words. It also strengthens listening skills, vocabulary, and phonemic awareness in early phonics instruction. Here are a few activities to try with a group or children or one-on-one.
Rhyme Relay Race
This is a great activity that gets kids working their bodies and minds at the same time. You don’t need any materials for this phonics game—just six or more players, a field to run, and positive attitudes.
How to play:
Separate players into teams of two or more. Have players spread out along the course in a designated relay order: the first person at the starting line, the second person farther ahead, and so on. Establish a finish line at the very end of the field. Explain that the relay race winners will be those who can think of rhymes that match your starting word.
Choose a starting word (let’s say it’s ‘craft’). Call out, “On your mark, get set, ‘craft!’” The first player at the starting line must think of a rhyming word. When they call out a correct rhyming word, they run up to their next relay teammate and tag them. That teammate calls out a different rhyming word and goes up to the next teammate, and so on. The first team to get to the finish line wins!
Two-of-a-Kind Rhymes
If your child is younger and you want to play a rhyming game one-on-one, “two of a kind” is easy and can be played anywhere.
How to play:
Say three words out loud, two of which rhyme and one that does not. For example, ‘sat,’ ‘snail,’ ‘mat.’ Have your child guess the two that rhyme. You can make it more challenging by adding words that have slightly similar sounds but aren’t technically rhymes, such as, ‘cow,’ ‘clown,’ and ‘rainbow.’ Use this as a fun learning experience, talking through why each pair of rhyming words go together and going over any mistakes.
More Fun Phonics Games for Kids and Parents
Looking for more phonics games to play with your child at home? No matter what stage of phonics instruction your child is in, there are many activities to support his or her learning. Check out phonics.org for useful and fun phonics resources that work!
