As parents, we want the very best for our kids. We want them to go places and achieve things. And we want their path to be as smooth as possible. With that in mind, it’s good to remember Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich’s often-quoted observation that “Reading is a discount ticket to everywhere.”
To get that ticket, a strong start in reading is essential. Recently we looked at how phonics workbooks and flash cards help build early reading skills. Here, we’ll look at fun phonics games and other activities with the same goal.
The history and importance of phonics
Too often, the word “phonics” gets wrongfully connected to “old school” methods. To be sure, phonics has a rich history as an effective teaching method. Educators have long relied on it to enhance reading instruction by focusing on sound awareness—helping children hear, identify, and manipulate sounds in spoken words. This method has shaped reading education over the years.
But it has never gone out of style, and it has never lost its value!
Neither has reading, but kids are reading less. And surveys have shown a drop not just in the number of kids who are reading for pleasure but a decline in parents reading aloud to kids when they are little. For example, survey results published in The Guardian showed only 40% of parents described reading aloud to their kids as being fun. Yet reading aloud to and with kids is one of the best ways to help them hear how letters, words, and language work. Phonics practice is another wayShopify API
For a deeper dive into the evolution of phonics and how it has impacted education worldwide go to History of Phonics. Continue on to learn more about its connection to reading and to find fun ways to practice phonics.
Phonics as a reading foundation
The National Center on Improving Literacy says, “phonics is reading instruction that helps children understand how letters and groups of letters link to sounds, forming letter-sound relationships and spelling patterns.”
In developing reading and language skills, phonics:
- Improves Reading Fluency: Phonics helps kids recognize words quickly, enhancing their reading skills.
- Enhances Comprehension: Efficient word decoding allows children to focus on understanding the text.
- Supports Spelling Skills: Understanding sound-letter relationships aids in spelling as children learn word construction.
- Builds Confidence: As reading skills improve, so does a child's confidence, encouraging exploration of more complex texts.
In short, phonics is a cornerstone of reading success. By linking sounds to letters, it lays a solid foundation for early reading skills.
Fun phonics games and activities for children
At its core, phonics is about teaching kids the connection between letters and sounds, but it includes finer points like digraphs (letter pairs like sh, ch, and wh), diphthongs (sounds formed by combining two vowels), and blends (clusters of two or three consonants in a word). Oh, my! The more we can make a game out of phonics, the more kids will tune in, and the more their reading skills will benefit.
Gamification means taking elements of gameplay like point-scoring or competition with others, and applying them to a different context like education to make it more fun and motivational. An article in Frontiers in Psychology acknowledges that gamification has gotten recognition for “its potential to boost student motivation, engagement, interest, and learning outcomes.”
Here are some activities that blend learning with the fun of gameplay:
- Sound Matching Games: Match pictures with the beginning sounds of their word names to strengthen sound-letter connections.
- Letter Tracing: Use wipe-clean activities for letter tracing, which aids in letter recognition and handwriting. For example, with School Zone’s Three-Letter Words Write & Reuse Learning Cards preschoolers and kindergartners can practice tracing letters and spelling words at their own pace or it can become more game-like by timing the reading and writing of the words. Or change it up even more, and show them how words string together. Help them write silly sentences.
- ABC Phonics Songs: Songs make learning memorable. Singing abc phonics songs helps kids remember letter sounds. Check out School Zone’s ABC Song available as MP3 download. Its darling rhymes and bouncing beat will quickly get kids tapping their feet—and learning their letters. They’ll definitely remember lines like “P starts the really popular words like puppy or pizza, I’m pretty pleased to meet ya.”
- Storytime with Phonics: Choose storybooks focusing on phonics sounds. Reading aloud enhances listening and pronunciation. Try the Level 1 book Jog, Frog, Jog from School Zone’s 3-level Start to Read!® series.
- Rhyming Games: My Teaching Cupboard outlines 4 stages of rhyming, which are:
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- Rhyme identification – ability to say whether two words rhyme
- Matching rhyming words – ability to say which of a pair of words rhymes with a particular word
- Rhyme oddity – ability to say which word in a group does not rhyme
- Rhyme production – ability to produce a word that rhymes with one offered
The website offers 43 Rhyming Activities for Kindergarten divided into games for each of those categories. While geared toward the classroom, some could definitely work at home. For example, in Hands on Head (originally “heads” plural to reflect the whole class) you read a story with rhyming words and tell your child to put their hands on their head when they hear a rhyming word. In Jumping Hoops “Place a few hoops in a line on the ground,” then “put a rhyming word or picture inside each hoop,” and have your child produce a matching rhyming word as they jump into each hoop.
For even more ideas, KizPhonics offers phonics games and online activities for kids by grade.
There are also lots of ways to incorporate phonics lessons into everyday activities. For example, in a Reddit thread about kindergarten phonics, a parent poster (name deleted from thread) said they helped their son learn “all the letter sounds by typing in the search box on Roku. If he wanted something I would only give the letter sound and he would have to find the letter.”
For that matter, any time you ask your child to hand you something, ask them what letter sound the object starts with! Using everyday, hands-on activities to teach phonics will help learning be seamless, natural, and important.
Using online/digital phonics games and activities
Apps like School Zone's Anywhere Teacher offer interactive games and activities in a format that’s fun and familiar, and they adapt to your child’s pace. Phonics activities in Anywhere Teacher include “Sort the Digraphs SH, CH, WH, and TH,” “Phonics Made Easy: Blends fl, sw, tr,” “Drag the s Blends,” “Type F Blends to Finish the Words,” word searches featuring words with specific letter combinations, and Feed the Robot activities using words with particular vowels and blends to feed a hungry robot!
Educational apps provide the following benefits:
- Use interactive games to keep children motivated
- Include progress tracking to monitor development.
- Offer varied activities from phonics songs to sound matching games.
Phonics is vital for learning to read and offers lots of benefits for emergent literacy. By incorporating playful games, hands-on activities, and digital apps, parents and educators can make phonics lessons fun and productive. Discover phonics and watch your child's reading skills flourish!
