Playing Phonics Games to Build Fluency
Games help our learners develop skill proficiency. A good game will challenge thinking and require the player to strategize. Here are a few of my favorite games for children learning phonics AND for older students who haven't developed their encoding and decoding proficiency.
Big Word Meltdown-The goal of this game is to make as many words as you can using only the letters in the big word. Choose a word that contains 9-15 letters. I like to choose science, social studies, or holiday words. Challenge your students to create small words using only the letters from the big word. The person or team who makes the most words wins.
What is the Mystery Word? The goal of this game is to figure out the big word. Choose a word that contains letters that students can use to practice known spelling patterns. Have students start by making small words. Challenge them to figure out the mystery word by gradually making bigger words using the letters given. As students build words, they will use letter patterns to make bigger words. Sometimes, I give clues for the big word, but the key is to make the small words first. The person or team who makes the most words and figures out the mystery word wins.
Scrambled Sentences-The goal of this game is to make as many sentences as you can using the words and punctuation given. I select a paragraph from a science or social studies-based text. Write one word on each card, capitalizing first words. Be sure to include the punctuation on separate cards. You can give a time limit. I encourage students to work together to unscramble the sentences to make a meaningful paragraph. The person or team who uses all the words and punctuation wins.
Pantry Phonics-The goal of this game is to find at least one item for each syllable type. This can be used a a scavenger hunt for homework or in the classroom. Have the students explain why each product name contains the syllable pattern. The person or team who finds at least one example of each syllable pattern wins.
To download interactive game slides, click here.