Ideas for practicing phonograms.

These activities are also great for other

language arts areas besides phonics

such as sight words or spelling words.

I have also used some of the activities for teaching Arabic vocabulary.

Bang

1. Place letter, phonogram, or word cards in a can.

2. Place one or two cards with the word "Bang" on them in can with the other cards.

3. Child picks out one card at a time and read it. If he reads the card correctly, he continues.  If he gets a "Bang" card, he must put al cards back and start over.

4. Child wins when he has read all cards.

Note: for smaller children, I would only put 1 "Bang" card in the can.

Bingo/Cover Up

1. Write the letters, phonograms, or words on a bingo board.

2. Call out  letters, phonograms, or words and student covers up. Student wins when a complete row, column, or diagonal is covered.

Variation: Cover up:  Child must cover the whole board.

Clue/Riddle Game

1. Student is given a list of words that he is working on.

2. Teacher gives a clue about one of the words.

3. Student scans the list for the word and writes the word down.

4. Continue with the rest of the words.

Concentration/Memory Game

Using 2 sets of letter, phonogram, or word cards, turn cards face down.

Student must turn over cards, 2 at a time and try to match cards. If the cards do not match, turn them back face down and try again.

For younger students, keep cards face up, or arrange one set in an array (row and columns) and place the other set in a pile. Student draws one card from the pile at a time and matches it to a card in the array.

This is a good game for learning letters of the alphabet.

Fill in the blank

Provide student with sentences (on board or paper) and they must fill in the blank with the correct word. The words can either be sight words or words that contain the current phonogram they are working on, or review words.

Go Fish

Read/Draw

Provide student with a list of words with surrounding blank space. Student reads the word and draws a (non-image) picture.

Variation: Provide pictures and student writes the word.

Picking Apples/Climbing Ladder/Stairs

This is probably the most popular activity for us.

Draw a tree, or ladder, or stairway.  Letters, phonograms, or words are placed in apples (for the tree), rungs of the ladder or steps.

Student starts at the bottom of the ladder or steps and reads what is on the rung, apple, or stairs.  Place a treat (money, candy--we usually just use pictures of these and not the real thing) at the top as incentive.  If the student reads incorrectly, I usually tell them the correct answer and have them start back over from the beginning.

This works well for Arabic as well.

Speed Contest

Student or teacher selects a word.  Set a timer for 45 seconds.  Student and teacher compete to see who can write the word the most times in 45 seconds.  If students are beginning writers, a rule can be set up that the teacher must write the word, say, 3 times as much as the student.

Ideas from Peggy Kaye's series of books, "Games for....."

Tic Tac Toe

Make a big tic tac toe board.  Place or write  letters, phonograms, or words in each square. Student must read the word correctly to place his mark. 

Unscramble the Word

Scramble words the student is working on. Have him unscramble them and write them correctly.

Word Sort

Given a list of words, student sorts them by different criteria: parts of speech, articles of clothing, beginning sounds, etc.

Write words in sentences.

Supply the Missing letters

Match pictures to words

Hangflower.

Variation of hangman, just use a different picture, say a flower. Student must supply letters to guess a word before the picture is completely drawn.