When you hear the word phonics, does the word boring pop into your head? It doesn’t have to! Play-based activities and games are a great way to reinforce systematic, explicit phonics instruction, practice reading, and bond with your child! From bingo to scavenger hunts, there are many phonics games for kids that can support your child’s growing skills.
Alphabet Letters and Sounds
Knowing letter names and recognizing their shapes is a key first step in learning to read. When you’re deciding how to teach the alphabet, think about the kinds of phonics games or activities that appeal to your child. Kids not only need to recognize and name alphabet letters; they also must learn that letters represent sounds. This letter-sound relationship is the basis of phonics.
Try these phonics games for kids to build phonemic awareness—the ability to recognize the individual sounds within words.
Sound Hunt: Pick a letter sound (e.g., /m/) and have your child find objects around the house that start with that sound (e.g., mug, mitten, mop). Level up by including ending and middle sounds.
Sound of the Day: Pick a letter sound (e.g., /b/) and make that the sound of the day. Replace every first sound with your sound of the day. For example, “What would you like for dinner?” would be “Bat bould bou bike bor binner?”
I Spy/I Hear: Instead of the classic I Spy game where you spy things of different colors, spy objects that begin with certain sounds.
Word Family Checker: Word families are groups of words with the same ending. Pick and write down a word family like –at, –en, or –op and have your child go through all the letters of the alphabet to see if they can make a real word or a nonsense word. This is a great activity to do using hands-on manipulatives like letter blocks or magnets. You can also write on sticky notes, or on large plastic building blocks using dry erase markers.
What’s Missing?: Say a short word with one sound removed (e.g., say at instead of cat) then give your child a clue (e.g., It purrs) and have your child guess the missing sound.
Roll a Sound: Assign a different sound to each number on a die. When your child rolls the die, they have to say a word that starts with the matching sound.
Mystery Letter Bag: Place magnetic letters in a bag and let your child pull one out. Have them say the letter’s name and find or name an object that starts with that letter. Then stick the letter on the refrigerator or other metal surface.
You can adapt any letter identification game to focus on the sound of the letter. For example, write the letters of the alphabet using sidewalk chalk and have your child hop to letters that make a particular sound.
Phonics Games and Activities
The goal of phonics is to teach kids to decode—or read—words. Once your child has a good grasp of written letters and their sounds, you can support them as they learn how to blend these letter sounds together to read words. As your child begins to read, the particular books they read matter greatly. Find decodable books that include words that contain common letter-sound patterns. Those include books that focus on consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words, or common letter pairings (digraphs) like sh and ch.
Try phonics games for kids that support decoding like:
Word Building: Get letter magnets or tiles (alternatively, you can create slips of paper with letters written on them or use dry erase markers on plastic or magnetic blocks). Assemble the letters to form a simple CVC word. Then have your child blend the letter sounds together to read the word.
Word Bingo: Make bingo boards with CVC words in each square. Call out a word, then have your child read all the words on their board until they find and mark the word you called out.
Co-Reading Aloud: As you read aloud to your child, stop and let your child take the lead whenever you come to CVC words that they can try to decode independently.
Concentration: Write two versions of the same CVC words on index cards. Do this for five different CVC words. Place the index cards face down in two rows of five. Take turns picking cards, reading the words, and trying to find a match. If you find a match, you get to keep the word cards. The player with the most word cards at the end of the game wins.
Phonics Race: Set up a race outside. At different points in the race, place a word for your child to read or tell them a word to write. See how quickly they can make their way through the race.
Word Hunt: Hide index cards with CVC words around the house. Have your child find and read the words. You can repeat this process with words that fit whatever spelling pattern your child is working on.
Roll and Read: Write simple words on sticky notes and tape to a large-size die or soft block. When your child rolls it, they have to read the word aloud.
Word Ladders: Start with one CVC word (e.g., cat), then change one letter at a time to make new words (e.g., cat → bat → bit → sit).
Turning Readers into Writers
While phonics helps kids learn to decode words, it also helps them to encode words, too. Spelling lets kids use their knowledge of letter-sound correspondences to write the sounds in words (phonemes) using written letters (graphemes).
Some fun ways to support your child to encode words include:
Segmenting Spoken Words: Say a word aloud and have your child segment the words into individual sounds. For example, the word cat has three sounds: /c/-/a/-/t/. Take it one step further and have your child write the letters that correspond to the sounds they identified.
Jump Rope Spelling: Get your child moving by having them spell words as they jump rope. Call out a spelling word to your child. Your child then jumps rope as they call out each letter in the word to spell it. If jumping rope is a skill your child is still learning, they can try hopping on one foot—or simply jumping—instead.
Sticky Spelling: Have your child write out the alphabet on sticky notes, one letter to a note. Say a spelling word. Have your child select the notes needed to spell that word and place them in order on the wall or another surface. If they spell the word correctly, they can take the notes down and use them to spell the next word.
Spelling Scramble: Using letter blocks, magnets, or letters written on sticky notes, spell a word and scramble it up, without your child seeing. Ask them to unscramble the word to spell it correctly.
Rainbow Writing: Find a few words your child would like to practice learning how to spell. Have them write them using different colors. For example, write friend in red, then pink, then blue.
Secret Code Words: Write a list of words in “secret code” by replacing letters with symbols or numbers. Have your child decode and write them correctly.
Writing Practice: Anything that your child writes can be great encoding practice. Encourage your child to label objects, write a story, and/or write down the names of friends or family members.
Tactile Spelling: Let your child write words on a chalkboard, dry-erase board, sand, or shaving cream, giving them a fun way to practice writing.
Letter Writing: Have your child write a letter to you or a loved one. Encourage them to use their knowledge of letter sounds to write words.
Make Phonics a Part of Everyday Life
While games are a great way for kids to practice their phonics skills, you can also find other ways to incorporate reading and writing into daily routines. Encourage your child to read words on signs, grocery lists, and menus. Let them help you write notes, lists, or create labels for their belongings. Most importantly, make phonics a fun and rewarding experience! When children see reading as an exciting and useful skill, they become more confident and eager to learn.
By using engaging games and activities, you can help your child build strong reading skills while making wonderful memories together!
