5 Fun Phonics Games for Kids

Kids who have fun learning phonics are far more likely to want to read more and here are 5 fun phonics games for kids and a free phonics test using Ultimate Phonics.

The term phonics refers to the system by which individual letters and groups of letters make sounds.

Phonics are a kind of code and when you grasp this code, it greatly facilitates reading and writing.

For that reason, phonics is taught to children in kindergarten and in the first and second grades. Kindergarteners focus on learning one letter at a time, whereas second graders study longer and more sophisticated combinations of consonants and vowels.

Click image for FREE Phonics Test and more information

Given the importance of phonics in early reading lessons, you may want to use phonics games at home too. Phonics games, such as the following five, are easy and your kids will love them.

Sound Skip

Write out a random sequence of ten to twenty letters on a dry erase board then read this list of letters aloud, saying the sound that the letter makes rather than the name of the letter.

Skip over one to three of the letters on the board. When you’ve reached the end of the letters, have your child point to and say the letter sounds that you did not read.

These phonics games will help your child differentiate letters, and also help her to practice letter sounds.

Phonics Bingo

For this game, create a series of bingo cards. Each square on each card should have a different letter written on it. One square per card should be blank – those are the “wild” spaces.

Also compile a stack of index cards in which each index card has printed on it a letter appearing on one or more of the bingo cards. To start the game, shuffle the index cards, take one from the stack and read its letter sound out loud.

When the letter sound you say matches a letter on a player’s card, he should place a bingo chip on the corresponding square. The first child to get three, four or five – depending on the number of squares per card – chips in a row calls out “Bingo!” and wins.

Picture Identification

You and your children take turns drawing items on a dry-erase board: animals, household objects, articles of clothing, foods or whatever else comes to mind. When a player thinks she knows what’s being drawn, she raises her hand, and the person doing the drawing immediately stops.

Everyone must be silent at this point. The person who just raised her hand steps forward, says the name of the object being drawn, and attempts to draw the first letter they can hear in the name of the sketched item.

If she’s correct, the board gets erased and it’s someone else’s turn to draw. If the guesser is incorrect, she sits down and the artist resumes the drawing.

Sound-ercize

Have your players sit on a couch or on chairs. Designate a certain sound as the sound participants should be listening for.

Next, read a series of words. As soon as you recite a word that includes that magic sound, the kids should jump to their feet. Then they should run in place or do jumping jacks while spelling out that word before taking their seats again.

For example, you’d tell the kids to listen for the “fff” sound. Then you’d recite: “dog,” “rabbit,” “pony,” “frog.” At this instant, the players would leap up and, while doing jumping jacks, call out “F-R-O-G!” Then they’d sit back down. T

here are no winners, per se, in this game, but it does offer an opportunity to get your kids moving around and burning some energy.

List Race

You will need an hourglass or an egg timer for this activity. Make a certain phonetic sound, and turn over the hourglass. Before all the sand in the hourglass falls, players say as many words as they can think of that begin with that sound. Whoever has the most words when time runs out wins.

Check out the FREE Ultimate Phonics Reading Quiz by clicking the image below.

Click image for FREE Phonics Test and more information