PHONICS ACTIVITIES FOR KIDS
Did you know that the easiest way to boost your child’s reading and writing skills is to incorporate phonics activities into their playtime?
When taught age-appropriately, starting with the simplest sounds and work your way up to the most complicated sounds, your child will have a better understanding of what they’re reading and writing about.
Introduce the basics of phonics while making learning fun and interactive. From letter recognition to blending sounds, these activities will lay a solid foundation for your child’s reading and writing skills.
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What is phonics?
Phonics is a way of teaching the relationship between the letters of a written language and the sound of a spoken language.
We, as adults, can read almost any written text without any phonological awareness, thanks to the billions of words we have read and heard in our lives. Now for us, it’s all about the application of that previous memory, which can be correct 99.9% of the time.
starting to read, that’s not the case. We cannot expect them to read and hear millions of words to learn a pattern.
Because phonics has made this so easy!
In order for children to learn to read, they must first understand the concept of alphabets.
There are 26 letters but 44 sounds, which means that letter A can be pronounced differently in several words. Those sounds are called phonemes, and they help us distinguish one word from another.
Letters are divided into two groups: vowels and consonants. Vowels are: a, e, i, o, u. Consonants are the rest: b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x, y and z.
Here are the tables where all letters and their pronunciations are represented.
Consonants
Vowels
You may get confused with the vowel table;
The second column is IPA symbol, which you can find in international phonics alphabet.
You can see that there is no exact rule for how each letter is pronounced in certain words, here are some examples to start. For instance, /a/ in walk is pronounced as /o/ etc.
Phonics activities for early childhood language development
1. LETTER RECOGNITION AND SOUND IDENTIFICATION
This is the very first step to learning phonics. Sound identification is something children may do as early as first year.
- You can sing or play an alphabet song
The ABC song is an all-time favourite that your child will love to sing with you. After a couple of days, you may notice that they also start joining in. That’s one of the easiest ways to teach them the alphabet. - Sing nursery rhymes
- Read simple stories
As they show more interest in sound recognition and letter recognition, you can introduce
- Alphabet puzzles and games
- Letter and sound matching activities
- Sing-along songs and rhymes
2. FLIP FLASH CARDS: COLLECT FLASH CARDS FOR ALL LETTERS OR MAKE OR WRITE YOUR OWN, FLIP THEM, AND HAVE KIDS GUESS
Before this activity, you can show flash cards one by one to have kids recognise the letters. To help them remember easily, always follow up with a familiar word, starting with that letter.
A for Apple.
I for Ice cream
K for Koala
3. HIDE FLASH CARDS
Use some other card or any sheet of paper to hide flash cards, reveal them bit by bit, and have kids guess. They like the excitement of this guessing game. That way, this activity will be more engaging and entertaining.
4. WHAT’S MISSING?
A memory game; display flash cards (ex. Use bluetack), introduce the commands ‘close your eyes’ and ‘open your eyes’; Take off the flash cards one by one and have the kids guess what is missing.
5. FILL IN
You can write letters in alphabetic order but omit some; have children fill in the gaps. Encourage them to sing an ABC song while pointing at the letter. It will help them find out what’s really missing.
6. BINGO
A for apple
B for boy
C for cinema
Continue with the rest of the letters; this is useful because kids can memorise examples for each letter.
7. ARRANGE FLASH CARDS IN ALPHABETIC ORDER
Display flash cards (more than one) for objects that refer to chosen letters or sounds, and write the words below. Write the chosen letters in different colours.
Have kids match flash cards and words. A great way to learn the starting letter of a word.
Try this interactive starting letter activity with your children
9. SAME STARTING LETTER
Let your kids make up words using the same letters or sounds. It’s a great phonic activity to build letter sounds.
10. SCAVENGER HUNT
Have kids find objects nearby with the same letter or sound.
11. SIGHT WORDS AND DECODING
The best way to help them remember and recognise such words is through flashcards.
- Flashcards for sight-word recognition
- Word building with magnetic letters
- Word family activities
Decoding is the ability to translate a written word into a spoken word. When the child sees the word “mat”, they should be able to read it out as /m/a/t/.
12. READING ALOUD AND PHONEMIC AWARENESS
Reading books helps with phonemic awareness a lot. You can read books aloud, giving emphasis on sounds and phonics, so that children find it easier to,
- Storytime with emphasis on sounds and phonics
- Listening to audiobooks and identifying sounds
- Guess the sound game
13. I SPY(PHONICS VERSION)
This good old game is an effective way of teaching phonics to kids. All you have to do is say, “I spy with my little eye. Something beginning with – (sound of the word) – /a/
OR
I spy with my little eye. Something that’s /r/e/d/
14. PHONICS DICE ROLL
This is an ideal activity for forming CVC words. (Consonant, Vowel, Consonant)
Find 3 wooden dice.
1st one for vowels.
2nd one for consonants.
3rd one for vowels again.
Roll them and try to make as many CVC words as possible.
Write them down.
15. PHONICS HOPSCOTCH
Learning in the backyard or playground.
Hopscotch with phonic sounds instead of numbers. Have your child say the phonics sound as they hop into each square.
16. PHONEME BLENDING AND SEGMENTING
Blending means blending the words together turning letter sounds into words. Ex: /b/a/t/ becomes bat.
Sound blending exercises
The best sound-blending exercises may not appear as exercises. As you go through the day, use letter sounds instead of words for your child to blend and find the meaning.
Ex: You say, Let’s /s/i/t/ down. Your child needs to blend the letter sounds into words.
Word segmentation games
We use segmentation when spelling a word. It’s the opposite of blending. When we need to spell the word “bat” we use letter sounds for kids to recognise.
We can use picture cards and ask kids to do segmentation.
Here we see that blending and segmenting both do the same thing. They strengthen a child’s ability to convert letter sounds to words and words to letter sounds.
As they get familiar with blending and segmenting, children find it easier to start reading and writing.
Phonics Activities For Groups
17. CHINESE WHISPER
Practice more targeted letters with Chinese whisper.
18. USE A BLINDFOLD AND A BAG
Put some objects that refer to the targeted letters; have kids pick up and guess the letters.
19. WRITE ON BACK
Write letters on kids backs with their fingers; kids write chosen letters on each other’s backs and guess
20. THROW A BALL.
Have kids stand in a circle, throw a ball and say words with the same letter or sound.
Benefits of Phonics Activities
Enhances reading and writing skills
Phonics will help your child learn spelling easily.
When they learn the connection between the letter sound and the appropriate sound, it helps them read any complex word correctly.
Improves vocabulary and comprehension
As they get familiar with phonics, new words don’t scare them any more.
They will learn new words faster and learn to use them in their writing as they don’t need to worry about how to spell them.
It will help with their comprehension too.
Boosts confidence and self-expression
As they come up with new and complex words children know how to tackle them with an understanding of phonics.
They will read and spell them with confidence even though they have never seen those words before.
Phonological awareness paves the way for self-expression in this way.
Integrating phonics activities into the daily routine
Suggestions for incorporating phonics activities at home and in the classroom
- Phonics activities need to be fun and entertaining. Just teaching them in a formal way is not going to help young kids.
- Teaching aids like flash cards and toys can be used to make it more engaging.
- Phonics activities need to be short yet consistent. Learning a few sounds every day is going to be more effective than teaching them all in one day.
The best way to incorporate phonics into your child’s day is in three ways: PLAY, SING and READ!!.
Play– As they play, you can make intentional remarks stressing certain words to make it understandable to your kid.
I see you’ve got a BLUE car.
The dinosaur is STANDING in front of the volcano.
Little Arlo is drawing a BEAUTIFUL picture.
Sing– Sing an alphabet song to them.
Sing nursery rhymes with simple words, rhymes, alliteration.
Read– Read stories stressing on words.
Change your voice and tone to match the emotion or feeling depicted.
Wrap up
Phonics activities are super helpful in early childhood language development. Not to mention how fun and entertaining they can be if we provide them with the correct learning aids.
I hope you all got some tips to help with your child’s language learning with these fun and simple phonics activities.
Share your favourite phonics activities with us!
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