Phonics is the fundamental skill that enables children to read and write. It involves teaching children the sounds associated with each letter in the alphabet, and how these sounds can be blended and segmented to form words and read them. With strong phonics skills, children are able to decode words to improve reading fluency and spelling accuracy.

Here are some phonics games we can play with children to make learning phonics more fun and interactive:

Alphabet Hunt

This game helps children recognise and identify letters and their sounds. Hide letter cards around the room and let children ‘hunt’ for them. When they find a letter, they can say its name and sound. To make it more advanced, they can say words that start or end with that letter.

Phonics Hopscotch 

Children can practise letter and sound recognition while having some physical activity in this game. Draw a hopscotch board on the ground and write letters in each square. Call out the letter or sound and have children hop to that square.

Phonics Memory

Create matching cards with pairs of letters or with words that have the same beginning and ending sound. Read the letter sounds or words aloud with children. Then turn the cards upside down and mix them up. Children turn them over to look for matches.

Rhyming Time

This game helps children recognise and generate rhyming pairs. Choose a word and ask them to take turns coming up with words that rhyme with it. To help with their memory, children can write the words down while making note of the rhyming sounds, such as highlighting ‘-ack’ in ‘back’, ‘Jack’, ‘lack’ etc.

i-Learner’s Magic Phonics lessons accelerate your child’s reading progress by training your child to recognise letter sounds and read aloud words, helping them engage with and soon enjoy books. Contact us for more information on this course.