- Washington Union School District
- Literacy Skills Games
Myrick, Tracey
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Literacy Skills Games
Learn Letter Recognition, Sound Letter Correspondence, and Hearing Sounds within Words
Fishing Games:
You will need a magnet, string, and a stick in order to make a fishing pole. You will need paper to cut into fish. Index cards work well, but any paper will do. You will need staples or paperclips to attach to your fish so that the magnet will pick them up. Staples stapled near the mouth of the fish work really well. You may laminate the fish or use plastic packing tape on them in order to make them more durable. The laminate and tape also allow you to use wet erase or dry erase markers to write on the fish so that you can use them for different skill development. Otherwise you can make different sets of fish for each area to be practiced.
Letter Recognition:
Write letters onto the fish, one letter per fish. As your child catches a fish, s/he must give the correct name of the letter on the fish in order to keep the fish. Wrong answers have the fish tossed back into the pretend water. Take turns fishing and see who can catch the most fish. Remember, it's okay to catch more than one fish on the hook, but make sure you can name all the letters in order to keep all the fish.
Modification:
Use plastic tubs and have children sort the letter fish into capital and lowercase letters as they catch each fish.
Make it Easier or Harder:
- Make it easier with fewer letters choices for the fish (more than one fish can have the same letter)
- Make it harder with more letter choices for the fish
- Make it harder by giving both the letter name and the sound that letter makes in order to keep the fish.
Inital Sounds:
Place pictures on the fish (you may use the picture cards from the games below). As your child catches a fish, s/he must give the correct initial sound for the picture on the fish. Wrong answers have the fish tossed back into the pretend water. Take turns fishing and see who can catch the most fish. Remember, it's okay to catch more than one fish on the hook, but make sure you can give all the starting sounds for the pictures in order to keep all the fish.
Modification:
Use plastic tubs and have children sort the fish by same initial sounds.
Make it Easier or Harder:
- Make it easier by using fewer inital sounds
- Make it easier by offering a sound map or alphabet chart (with pictures) to help match sounds to letters
- Make it harder by saying the sound and the first letter for the picture.
- Make it harder by labeling tubs with lettters and having your child sort the fish inoto the correct tub for the starting letter of the picture.
Sight Words:
Write sight words on the fish. You may write the words you wish to practice. You may also use the sight word flashcards found under Reading Resources. More than one fish may have the same word. As your child catches a fish, s/he must give the correct word on that fish. Wrong answers have the fish tossed back into the pretend water. Take turns fishing and see who can catch the most fish. Remember, it's okay to catch more than one fish on the hook, but make sure you can read all the words on those fish in order to keep them all.
Make it Easier or Harder:
- To make it easier, use only a few sight words and include words that your child knows
- To make it harder, increase the number of sight words
CVC Words: (Consonant Vowel Consonant words for sounding out)
Write regular CVC words on the fish. Words such as: cat, dog, mom, dad, pot, pan, map, mop, pen, etc. These words should be easy to sound out. As your child catches a fish, s/he must sound out the word on that fish. Wrong answers have the fish tossed back into the pretend water. Take turns fishing and see who can catch the most fish. Remember, it's okay to catch more than one fish on the hook, but make sure you can sound out all the words in order to keep all the fish.
Make it Easier or Harder:
- To make it easier, include a picture of the word on the fish along with the word.
- To make it easier, include a list of words and pictures that your child can use as a reference.
- To make it harder, include words with silent e on the end and long vowels, such as: lake, cake, rake, tape, mole, pole, mile, bike, bite, game, duke, home, hope, rope, ride, kite
- To make it harder, include nonsense words to sound out: bav, maz, zop, pag, etc.
- To make it harder, include nonsense words with the long vowel and silent e: bame, sade, pode, duze, jupe, jeme
Letter and Picture Card Games
You will need the follow materials for these games. You may print these materials or create your own. The games should begin simple with only a few cards and can increase in difficulty as your child is ready to add more cards. Always begin with some letters that your child already knows in order to build confidence. (Please note that the picture cards also include sample words at the top to help identify additional words that begin with those same sounds.
Letter and Picture Cards: Y - Z
Letter and Sound: Name the letter and the sound it makes.
Place the cards face up on a table.
Starting with your child, have each person take turns picking a card. To keep the card, you have to say the name of the letter and the sound that it makes. A person keeps picking cards until s/he makes a mistake - then the next person goes. (Alternatively, you can rotate around having each person pick only one card to keep before the next person takes a turn.) Play continues until all the cards have been selected.
Making it Easier or Harder:
- To make it a bit easier, have an alphabet chart - teach your child to sing the ABC song and touch each corresponding letter on the alphabet chart. Once s/he gets to the unknown letter, the words in the song should tell the name of that letter as long as your child is touching the correct letter for each letter sung in the song.
- To make the sounds easier, have your child find the letter on the alphabet chart or sound map. Teach your child to say the name of the picture found with that letter and listen to the first sound in that word. That is the sound that the letter makes.
- For an additional challenge, turn the cards upside down
Sounds in Words:
Lay all the cards facing up on the table.
Begin by saying a word and having your child pick the letter on the table that makes the same first sound as the word that you said. For example, if you say “egg”, your child should pick “E” or “e”. If you say “giraffe” your child should pick “J” or “j” (notice that giraffe starts with the J sound.) Now have your child say a word and you pick the letter. Continue play until all letters have been picked.
Making it Easier or Harder:
- To make it easier, use a sound map or alphabet chart. Pick the picture on the chart as the word that you say and see if your child will use the chart to help figure out the letter. If using the alphabet chart, your child may need to sing the ABC song (touching each letter as it is sung) in order to figure out the name of the unknown letter.
- To make it easier, you may also pick another word and ask your child if that word starts with the same first sound as (pick two pictures from the sound map or alphabet chart - one of which is the correct). See if your child can match the initial sounds in order to figure out the letter.
- To make it easier, say a sound and have your child pick the letter that makes that sound. Then have your child say a sound and you pick the letter.
- To make it harder, say a word that has the sound in the middle or the end. For example, if you have the letters out: F, G, H, I, f, g, h, i you might give the word “elf” or “dog” and see if your child can pick the “F” or “f” for elf and “G” or “g” for dog. This is a tough challenge.
Beginning, Middle, End:
Set out 3 squares to represent the beginning, middle and end sounds in a word. Set out the alphabet letter cards face up that you will be using.
Say a word with 3 sounds (such as: cat, dog, hat, bat, log, cut, nut) Now, stretch the word out as you break apart the sounds. See if your child can find the first letter for the word. Find the last letter for the word, find the middle letter for the word. Once all the letters are on the mat (even if they are wrong or in the wrong order) point to each letter and say the sound it makes. You can have your child do this too. Now blend the sounds together, say them over and over getting closer and closer until it sounds like a word. Did they get it right? If not, try again. If so, try a new word. Take turns, have your child give you a word that rhymes with a word that you give to them (this way you don’t get your child giving you a word like giraffe or skittles). Now you place the letters on the mat and have your child blend the sounds to check if you got it right.
Make is Easier or Harder:
- Make it easier by giving some of the letters first (such as putting the middle letter on the mat before you begin. You can also offer a sound map or alphabet chart to help your child figure out what letter makes the sound. Finally, you can isolate the sound that your child is looking for and give two letter choices. Does d make the “duh” sound or does s make the “duh” sound?
- Make it harder by using the picture cards. Have your child pick a picture (you could even place the pictures upside down so the picture is a surprise) then figure out the letters for the mat. You can also increase the mats to include words with more sounds (this is really hard) For example, you might try 4 mats for the word “plate” (most kids will not do the silent e because you are doing sounds that they hear … so it would be p l a t) another word could be “clap”
Upper and Lowercase:
Lay out all the cards face up on the table.
Have your child make a match of the uppercase to the lowercase letter pairs. Continue taking turns until all the cards are matched up.
Make it Easier or Harder:
- Make it easier by decreasing the number of cards that your child has to pick from.
- Make it easier by only using the cards with pictures (so that your child can use the pictures to help match the cards.
- Make it harder by turning the cards over, and playing memory by matching the uppercase to the lowercase letters.
- Make it harder by increasing the number of cards to match
- Make it harder by giving a letter sound, having your child find the uppercase and lowercase letters that make that sound.
Modification:
Use all letter cards (ones with pictures drawn on the letters and ones without) for a given set of letters. Challenge your child to find all of a given letter (say the name of the letter) you can also give the sound of the letter instead of saying it’s name. Allow children to use the pictures to help figure out the letter that makes the sound as well as help with the matches.
Pick a Letter, Pick a Word:
Set out the letter cards face up. Have your child pick a letter and say a word that begins with the sound that that letter makes. (For example, the child picks up “d” and says “dog”). Take turns until all the letters are picked up.
Make it Easier or Harder:
- Make it easier by only having out letter cards that have pictures on them, then the child can pick the letter and name the picture.
- Make it easier by decreasing the number of cards that are out.
- Make it harder by turning over the letters so your child doesn’t know what will be picked.
- Make it harder by having one person pick a letter, and the other person has to give a word in order to keep that letter.
- Make it harder by adding more cards.
- Make it harder by having to give more words. For example, give at least 3 words. The child picks “d” and says “dog, door, duck”
- Make it harder by having your child give a word with the sound at the end of the word. This is really hard. For example, the child picks d and then says “sad,” “loud,” or “shed” (You can even increase the difficulty by giving more words for each letter.)
Blending Sounds:
Place all the cards face up. Have three pieces of paper (mats) that letters will be placed on.
Pick 3 letters and set them on the mats, one on each mat. Now say the sound for each letter. Ask your child to blend the sounds together to figure out the mystery word. Take turns, let your child place the letters on the mat and see if you can blend the sounds together.
Make it Easier or Harder:
- Make it easier by choosing familiar words such as mom or dad.
- Make it easier by beginning to blend the sounds for the child.
- Make it harder by choosing nonsense words.
- You can make it harder by using short phonetic spelling for some words, such as SKL for “school” or APL “apple”.
Picture Matching:
First, name the pictures to make sure that everyone agrees on what they are called. This also helps children hear the initial sounds in the name of the picture.
- Match pictures that have the same first sound. (Please note that the pictures for C and for K will be grouped together since they start with the same sound.)
- Sort all the pictures by the same first sound through matching.
Modification:
You can turn the pictures over and play memory - where the matches are two cards with the same first sound. Make sure you have even numbers of cards that begin with the same first sound.
Make it Easier or Harder:
- Make it easier with fewer pictures with different first sounds.
- Make it harder by having more pictures with different first sounds.
Picture to Letter Match:
Match the picture and letter cards. Use the first sound of the picture (please note that for the letter x you have to use the ending sound for the sound that x makes) and match it with the letter that makes that sound. Lay out all the cards face up and take turns making matches.
Alternatively you can turn them over and make it a memory game.
Make it Easier or Harder:
- Make it easier by using fewer cards and fewer different letters/different sound
- Make it easier by having a sound map or alphabet chart available that can help with matching pictures to the letters.
- Make it harder by matching lowercase, uppercase, and the picture (three cards for a match instead of two).
- Make it harder by using more cards and by having different letters and different sounds.