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Phonics Activities

There are many phonics activities that can be done to teach and strengthen reading skills.

Simple Reading Strategy

1. Use phonic word families to teach words in groups. These can include simply endings such as "bad", "sad", "had"; or more complex such as "sound", "round", "found."

2. Teach irregular or phonetically difficult words as sight words. When you come across words that are common but have difficult phonic rules, it works well to teach them as sight words. Tell the sudent what the word is. Teach them to spell it. Have the practice reading it.

3. Some sight words and phonics families are closely related. Many of the words in the dolch list (which is the most common sight word list used) are words that are also taught in beginning phonic lessons. When possible, teach sight words in groups. It may be hard to explain the "phonic rules" of "should", "would", and "could" to a first grader, thus they are often taught as sight words. But teach them together. It is easier to learn those three irregular words together than seperately.

Getting Started

Phonic Word Families: Prepare lists in a vertical order. Develop each list with about three to five words. Add more words in the family with time. (Ex. long, strong, song - belong and throng could be added later.

Sight: Make flash cards from index cards.

There are different games and phonics activities that can be done with your sight word cards and word family lists.

Word Games and Phonics Activities

1. Have your phonic word lists in a notebook, one list per page. Choose two different pages with different word families. Have the student roll a dice, and count down the words on the first page until they get to that number. Repeat with the second page. The student needs to think of a sentence with those two words. You can write the sentence together, letting the students write the words they have already learned.

2. Have a stack of sight-word cards. Use a timer and see how many they can read in three minutes. Review the ones that took longer.

3. Have the student choose five different word cards without looking at the words. Put them in alphabetical order (once this skill is introduced.)

4. Make a strip writing the alphabet vertically. Give the student the word family and have them find which letters will make a word.

5. Have a "spelling bee" and give the student a bead, block, or other tangible token for each word spelled correctly.

6. Play a variation of Mother-May-I. Have the student read through one list of phonic word families. If they get all the words correct, they get to take a giant step; starting at one wall and progressing towards the wall at the end of the room or hallway. Alternatively, if you have blocks on your kitchen tiles, they can step from block to block.

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