Making phonics games

THe first one that comes to my mind is making syllable puzzles — taking 5 two syllable words and writing them in separate syllables on index card stock (I do it so it’s clear what’s a beginning and what’s an ending syllable). Toss ‘em in an envelope and have the kids sort ‘em into words and put them on a chart (first syllable/second syllable/ whole word). So a sample set with just short a and i would be
ad mit
rab bit
im pact
cab in
fran tic

THere’s a parents yahoo group (MSSLathome) and some of those moms have incredible imaginations and they’ve put their games online.

Sue,
How do I contact this parent group—MSSLathome—is there a web sits?
Thanks

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MSSLatHome/

It’s yahoo, so it’s obnoxious and you’ll get pop-up windows, etc.

I (temporarily, until we get a more appropriate placement) homeschool my dyslexic son.

I have made some phonics puzzles for him. I cut pictures out of old phonics work books (e.g. a picture of a kite) and wrote the corresponding word on a separate index card. I make about ten pairs of cards and pictures, mix then up on the floor, and my son needs to put the correct picture on the correct word.

A harder task is to use letter tiles and the pictures. Place a picture and several letter (or sound for teaching /sh/ or /ch/) tiles on the desk. The child needs to place the letter tiles in the correct order to spell the word. Make the games harder as the child learns by adding leter or sounds that don’t belong. For example, “ship” might have the picture of the ship and letter tiles with /sh/, /i/, /p/, /a/ and /ck/. The child needs to pick out the correct sounds as well as get the sounds in the correct order.

For teaching phonemic awareness, I have cut up phonics workbooks and pasted pictures on index cards. The child then sorts the pictures by initial consonant, middle vowel sound, etc.

I once had a special ed teacher tell me that the more “manipulatives” you use in reading, the easier it is for the kids to learn. Home made games have the advantage of being cheap to replace if the child gets frustrated and rips then up!

Hope this helps, Jody

My son’s tutor has cards the size of playing cards so you can buy them as well as make them. She plays a game kind of like go fish where they each get a few cards and try to make words.

That is his favorite part of their session together he keeps score of who made the most words. After he makes some words with the cards he then has to write them on the dry erase board and repeat the word. Great excercise.

I made “Go Fish” cards but I included LMB’s vowel circle sounds as well as the usual vowels. Example: oi/oy is match, ou/ow is a match, er/ir is a match. I also included ai/ay, oa/oe, ee/ea. The kids love this game. I put animal stickers on the cards. Do NOT use matching stickers for the matching vowel sounds though or they’ll just look to the picture for the match.

I also use a variety of prefix and suffix cards and let the child make up nonsense words using them. The fun part is when we make up vocab. to go with the nonsense words. Kids like to see how many syllables they can read and are more motivated to do this when it’s a nonsense word than when it’s a real word. I think it’s because they don’t feel afraid of a wrong answer even though I hold them to pronouncing it correctly based on the skills they’ve learned.

I bought about 120 or so wooden cubes and put the alphabet on
the blocks, with extra letters like /r/, /s/, /t/
lots of vowels, and then I added combinations /ea/, /ay/.

All the letter combinations were from reference sheet
that came with the Prolexia computer program.

The wooden cubes are all lined up on a wooden tray.

I would then ask my son to make the word
-play- with two blocks, or -joy- with two blocks
or -steel- with three blocks.

He really enjoys the game and likes sliding the blocks
around.

Anne