Teachers of young children know the importance of phonics and spend a significant amount of time teaching these skills to their students. However, a strong foundation in phonics requires much more than just instruction. Students need a lot of meaningful practice to truly master and apply their phonics skills. Fortunately, practicing phonics does not need to be boring. There are so many fun ways to implement meaningful phonics practice in your classroom using manipulatives.
4 Fun Strategies for Practicing Phonics Skills
- Alphabet Tiles - When it comes to teaching phonics strategies, the office laminator is your best friend! All you need to do to prep is print, cut and laminate the letter tiles. There are multiple ways to practice phonics skills using these simple manipulatives. Students can practice sorting letters, matching them, and even using them to build words. You can practice one-on-one with students, in small groups, or even as part of stations. For a more detailed explanation of letter tiles, click here.
- Flashcards - Visuals are incredibly helpful when teaching any topic, and phonics is no exception! Flashcards make it super easy to incorporate visuals into your phonics instruction and practice. You can use them to teach phonics and then allow students to also use them to practice. Using flashcards to help your students associate letter sounds and phonics patterns with familiar images on flashcards will help them to quickly recognize and remember these connections. For a more detailed explanation of phonics flashcards, click here.
- Word Slide - Once your students have learned letters and phonics patterns, they are ready to learn to combine them to form simple words. While there are plenty of worksheets available for CVC words, using the “word slide” is a quick and easy strategy that can be used anywhere at any time. The “word slide” strategy technically works with all kinds of words, but it’s best for short words. For example, have your students stick out an arm and assign each letter of the word “cat” to a joint. When they tap their shoulder, they’ll say “c”. Next, they’ll touch their elbow and say “a”. Then, they’ll tap their wrist and say “t”. Once they’ve done that, they can start back up at their shoulder and “slide” down their arm to string the sounds together into the word “cat”. The “word slide” activity can be done as a whole class, in small groups, or as students are reading on their own.
- Searching for Patterns - Searching for patterns is an engaging strategy for teaching phonics and can be used with any set of words anywhere in your classroom. Whether up on the board, with magnets, tiles, or even on worksheets, students can be assigned specific sounds and have to find the associated letter sounds or phonics patterns in a sentence. This interactive strategy makes phonics practice more like a scavenger hunt and is especially fun for students!
Teaching phonics skills is a critical beginning component of developing strong readers. Providing students the opportunity to practice and apply their phonics skills frequently in a variety of ways helps them to develop a strong foundation in phonics and prepares them to learn more advanced literacy skills in the future. For phonics resources and printables that you can use in your classroom, click here. For specific worksheets on vowel teams, try here.
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