The NLS has produced several documents, which provide
a range of practical approaches to developing pupils’
understanding of word and sentence level objectives.
The ideas in this booklet are in addition to the games and
activities outlined in the following NLS resources:
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Progression in Phonics
Early Literacy Support
Additional Literacy Support
Developing Early Writing
Grammar for Writing
The ideas have been pooled from the everyday practice of
teachers, Leading Literacy Teachers and consultants in
Medway.
These activities would work well during shared sessions
(don’t forget the plenary too) or could be used or adapted
as independent activities.
When selecting an activity think carefully about:
 Which activity will best suit the objective
 Resources you will need to prepare
 Which words/letters will be the most appropriate to
use (particularly when playing a game like
countdown, where you might find you are unable to
create words if you trust to the luck of the draw!)
 Whether using a game is the best method of meeting
the objective
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Phonics Link
Use letter flashcards, give out to children they then find
their partner and show cards, say the sound. Could be
played with: lower and upper case letters, different ways of
writing the long vowel sound, first and last phonemes of
words when teacher/another pupil shows a picture card.
Key Word Fan Game
Make up fans of key words and a ‘lucky dip’ bag of key
words. Pupils show the word on their fan when it is read
out. Variation could be to say a sentence using the key
words and pupils line up in turn (or work in their groups)
showing the next word in the sentence.
Odd One Out Game
Selection of words or phonemes, pupils pick the odd one
out and justify why.
Beat the Clock
(a kitchen timer in a fabric bag/alarm clock set to ring after
specified number of minutes)
Pass the clock around. Pupils have to think of a word with
a particular phonic feature/vocabulary alternative before
passing the clock on. This could be played as a team
game with two teams playing against each other. The
winning team is the first to complete a full circle.
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Four In A Row
Make a 5 x 5 grid with phonemes written in. Say a word,
pupils working in teams come up and cross off
phoneme/spelling pattern (e.g. middle phoneme in bird).
First team to get four in a row wins. Alternatives could be
to fill the grid with high frequency words, which pupils have
to read in order to secure the square.
Bingo
Can be played using words or phonemes.
See grid one in appendix for bingo games. If laminated
can be used for different phonemes.
Snap
Matching words or phonemes.
Pelmanism
Turn 2 cards, one point for direct match, two points for
finding same phoneme but different grapheme.
See playing cards in appendix.
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Dominoes
Make dominoes with word endings/suffixes followed by
word beginnings. Play according to usual domino rules.
Could be adapted to add prefixes instead. Good for
reinforcing doubling consonant before adding -ed or –ing,
or different spellings of plurals.
Blank grid in the appendix.
Whole Class Sorting Game
Find your family; give out pictures or words, pupils group
with others for same phoneme or same spelling,
depending on the game being played.
Sticky Game
Use velcro sticky tabs for the back of each part of the
word. Take out digraphs. Child fills in the missing part.
Give an envelope of words to self-check.
Word Maker
Write root words on individual cards. Add suffix and prefix
cards to make a new word.
Extend a Word
Start with a 2-letter word. Pupils add 1 phoneme at a time
or a prefix or suffix to make a longer word. Who can make
the most words? Who can make the longest word?
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Change the Tense
Pupils write three verbs on their whiteboards.
Teacher/pupil turns over game cards. Cards may say,
double a consonant, add –ed, add –ing, lose an e. Pupil
changes one word for each card. First one to change
tense of all their verbs wins.
See cards in appendix.
Structured Scrabble/ Crosswords
Using the grid provided, complete words focusing on
inserting the vowel phonemes. You might allocate
different points according to the vowel used – i.e. one
point for a short vowel, two for a long vowel phoneme.
The first child/group to reach ten is the winner. A rocket
could be used to record the progress of each team/player.
See rocket card in appendix, also scrabble grids.
Countdown
Play using prefixes, suffixes and root words on cards, plus
examples of words which would not work. This could also
be played using individual letters.
Group Quiz
Initially modelled in whole class session. Use phoneme
being taught e.g. ‘ir’ ‘er’ ‘ur’. Provide written sentences.
One child reads the sentence. Others in group chose from
their own three cards to show which grapheme was used.
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Differentiate: work in pairs; easier sentences or
phonemes; support with pictures.
Will also work with homophones etc.
Wordwheels/ Sliding game
Create wordwheels for cvc, cvcc words/using prefixes,
suffixes and root words and use these to build new words.
See example.
Slide the phoneme up and down and decide whether you
are creating words by inserting it. See example in
appendix.
Word flaps
Build words with a similar pattern i.e. ick, using a flip flap
approach, where pupils identify 3 or 4 words with that
spelling pattern, and create a flap book which can be
manipulated to show the correct spelling and the picture
which demonstrates the word. See example below.
br
Left flap has initial
Blend/phoneme
ick
ending on card
Picture flaps to
match to word.
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Mazes
Create a maze of phonemes – pupils move through the
maze, identifying words which contain that phoneme.
Phoneme jigsaws.
Four game cards with a picture and word in the middle
e.g. duck, surrounded by four sections to add four cards.
Sixteen cards turned face down (each card has a picture
and the noun with a blank for one letter), players turn over
the cards if they fit onto their board they keep the card.
Winner is the first one to complete their board. E.g. duck
board could be completed by sun, bun, cup, mug, so
matching the middle phoneme. Other game cards might
be: cat, peg, top.
Columns
Game cards of vowels and consonants, blends etc. Deal
out around players. First player makes a word using 2
cards e.g. cl ock. Next player changes the word e.g. add
an ‘i’ to make click, next player can either change word
again or make a completely new word. Winner is first one
to get rid of all their cards.
Lose a word
Compound sentence strips with a paper ring slider
attached. Pupil reads sentence and decides if they can
make it shorter by covering up a word.
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E.g. the cat loves cream and the cat likes fish.
Becomes
The cat loves cream and likes fish.
Remember to put in exceptions e.g.
The cat loves cream and the dog likes biscuits.
Parts of sentences
Identify parts of sentences, then match to technical term,
i.e. main clause, cards can be colour coded if necessary.
Can also be used for synonyms/ identifying word classes
within a sentence.
Sentence Jigsaws
Make up sentence jigsaws; pupils reorder words to make
a sentence.
Extension for more able: Turn the sentence into a question
by re-ordering verb and subject e.g.
The dog can bark.
Can the dog bark?
Could use different colours of card for different word
classes. Could have phrases and clauses to ‘drop in’ to
simple sentences to make them complex.
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Just a Reminder - Do you use these to engage all
pupils?
 Response cards – true and false/smileyfaces/yes,no
letters/words
 Postboxes/envelopes to sort phonemes/spellings
 Whiteboards (at different times in the lesson?)
 Sorting activities
 Phoneme/alphabet fans`
 Washing lines
 Phoneme frames
If you have any other games which you play – let us
know and we’ll add them to the list!
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Appendix
Bingo
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Appendix Phoneme snap and pelmanism, make four
copies and cut up. Use cards as appropriate.
a
f
k
p
u
z
oy
B c d e
G h i j
L m n o
Q r s t
V w x y
Ai ay ea oa
Ue ow ee ie
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igh Ou ir ur er
ar ch sh th ss
ff ck nd lp mp
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Appendix Domino cards.
Es
Ies
S
S
Es
Es
S
S
bab
house
cup
box
church
write
slip
walk
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S
S
es
ies
es
S
ies
es
egg
hiss
cherr
whizz
drink
berr
dish
fox
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Appendix Change the tense. Make 5 copies on card
Double a
consonant
Add
-ed
Lose
an -e
Add
-ing
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Appendix Scrabble grid
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Rocket game board
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Appendix – Word slider, cut along dotted line, make a strip
with a medial vowel on to slide up and down middle of
card. Blend and read, say if it is a word.
IN THIS EXAMPLE STRIP WOULD BE ‘o’
cl
dr
sh
ch
bl
tr
D
str
ck
p
p
mp
ck
t
ll
ll
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