You know your students need explicit phonics instruction. You’re determined to keep them engaged and not sacrifice rigor … but also, you’re tired. It’s time to look for shortcuts, not ones that shortchange students or skimp on quality, but ones that save you time.
Imagine having activities for teaching phonics done for you. At your fingertips ready to print and use in your phonics or literacy center, with small groups, for homework or intervention or individual work. Was that a sigh of relief? I hope so.
How to use done for you activities for teaching phonics
The best thing about using done-for-you activities for teaching phonics is you just print and go. The only thing you miss is the stress and time spent thinking about and then creating phonics activities printables. I’ve created phoneme packs for 9 different phonemes to save you time. Each contains a variety of activities, games, and other resources that you can use multiple ways. Here are a few ideas.
Create a sound wall
Use the posters and word cards to create a sound wall. Then use your sound wall as part of your explicit phonics instruction. Refer to it regularly so that students become used to using them in their daily practice. Sound walls are great for clapping or chanting games, guessing games, or playing “what do these words have in common.”
Word of the week
On Monday, introduce the Word of the Week. Throughout the week, give students opportunities to explore the word with different activities on their Word of the Week worksheet.
Morning work made easy
Do you need quick activities to engage students first thing each day? Phonics activities printables make it easy. Choose the activity you want to print and pass out. Maybe one day students will match word to meaning and another they will draw a picture for each word. They could do a word sort or write their own sentences.
Get groups engaged with games
Some games like 4-in-a-Row are great for pairs. Use these in centers or pair students off for whole class learning time. Other times, you’ll want games that involve the whole class like phonics bingo. You can also engage small groups with games like Phonics Go Fish or Word Sound Memory.
Phoneme packs come with word cards. You can print multiples of the cards for use in games. Print four of each word to have students play Phonics Go Fish, which is played like the classic card game but with words. Print two of each card for Word Sound Memory, which is played like the classic card game Memory or Concentration, where players try to find matching words.
Cootie catchers in your centers
My students always get excited for cootie catchers, and they are useful for practicing so many different skills. Cootie catchers do require a little prep (after being printed, they need to be folded before getting used, but students are usually quick at putting them together). This is a fun activity to put in a phonics center. Students can work in pairs and take turns operating the cootie catcher and reading/recording words — or you can have students use cootie catchers on their own. There are directions for both.
Here’s your homework
Lots of activities for teaching phonics are perfect for phonics homework. Students can work on synonyms or antonyms, finish the sentence, or practice reading and writing each word, focusing on syllables and sounds.
These are just some of the ways to use the done for you activities for teaching phonics to make explicit phonics instruction easier. Mix and match how you use the activities … You can do a word sort as an individual phonics activity on a worksheet or you can do it as a group activity where students have word cards to put into the correct space on the board. Or send games or cootie catchers with students for homework (the kids probably won’t complain).
And you can mix and match phonics packs based on the phonemes you are covering or reviewing. Choose from these phoneme packs, each with its own mix of worksheets, games, word posters and cards, and other done for you activities to make teaching phonics easier and save you time:
- Phoneme /er/
- Phoneme /oy/
- Phoneme /ow/
- Phoneme /or/
- Phoneme /air/
- Phoneme /s/
- Phoneme /ar/
- Phoneme /n/
- Phoneme /j/
Get a sneak peek and see how much easier explicit phonics instruction can be with the Phoneme /er/ FREE Sample:
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