Phonics is an essential ingredient of early education. Teaching phonics to preschoolers helps them become excellent readers and fluent speakers.
But do you know how to teach phonics to your child in a way that engages him better? If not, you’ve come to the right place. We came up with 9 fun activities to teach phonics to your child.
9 Fun Phonic Activities for Preschoolers
1. Practice Phonics
Before you introduce your kid to any phonic games activity, you should first make him know the sound of each letter. To do this, show the alphabet on paper/flashcards and say its phonic sound & focus on lip formations. For instance, put your finger on B and say “ba”. Put your finger on “G” and say “ga”. Do not speak the letters name as “kay” for K. This will confuse your kid in his phonic lessons.
To get good practice on phonic sounds, we recommend watching this video.
2. Hammer the Letter Sounds
This is a fun game for your child to raise phonics awareness. You can follow these steps.
-
Get the sticky notes or you can use the paper by cutting it into 8-10 small cards.
-
Next, you are going to write a bold letter on each card.
-
You can mix both vowels and consonants on the card.
-
Spread the cards on the surface.
-
Give your kid a fly swatter or kitchen utensil
-
Speak a letter sound like “Ba” for B and “Rrr” for R
Ask your child to smash on the letter card that matches the sound.
3. Storytime
Reading stories is an effective way of improving the phonics of your child. It encourages your kid to listen with proper attention & interest. Listening actively is what you’d need. By listening, your kid will learn the tone of language and the blending of words throughout the story. The sounds of frequent words will make your kid learn its phonics. Later in time, it will help your kid to read words easily that he already heard in stories. Other than that, reading stories has many benefits like improved memory to understanding the culture.
4. Match The Cups
Here’s another engaging phonic activity for 3-7 years old kids. The steps are as follows:
-
Take small paper cups.
-
Label the cups with the alphabet.
-
Ask your kid to place 3-4 cups in a line to make a word.
You can make a list of short & simple words. Speak it to your kid and ask him to arrange cups to make a word similar to the sound.
5. Speak The Rest
This is a great phonic activity for toddlers. It lets your toddler spark his memory with words. Pick an object, say its full name. Then again, say the word’s initial sound and make your kid speak the rest of the Syllable. For instance, show a water bottle to your kid, speak “Baw” and help him speak the rest of the word “tal”.
6. Rhyme with Me
A fun & free time activity to increase the bonding with your child. Here’s how you do it! Ask your kid to speak a word. If he says bat, you’d say cat. Then if he responds to that with ‘hat’, you say ‘rat’. Guide your kid to continue this rhyming game until you both run out of words to rhyme. The person who keeps saying a rhyming word until the other goes off will be the winner. Again, you can pick a new series of rhyme words. As this activity is untiring and engages your child for a long time.
7. Show The Picture & Last Syllable
This phonic activity is suitable for toddlers. Here’s how you do it. Show a picture of any object along with its last syllable written on a piece of paper. Like, show a cat picture with the “at” written on a paper. Start by writing the ending blends on cards like at, og, et, ain, un, etc. Then show a picture of an object with its last syllable.
ProTip: Learn with 100+ reusable phonics tiles that provided in our phonic kit.
If your kid is above 3 years old, then add a challenge to this activity. Hand your kid the blending cards you’ve made for this phonic activity. Show the picture of a thing like Bat and ask him to give you the right ending blend for it. If he gives “at” for the Bat picture.
8. Introduce the list of word families
A word family is a group of words that share a common root with different prefixes or suffix. Take this example from the image here, you will find common roots with different prefixes.
Introducing such lists to your child instructs him how a large group of words sound similar with little difference. Thus, reading such rhyming words to your child will enhance his spelling skills and widen his ability to pronounce new words.
9. Blending Card Game
Blending words is a fun way to get your kid familiar with the word family. You can follow these steps to engage your kid in this phonic activity.
-
Cut a paper/sheet into small rectangles. Prefer colored sheets.
-
First, write a few alphabets on those carved pieces of paper/sheet. You must use dark colors.
-
Then, write as many blends as possible on the remaining pieces of paper. You can use this source to get a list of blending syllables. (off-site link)
-
Mix all those blends together
-
Then, line up the alphabets on the surface
-
Ask your child to place an ending blend after each letter to make a meaningful word.
Phonics should be Fun
You heard it right! This is the best way you can get your kid to spend more time learning phonics. You should adapt to fun activities that don’t bore your kid. If your kid doesn’t seem to enjoy an activity, get another activity for him.
Phonic is easy. But to make learning interactive, useful resources should be readily available. And that too must be made in a way to reach the maximum attention of your child.
Do not fret, you can count on ClassMonitor’s Phonic Kit. As over 1,33,542+ parents believe, our phonic kit offers the best fun activities for their kids. Our activities seize your kid’s attention, which includes diverse learning materials like the ones below.
- Phonics Flashcards
- Worksheet to learn blends and word families
- 50+ Fun stories to engage your child in phonic activities
- Phonic board games to revise the concepts in a fun way
- Posters and charts help learn new concepts
- Phonetic Tiles for your child to practice word building and blends
Gift your child the joy of learning phonics with ClassMonitor Today!
