This is a game where a letter is chosen and among many toys, children have to sort out the ones starting with that letter. This activity practices phonemic awareness because they are working on the letter sound as they choose the correct toys. It works on phonics because they are using their knowledge of letters to choose toys correctly. And it works on vocabulary as they are sorting through many toys and learning new words.

Syllable Boxes

This activity has students putting each syllable of a word into its own box to break up the sounds of the word. This practices with phonemic awareness because students are separating sounds. It helps with phonics because students are practicing letter recognition. And it practices vocabulary because students are working with words, maybe even unfamiliar ones.

This is an activity where one phoneme in a series of words changes to make different words. This helps students’ fluency and comprehension because they are practicing sounding out words and they are realizing all the words that can be made with by changing a phoneme.

Silent Simon

This game is from Savvas Learning Company and is where the teacher silently displays an action word, and the students have to sound it out together and then do the action. This helps them practice fluency when reading and comprehension of what they are reading by doing the actions.

Practicing reading for thirty minutes a night helps all of these skills in students. Kids Konnect states “…a separate study involving almost 10 million students showed only those reading at least 15 minutes a day achieved accelerated reading gains. And those reading less were at risk of falling behind their peers.”. Even beyond reading skills, stories also help social emotional development, increase attention spans, reduces stress and more. Not only is practicing beneficial to building so many skills beyond just reading, but it is so important because students who don't risk falling behind. These benefits can be for young learners who are still being read to such as our preschoolers, and for our older learners who are practicing reading independently.

Fun phonics activities for kindergarten, first grade, and second grade. (n.d.) Savvas Learning Company. Retrieved April 16, 2024, from https://www.savvas.com/resource-request/50-free-phonics

Phonological and Phonemic Awareness. (n.d.). Reading Rockets. Retrieved April 16, 2024, from https://www.readingrockets.org/topics/phonological-and-phonemic-awareness  

Why Children Should Read 20 Minutes a Day and How This Impacts Your Kids’ Development – At Any Age. (n.d.). Kids Konnect. Retrieved April 16, 2024, form https://kidskonnect.com/articles/why-children-should-read-20-minutes-a-day-and-how-this-impacts-your-kids-development-at-any-age/