8 Fun Word Work Phonics Activities
Direct instruction is the most important part of phonics in your classroom, but most students need additional practice too! One way to make phonics practice more engaging is through hands-on word work activities that keep your students focused and engaged. Let’s take a look at some of these activities and how you can use them in your elementary or special education classroom!
In this post, I’ll use “target words” to refer to words with the phonics element your students are currently working on. This post contains affiliate links.
Puzzles Most students love puzzles! Word/picture puzzles with their target words allow them to practice reading while having fun. You can find some pre-made puzzles, but I find they don’t always have words that are purely phonetic. The sets in my TPT shop target specific phonics skills and are fully decodable.
Magnetic Letters Students build their target words using magnetic letters on a magnetic board.
Word Sorts Students sort words or pictures according to their spelling or sound, and then record the words on a recording sheet. My Centers by Design Word Sorts provide word sorts for all the basic phonics skills!
File Folder Tasks Phonics file folders are like reusable, easy-to-store word sorts. I use my Centers by Design File Folders to give my students practice on their current phonics skill, and I sometimes mix in some older skills to give them some review!
5. Play Dough Stamping
Most students LOVE this activity! Students flatten out some play dough, and then use letter stamps to stamp out their target words. This one definitely requires firm instructions and modeling, as it can be very tempting for kids just to play with the play dough!
6. Adapted Books Adapted books are a fun way for students to practice recognizing phonetic sounds. My Centers by Design Adapted Books Bundle has a book for each basic phonics skill!
7. Clip Cards
I don’t know why, but most kids seem to love clothespins! Students can practice reading their target words with these Centers by Design Phonics Clip Cards.
8. Rainbow Words
Provide students with a rainbow template and have them write their target words in a different color for each stripe of the rainbow. I often use this activity for sight words, but it works for phonetic words as well. Sign up below to get a FREE rainbow words sheet!
Hands-on activities help make learning fun for everyone involved! With these engaging activities for phonics instruction, you can provide your students with an enjoyable way to practice reading and spelling while reinforcing important concepts such as letter recognition, sound/spelling patterns, and phonemic awareness skills. If you want to learn how I structured these activities into centers for my resource classroom, check out my detailed post here.
Save yourself time by grabbing the Centers by Design Bundle– you’ll get puzzles, file folder tasks, adapted books, word sorts, and clip cards for all common phonics skills!
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