Phonics is a popular method of teaching children to read that is based around the child learning to connect sounds with letters or groups of letters. For example, the child would learn that the hard “k” sound is associated with the letters “c”, “k” or “ck”. To be fair, using phonics as a method of teaching reading has not been without controversy, particularly in the United States of America, at least since the mid 19th century, and especially since the reemergence of phonics in the 1950s.
Those teachers who do use phonics, generally use them in a variety of different classroom activities, not just when students are reading from books or writing. For example, phonics and phonics-based skills can be incorporated into many different classroom activities and educational games, including, for example, bingo.
Phonics bingo is played like the traditional game of bingo: Each player (student) is given a card containing a five by five grid of squares, and aims to mark of a line of items (horizontally, vertically or diagonally) in response to items called out by the bingo caller (teacher). The different however between phonics bingo and traditional bingo, is that the cards, instead of being printed with numbers, are printed with words appropriate to the subject of the lesson. Additionally, game play may be modified in a variety of different ways.
Some ideas for phonetics bingo include:
1. Partial word bingo – The teacher says something like “find the word with ‘pin’ in it”, in response to which the students would have to find “spin”.
2. Blending bingo – The teacher reads out a word slowly, for example “sss-nnn-aaa-p”, and the students must find the corresponding word.
3. Rhyming bingo – The teacher reads out a word, and students need to find the word that rhymes with it.
4. Silent E bingo – The teacher reads out a word like “pin” and asks what what word you would get by adding an E.
It should also be remembered that phonics is not a complete solution to learning reading. Students must also learn to recognize some common words which can not be sounded out (the most common list of such words is known as Dolch Sight Words). Many teachers also emphasize learning to sight read other common words (such as “is” or “it”) as this can improve reading fluency. Therefore as well as playing phonics bingo, you can also play sight word bingo in class.
By: Sunil Tanna
Most teachers are always looking for challenging and engaging things for their students to do in class. Activities that encourage participation in class discussions, are always especially welcome. Ideally classroom activities will be fun too – which is one reason why games are popular – although of course we must never forget that the purpose behind all these activities is to encourage and assist learning.
However being interesting and educational is not enough by itself. An activity must also suitable to be adapted for different lesson plans, different ages of students, and, of course, different school subjects. Furthermore, in today’s educational environment cost considerations must necessarily play a part: teachers are both unable and unwilling to spend money on expensive materials that can only be used rarely, or even just once.
One idea that is worth considering is bingo. The basic idea is to play the game using specially prepared bingo cards containing items related to the subject. For example, in a chemistry class you might use the names of elements, compounds or chemical processes. In a math class, you might use mathematical problems. In a geography class, you might use the names of countries, states, provinces, cities, rivers or mountains. And in a foreign language class, you could play bingo using words of French, German or Spanish vocabulary that students are learning.
The beauty of bingo is that you can adapt the game to almost any subject or age range of students. Additionally, you can play the game in a variety of different ways: you could play a “normal” game with the teacher as caller, you could have the teacher call out “clues” instead of the items on the cards, you could ask students to explain the items as they check them off from their bingo cards, or you could even have class discussions during the game after each item is called.
Bingo is also compatible with the cost restrictions that today’s teachers must work under: you can simply print the bingo cards from your computer rather than sending off for expensive supplies. There are two main ways to do that: either you can download ready-made free educational bingo printables from the Internet (available on a variety of subjects), or you can purchase inexpensive bingo card printing software (which will allow you to print bingo cards on any topic, whenever you want). Furthermore, if you find yourself playing bingo on a regular basis, you can even save on your printing costs – simply print once on to good quality paper or card, use the school’s laminator on these, and when you play in class, students can put counters over the squares on the bingo cards rather than writing on them.
By: Sunil Tanna
