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 people are familiar with the game of bingo. Many of us probably think of it as a child’s game, or perhaps as a game played by older people at social events. However what many people are not aware of is that variations on the game of bingo have proven useful in an educational environment, and many teachers have found ways to make use of the game in their classrooms.
To recap the idea of the game that each player is given a card containing a grid of squares, and each square traditional contains a number. The umpire or bingo caller then calls out the number in a random order, and players have to check squares off their cards as the corresponding numbers are called out. The goal of the game is to be the first player to shout “Bingo!” or “House!” on achieving a win number of checked off squares (the winning criteria can be varied and need to be agreed before starting to play – typically, achieving a line or lines of consecutive checked off items is the criteria).
When using the game in the classroom, the game mechanics are, broadly speaking, unchanged (the teacher acts as the bingo caller, and the students are the players). However, what is changed is the items on the cards. Instead of using the bingo cards simply with numbers, they can be printed with words, phrases, mathematical puzzles or even musical symbols. The teacher can also vary the game play by instead of calling out the items on the cards, calling out clues that lead to the items – for example, in a French class, the teacher might call out words in English, and students have to find the corresponding French word printed on their bingo card.
Of course, applying bingo in a classroom in this way will require special bingo cards containing items of the teachers choice. This might sound daunting to any teachers considering the idea – preparing a lot of bingo cards by hand, or even with a word processor, could be a lot of work. Fortunately there is an easy solution – specialist bingo card software that can be used to print the cards – simply enter a list of items to appear on the cards, and the software can print as many bingo cards as you want.
By: Sunil Tanna
Educational bingo is increasingly popular as a classroom activity as more and more teachers are realizing that the game can easily be adapted to a variety of different lesson plans. Apart from the simple fact that students of all ages can enjoy the game, there are many other reasons by bingo is growing in popularity, not least the fact that it’s very inexpensive to play (important given the constraints that today’s teachers work under), but also the facts that game play mechanics can be modified to teaching pretty much any subject to any age range of students.
Bingo can play a role in teaching many different subjects, including math (the squares on bingo cards can be printed with math problems for which students must write in the answers rather than simply marking off squares), telling the time, geography, history, science, foreign languages, and yes, reading. In fact, bingo particularly excels in reading classes, and it is here that the game is most commonly encountered in schools.
In reading bingo, the game is played using the same basic game play mechanics as traditional bingo – the player’s (student’s) objective is to find a line of five matching items vertically, horizontally or diagonally as the items are announced by the bingo caller (teacher), however the bingo cards are printed with words instead of the usual numbers. These words can be sight words (words that students must learn to immediately recognize in order to achieve reading fluency), words that students are in the process of practicing this week, or they can be chosen specially in order to practice a variety of phonics games. Some examples of phonics games, include the teacher asking students to find rhymes, find a longer word that contains a shorter word or sound, find a word that the teacher reads out slowly (e.g. “fff-lll-aaa-p”) so that students must practice “blending” letters, and so on.
By: Sunil Tanna
