Phonics is a very popular method of teaching children to read and write. It is based on the idea that particular letters or groups of letters can be associated with a particular sound. Teachers use a variety of teaching techniques, and classroom activities to teach children these phonics rules – typical classroom activities include flash cards, reading and writing games, and group activities. One particular classroom activity that is especially suitable for teaching phonics is phonics bingo.
All versions of phonics bingo are based on the same general principle: Each child is given a bingo card or worksheet, the teacher or parent reads out words or clues as bingo calls, and the children mark off squares from their cards which correspond to the bingo calls. The winner is the first child to achieve a winning pattern (for example, a straight line of five marked off squares) on their bingo card and call out “bingo!”.
The most basic phonics bingo game is “phonemic awareness bingo”. In this case, the children’s bingo cards are printed with a random selection letters. The teacher calls out words, and children must try to identify the beginning sound of the letter, and find the matching square on their card. For example, if the teacher called out “apple”, the children would look for a bingo square containing the letter “a”.
As students progress, more advanced versions of phonics bingo can be introduced. In these, children have to recognize a word called out by the teacher on their card. Generally you might start with “CVC words” (words consisting of consonant, short vowel, then another consonant), and then gradually progress through more advanced phonics concepts, such as consonant and vowel digraphs, r-controlled vowel words, bossy E words, etc.
One additional variation that can be a lot of fun, and again is good practise for students learning to recognize word sounds, is rhyming bingo. In this version, the teacher calls out a word, and students look for rhymes on their bingo cards. For example, if the teacher called out “bat”, students could match a square which contain “cat”, “hat” or “mat”.
By: Sunil Tanna
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
