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 and how to play it. It may be that we have played the game at some point in our lives ourselves, or it may be that we have simply seen others play it and learnt that way – the rules are that easy to pick-up. One thing however that many people are not aware of, is that bingo can be adapted for use in schools and education, and these modified variants of the game, can be useful classroom tool.
The beauty of bingo in the classroom is that it provides an interesting and stimulating activity for students, but can easily be adapted for teaching almost any subject, whether that be reading, English, math, a foreign language such as French, German, Italian or Spanish, or almost anything else.
Although in some cases it may be necessary for the teacher to vary the rules of the game slightly, the main change in educational versions of bingo is the content of the bingo cards. In the traditional game of bingo, the bingo cards are printed with numbers, however in classroom versions of the game, the cards are instead printed with items of the teachers choice – these can be words, phrases, math problems or anything else that the teacher chooses.
Using these custom bingo cards, the game is then played. In an introductory level reading class, students may simply be required to find the matching item when a word is called out by the teacher. However, in a math class, the students may be required to correctly solve the problems in a square in order to mark it off, and in a language class, the cards might be printed with words in French or Spanish, and the students might be required to find the matching word when the teacher makes bingo calls in English.
By: Sunil Tanna
Most people are familiar with the game of bingo – it’s a wonderful game that can be enjoyed by young and old, and is very popular with church and community groups. But did you know that bingo can also be important educational tool? An increasing number of teachers, have found that bingo is ideal for classroom use. This is because the game is easy to learn, highly adaptable, doesn’t require expensive materials, and most important, is a lot fun.
In the traditional game of bingo, players are of course each given a card containing a 5 by 5 grid of numbers, and check off squares on their cards when the bingo caller calls out the corresponding number. Depending on which version of the rules you prefer, the objective is for a player either to get a line of five items checked off, or to check off every item on their card. The winner of the game is the first person who checks off their items and shouts out “Bingo!”
In educational variants, the basic game is exactly the same, but there are usually some differences in detail. The first and most important modification is that instead of using bingo cards containing numbers, you use bingo cards containing whatever is the subject of the lesson. If the subject was English, you might use words from the spelling test, if the subject was geography you might use names of countries, states or cities, and in a religious or bible study class, you would use items related to theme of the class, for example, books of the Old or New Testament, names of the people in biblical stories, saints’ names, etc. And, don’t forget, you can also play themed versions of bingo to celebrate particular times of year like Christmas or Easter too!
As well as changing the bingo cards, some teachers also like to vary the game play. If you want to make the game into a kind of test, you can require the person claiming “Bingo!” to describe each of the items that they have marked off on their bingo cards – in other words, they can’t claim (for example) “Noah” as part of their winning line, unless they know a little bit of Noah’s story (including of course his building of the ark). Alternatively, if you prefer not to make the game into a test, you could for example have a class discussion after item is called out, or ask for a volunteer to explain the particular bible story or character, etc. Really, your imagination is the limit.
Of course, in order to play these variants of bingo, you will need specially themed bingo cards. In the bad old days, you would have to had to send off for them to a specialist publisher – which could be kind of expensive, even for just one set of bingo cards. Modern technology has however made this part much easier – you can simply print the bingo cards from your computer: Easy-to-use and affordable bingo card maker software makes it straightforward to print bingo cards on any theme that you like, in unlimited quantities.
By: Sunil Tanna
