Phonics Activities

Phonics is a FOUNDATIONAL LITERACY SKILL that focuses on the correspondence between letters (graphemes) and their sounds (phonemes). Through phonics practice online and in-class, with a mix of activities and instruction, students learn letter-sound relationships in order to successfully decode (read) and encode (spell) words. Try VocabularySpellingCity’s phonics games for kids today!

Fundamental reading skills, like PHONICS, PHONEMIC AWARENESS and FLUENCY, are typically taught in grades K-2. Phonics instruction ranges from teaching letter identification, letter-sound relationships, spelling patterns, and high frequency words to complicated vowel patterns, and multisyllabic words. We have designed our phonics words lists and games for kids to be grade level appropriate.

Everything on Phonics
Vowels	are letters (graphemes) that are not consonants
Diphthongs	are sounds formed by combining two vowels in a single syllable
Digraphs	are formed when two letters come together to create one sound
Consonant Blends	are a set of two or three consonant letters that when pronounced, retain their sound
Syllables	are phonological building blocks of words

Phonics Patterns

Although phonics plays a major role in the primary grades, increasingly complex phonetic patterns keep in-class and online activities for phonics practice relevant throughout elementary school and even into middle school. Students with strong phonological awareness are better able to understand words and their patterns, and how to apply this knowledge of letters and sounds to decode and encode increasingly complicated words. Our phonics word lists and phonics games for kids are here to help teachers improve students skills while making learning fun!

Students learn how to read and spell words through repeated instruction in phonics and spelling patterns. Online phonics practice games for kids can help increase retention of these skills in a fun, engaging way.

Vowels

Vowels are letters (graphemes) that are not consonants. Vowel sounds (phonemes) are produced when there is no closing of any part of the mouth or throat. Although there are five letters that represent vowels, there are 12 pure vowel sound and a total of 20 vowel sounds when factoring in diphthongs. One set of vowel sounds are short vowels. Short vowel sounds do not sound like their corresponding letter names, such as the “a” in “cat”. Another set of vowel sounds are long vowels, which are pronounced the same as their letter name. A vowel pattern that produces a long vowel is the silent “e” at an end of a word. For example the “a” in “tale” sounds like its letter name because of the silent “e” in the word.

Below are other short and long vowel patterns and phonics word lists.

Vowel Patterns Phonetic Word Lists
Vowel Pattern	Word Examples
Short “a”	fan, pan, man, mat, cat, rat
Short “e”	pen, ten, when, bet, let, jet
Short “i”	bit, pit, fit, fin, win, pin
Short “o”	pot, lot, dot, hop, shop, drop
Short “u”	fun, run, sun, bun, up, cup
Long “a”	fail, rain, pail, tale, whale, male
Long “e”	feet, sheep, keep, heat, meat, beat
Long “i”	cried, pie, flies, file, mile, pile
Long “o”	boat, coat, float, bone, cone, note
Long “u”	blue, clue, true, cute, cube, tube

Diphthongs

A diphthong, also known as a gliding vowel, is when one phoneme forms by combining two vowels in a single syllable. The sound begins as one vowel sound and moves towards another.

The most common diphthong spelling patterns in the English language are:

Diphthongs Lists
Diphthong	Word Examples
“oy”/ “oi”	boy, toy, joy, coin, joint, noise
“ow”/ “ou”	howl, plow, now, cloud, round, mouse

Digraphs

Digraphs are two letters that form a single phoneme (sound). Digraphs can be categorized as consonant digraphs or vowel digraphs. In a consonant digraph, a joint set of consonants form one sound, like “sh” in shark. Consonant digraphs can appear at the beginning of a word (initial consonant digraphs) or the end of a word (final consonant digraphs). A vowel digraph is when two vowels generate one sound, such as “ay” in away. Vowel digraphs can appear at the beginning, middle, or end of a word. Digraphs are a foundational element to master via phonics practice online with our grade level appropriate word lists and games for kids.

The following table features other consonant and vowel digraphs:

Digraphs Lists
Digraph	Consonant Digraph or Vowel Digraph	Word Examples
“ch”	Consonant Digraph	chose, chair, ouch, much
“sh”	Consonant Digraph	shout, she, wash, rash
“th”	Consonant Digraph	thing, thank, teeth, math
“ay”	Vowel Digraph	say, stay, play, pay
“ea”	Vowel Digraph	each, cheat, wheat, neat
“oa”	Vowel Digraph	oat, float, goat, cloak

Consonant Blends

Consonant blends are a set of two or three consonant letters that when pronounced retain their sound. Consonant blends, also known as consonant clusters, can be found at the beginning of a word (initial blends) or the end a word (final blends). An example of an initial consonant blend is “br” in the work “break.” An example of a final consonant blend is “st” in the word “list.”

Other initial and final consonant blends include:

Consonant Blends Lists
Blend	Initial or Final Consonant Blend	Word Examples
“bl-”	Initial Blend	blend, blind, blue
“cl-”	Initial Blend	climb, cloud, clue
“dr-”	Initial Blend	drama, drink, drive
“pl-”	Initial Blend	place, plan, play
“sm-”	Initial Blend	small, smell, smile
“-ct”	Final Blend	act, fact, project
“-lp”	Final Blend	gulp, help, scalp
“-mp”	Final Blend	camp, jump, stamp
“-nd”	Final Blend	and, band, land
“-rk”	Final Blend	bark, dark, park

Syllables

Syllables are single units of speech and always include a vowel (or vowel-like) sound. A syllable that ends in a vowel is an open syllable. In an open syllable, a long vowel sound is produced, like the first syllable in the word “paper” (pa-per). A syllable that ends in a consonant is a closed syllable. Closed syllables contain a short vowel sound, such as the first syllable in the word “idol” (i-dol).

Open and Closed Syllables Lists
Open First Syllable	apron (a-pron); bacon (ba-con); pilot (pi-lot); detail (de-tail)
Closed First Syllable	seven (sev-en); doctor (doc-tor); locket (lock-et); thunder (thun-der)

Words can be monosyllabic (containing one syllable) or multisyllabic (containing more than one syllable). Disyllabic words are made up of two syllables and trisyllabic words are made up of three syllables. Below are examples of monosyllabic, disyllabic, and trisyllabic words.

Monosyllabic, Disyllabic, and Trisyllabic Lists
Monosyllabic Words	cat; sun; act; bus; red; few; moon; week
Disyllabic Words	issue (is-sue); party (par-ty); tiger (ti-ger); women (wo-men); police (po-lice)
Trisyllabic Words	magical (ma-gi-cal); energy (e-ner-gy); visitor (vi-si-tor); popular (po-pu-lar)

Our popular game, SillyBulls, is a fun phonics practice game where students can master identifying how many syllables a word has.

Online Phonics Activities and Practice Games

Building solid phonics skills is essential for students’ future literacy success. Phonics instruction must start in kindergarten, progressing from simple to more complex phonetic patterns. Learners should be taught several strategies to decode words, such as using pictures; sounding the word out; looking for word chunks; and making connections to words they know. All these strategies can be found in our online phonics activities and practice games. Students should be instructed to tune into word parts and patterns while simultaneously thinking about the meaning of the words.

English Language Learners (ELLs) and emergent readers benefit from the support of seeing, hearing, and playing with letters and word segments as they learn to speak and read English. This Reading Skills Pyramid helps teachers and parents understand the developmental stages of phonics skills that impact reading and spelling.

The Pre-K through second grade developmental stages of phonics skills are detailed below.

Developmental Stages of Phonics Skills
Grade	Phonemic Awareness/Phonics
PreK	Learns the alphabet song Names ten letters of the alphabet Knows that words are made up of sounds Distinguishes separate sounds in words
Kindergarten	Names all upper and lowercase letters Knows the sounds of most letters Identifies words with the same beginning sounds Knows that letters in each word correspond to sounds Reads one syllable “CVC” words
First	Reads one syllable “CVC” words Knows words have a correct spelling Identifies syllables in words Blends sounds into words Changes sounds by adding, deleting, or substituting phonemes
Second	Reads words with one or two syllables Attempts larger words using phonics knowledge

Systematic instruction provided by the teacher and VocabularySpellingCity’s educational spelling and phonics practice online are a winning combination for all readers. Giving students more opportunities to play phonics games for kids with and manipulate words in a fun and engaging way will deepen their knowledge of how letters and sounds make words. Help your students master their phonics word lists with VocabularySpellingCity’s help today!