The Ultimate List of Engaging, Movement-Based Games for Phonics Learning
There are so many studies done that show the importance of adding movement to learning and how it increases blood flow to support cognitive learning. Another added benefit of incorporating movement into your phonics learning is that students don’t realize they are learning! They are having fun, being active and are much more likely to enjoy the process of learning how to read. Movement-based phonics games are a staple in my classroom and I’ve compiled a list of my favorite games for phonics learning!
I’ve also included as many video examples with these games so you can actually see them in action and how it would look in your classroom!
Active Segmentation and Blending Games
These active segmentation/blending slides will keep your littles active as they work on important phonics skills! These slides have a fun twist: they get your kids up and moving as they segment and blend sounds to read words! This is a perfect place to start as you can display them on your interactive board and run them whole group style with your kiddos.
I always set up three hula hoops and we go through each slide together calling up volunteers! The other students can write the word on their dry erase boards to stay accountable throughout the activity.
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Long Vowel & Vowel Team Cards
This activity is very similar to the active segmentation/blending slides but these will really help your students as you begin to introduce CVCe and vowel teams to them. There is movement with each sound and my students love all the fun “exercises” they get to do as they work to read the words.
Roll, Read, and Move
This game is an absolute blast for students to use either whole group or small group! They can work independently or in partnerships for this game! They simply roll the dice and move that many spaces on their board. If they land on a movement, they must perform that exercise as many times as their dice number. If they land on a CVC word, they must read the CVC word!
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Vowel Power Exercise
This “Vowel Power Exercise” phonics game is going to encourage your students to identify and master those tricky vowel sounds using MOVEMENT! This game offers a fun spin on ordinary vowel intensive activities as there are movements for each vowel sound! The teacher will simply read a word aloud, and the students have to identify which vowel sound they hear. Once they’ve done so, they can perform the movement that goes with that vowel sound.
For example, the short vowel sound /a/ may have the push up movement picture attached to it. So if the teacher reads the word “cat,” students will identify that the vowel power in this word is /a/ and then they will perform a push up!
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All of these games are included in my Phonics Game Literacy Pack. This pack has everything you need to start incorporating movement-based phonics games into your classroom today!
You can also check out my blog post all about hands-on CVC activities if you’re looking for more ways to incorporate movement into your classroom.
