Spelfabet

Spelling games – final consonant blends

0 Replies

I’ve just added two new, simple four-sound word-building games to this website’s shop.

They each take 12 minutes to print and assemble (I just timed myself) and cost $5.

These games allow learners to practise blending consonant sounds at word endings.

One of them practises building words with “-ed” endings like “packed”, “hummed” and “missed”.

The other practises a range of other final consonant combinations.

Unlike many commercially-available spelling games, they are based on synthetic phonics principles, and contain strong, clear patterns and accurate information about sound-letter relationships.

You need

• Access to a printer.
• Access to a laminator (optional, to make the pieces more durable).
• A pair of scissors.
• Nine sheets of A4coloured paper for each game – I’ve used pale yellow for one game and dark yellow for the other, so that if the pieces get dropped on the floor or mixed up with pieces from my other games, I know which game they belong to.
• Two A4 laminating pouches (optional, as above).
• An A4 ziplock pouch, or similar container for game storage. My local $2 shop sells these for 75c each.

Preparation

Download the games – the -ed endings one is here and the other final blends one is here.

Print them out on coloured paper, single-sided.

Laminate the last two pages if you can, and cut these up into single letter/spelling tiles.

If an older child with sharp scissor skills is willing to do the cutting-up for you, your own game preparation time should be under 5 minutes.

Put the printouts and tiles in the ziplock pouch till you’re ready to play, or just use a plastic sleeve and any small ziplock bag, such as a lunch bag.

How to play

Put the letter/spelling tiles into a bowl or cup in the middle of the table, where all players can reach them.

Give out one board to each player.

Say “ready, set, go”, and players take one letter/spelling tile from the centre and try to make words on their board with it. If they can’t use a tile, they return it to the centre container before taking another tile.

Help anybody who doesn’t know all the spellings by telling them what sound to say for each one.

The winner is the first person to complete their board by building 12 real words.

Below is a YouTube clip that shows you what the games look like and how to play them, in case all that wasn’t clear.

I hope you like them, and now I’m off to make Victorian Modern Cursive versions of both games, which I’ll also add to the shop.