Description

This revised game for two players aged 6 or 7 and up provides practice blending and manipulating sounds in one-syllable words, and learning their spellings. It is a little harder than the “short” vowels game but still easier than the original version.

The game contains the most common spellings used with four “long” vowels: “a…e” as in “make”, “i…e” as in “time”, “o…e” as in “note” and “u…” as in “June” or “cute”. There aren’t many one-syllable words with “e…e” as in “these”, so this spelling is not included.

Watch a video of how to play the game here:

Players must know the basic alphabet and have some knowledge of “split” vowel digraphs (sometimes called “Magic E” or “Bossy E”).

Players try to get rid of all their cards by firstly building words, and then changing their opponent’s words. Longer words (e.g. “plane” not just “lane” or “pane” use up more cards and are harder for one’s opponent to modify, but are also harder to build.

The game also provides opportunities to learn about how consonant sounds typically combine in English e.g. we often use “fr” and “sm” at word beginnings in English, but not “cw” or “pm”.

These cards are supplied as a downloadable pdf file (two A4 pages) which you print in colour on paper or light cardboard, laminate if you will be using the game a lot, and cut up (or ask kids to hone their scissor skills on it). Put an elastic band around it, and you have small, portable edutainment. Save it to your computer so any lost or worn out pieces are easily replaced, or you can make extra copies.

This game is part of a set of three, click here for the cheapest way to get all three.