Games

Visual and Auditory Alphabet Games

Visual Alphabet Games

Visual alphabetic skills are a learner’s ability to accurately identify and name a letter. Paired with auditory alphabetic instruction, students will name a letter with its sound accurately.

Visual alphabetic games are a fun way to help students develop letter identification and naming skills!

Teaching your students to identify letters of the alphabet in a variety of ways supports early literacy skills for reading, handwriting and spelling. Including visual alphabetic practice in lessons for students grade 3 into adolescence will support letter identification to mastery for specific visual and auditory patterns identified by skill assessments.

Visual alphabetic games can easily be included in your structured literacy lesson for decoding and played whole group or in a 1:1 setting. These visual games are designed for phonetically regular word instruction. Plan to dedicate 5-7 minutes to each game.

Within the structured literacy lesson, a visual alphabetic game is ideally included:

• as the first component of the lesson, immediately before handwriting
• immediately following phonemic awareness in advance of a phonogram drill
• as word work in advance of phrase or sentence reading

A visual alphabetic game can also be taught whole group then included as an engaging center or literacy learning activity in a workshop model in the early elementary grades.

Teacher Tips

• Print game cards front to back on cardstock then cut out to create a card deck handy for your instruction
• Hole punch each card once in the upper left corner and loop a book ring through the holes for storage and quick access during your lesson
• To scaffold, require student to provide key word that has been taught to match the letter or pattern sound. (example /a/ apple, /ar/ car, dollar)
• Use red magnet letters for vowels and blue magnet letters for consonants
• Use Orton-Gillingham alphabet cards (vowel cards – salmon color, consonants – white) or kinesthetic letter formation cards (vowels – red, consonants – blue) 
• Teacher writes vowels in red ink and consonants in blue ink.
• Phrases of the alphabet begin and end with the cadence of how we have learned to say/sing and read the letters a through z. These are: 
  • phrase 1: a, b, c, d, e, f, g    
  • phrase 2: h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p
  • phrase 3: qu, r, s, t, u, v       
  • phrase 4: w, x, y, z
• Decoding refers to reading
• All alphabet letters used visually, and produced in writing by Teacher or Student are lowercase 
• Individualize each game to match students’ skill sets, and unique learning needs
• Help your students learn through play within a structured lesson & have some fun!!

Set up and Switch!

This is a kinesthetic visual alphabet game that can be played on a flat surface between instructor and student or between students. Play this game in alphabetical order or reverse only or phrase by phrase.

Student: sets up the letters, re-reads and corrects any errors, including letter alignment on/below the “line”
Teacher: asks student to look away or cover their eyes while T makes three letter switches. If student is working on visual formation, turning a letter askew is ideal.
Student: identifies, corrects errors. Teacher & Student switch roles. Play three rounds.

I’m Thinking of a Letter That…

This is a game that supports orthographic mapping of the letters. Play the game in alphabetical order or reverse, or with a group of particular letters for review. To scaffold, offer up to three visual cues and an auditory cue.

Student: sets up the letters, re-reads and corrects any errors, including letter alignment on/below the “line”
Teacher: I’m thinking of a letter that…
-is a consonant, follows the letter o, is blue and makes the sound /p/
Always offer an auditory letter sound.
Reduce the number of visual cues as student gains mapping skills.

Write These Letters

This is multisensory game visual game that includes handwriting. Play the game in alphabetical order or reverse, or with a group of particular letter sounds for review.

Student: sets up the letters, re-reads and corrects any errors, including letter alignment on/below the “line”
Teacher: Write all of the letters that begin at the skyline

• that begin like the letter c
• the vowels
• that are between h and p
• that make the sound /nd/ after a vowel
• scaffold handwriting – ask student to pull all of the said letters from the alphabet line and trace each with two fingers before writing

Find the Letter in the Word

This is a game that supports orthographic mapping of the letters in words. Play the game in alphabetical order or reverse, or with a group of particular words for review. To scaffold, pull letters to preview the onset or RIME.

Student sets up the letters, re-reads and corrects any errors, including letter alignment on/below the “line”
Teacher: find the first letter in mom, /m/ /o/ /m/
Student finds the letter, gives name and sound
Teacher: spell the word mom using letters in the alphabet
Teacher: write the letters in the word mom

• always offer an auditory letter sound to student
• student writes word in a notebook, trace the letters or write with two fingers in the surface

Fill in the Blanks

This is a game that supports orthographic mapping of the letters & visual spatial skills. Do not play the game in alphabetical order. To scaffold, use an Alphabet Ark mat with mapped letter spaces.

Teacher gives student a letter or set of letters in sequence that is neither the first or last in the alphabet, such as the letters l,m,n or r
Student says letters of the alphabet while touching surface area for each letter and places k where they think it belongs
Teacher gives student another set of letters or letter and this continues until student has created complete alphabet

• always offer an auditory letter sound to student
• reduce or increase the number of sequenced letter groups
• provide voiced and unvoiced pairs to student together for accurate placement

Alphabet Cover Up

This is a game that supports orthographic mapping of the letters and handwriting. Play the game in alphabetical order.

Student sets up the letters, re-reads and corrects any errors, including letter alignment on/below the “line”
Teacher asks student to look away, and uses sticky notes or binder-style folded cardstock to cover series of letters or a letter
Student looks at the covered section, writes covered letters in a notebook, removes cover-up, checks their work for correction

Would You Like a Letter that Makes the Sound…

This is a game that supports auditory and visual letter identification. It can be played in alphabetical order or random to complete the alphabet. Begin with a clear surface to place all 26 letters as the game continues. Can be individualized to address specific letter confusions
Teacher: would you like to begin with a vowel or consonant?
Student: chooses vowel. T: would you like an /a/ or /o/
Teacher: would you like a /b/ or /d/ next
Game is over when student reads letter name/sound, makes corrections
*scaffold by offering voiced/unvoiced pair choices

Auditory Alphabet Games

Auditory alphabetic games are a fun way to help students develop letter sound correspondence skills!

Teaching your students to tune their ear to letter sound differentiation supports early encoding skills in emergent readers. Including auditory alphabetic practice in lessons for students grade 3 into adolescence will support letter-sound correspondence to mastery for specific letter sounds and patterns identified by skill assessments.

Auditory alphabetic games can easily be included in your structured literacy lesson for encoding and played whole group or in a 1:1 setting. These auditory games are designed for phonetically regular word instruction. Plan to dedicate 3-5 minutes to each game.

Within the structured literacy lesson, an auditory alphabetic game is ideally included:

immediately following handwriting in advance of phonemic awareness
immediately before the auditory drill in advance of syllable or word spelling

An auditory alphabetic game can also be included as an engaging stand-alone learning activity during transitions

An interactive way to practice letter sounds. Created to provide students with multisensory practice of letter and letter pattern sounds that have been taught.

Teaching Tips

• Print game cards front to back on cardstock then cut out to create a card deck handy for your instruction
• Hole punch each card once in the upper left corner and loop a book ring through the holes for storage and quick access during your lesson
• To scaffold, require student to provide key word that has been taught to match the letter or pattern sound. (ex. /a/ apple, /ar/ car, dollar)
• Phrases of the alphabet begin and end with the cadence of how we have learned to say/sing and read the letters a through z. These are: 
  • phrase 1: a, b, c, d, e, f, g    
  • phrase 2: h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p
  • phrase 3: qu, r, s, t, u, v       
  • phrase 4: w, x, y, z
• Encoding refers to spelling
• All alphabet letters used visually, and produced in writing by T or S are lowercase 
• Individualize each game to match students’ skill sets, and unique learning needs
• Help your students learn through play within a structured lesson & have some fun!!

Letter Sound Toss

This is a kinesthetic auditory game that can be played between instructor and student or between students. Play this game in alphabetical order or reverse only.

Teacher tosses a bean bag (ball, beanie baby, etc.) to student
Student catches the object and produces letter sound
Student returns the toss to T, producing the next letter sound in sequence

Give Me An “a”

This is a call and response auditory game. Play the game in alphabetical order or reverse, or with a group of particular letter sounds for review.

Teacher: Give me an “a”! with arm pump cheer
Student: /a/ with arm pump cheer

Collect Them All

This is mulstisensory game auditory game.
Place the exact number of small objects – gems, chips, etc – for each sound between T and S. Play this game in alphabetical order or reverse, or with a group of particular sounds for review.
Teacher: “a” T: “bl” Teacher: “ar”
Student: /a/ Student: /bl/ S: /ar/, /er/, /or/

Student takes an object from the collection for each accurate sound, Teacher takes object for incorrect response. Teacher records error. At the end of the game, Teacher reviews error and Student has opportunity to add the missed object to their collection.

I’m Thinking of a Sound

This is a mental mapping auditory game using keywords. Play the game in alphabetical order or reverse, or with a group of particular letter sounds for review. Here are three versions that can be adapted to focus on patterns for practice in sequence.

Teacher: I’m thinking of a sound that begins the word apple
Student: /a/ – a, apple, /a/
Teacher: I’m thinking of a consonant blend sound that ends the word next
Student: /ks-t/ – xt, next, /ks-t/
Teacher: I’m thinking of a vowel sound in the word pine
Student: /i/ – i-e, pine, /i/

Alphabet Letter Sound Song

This is an auditory letter sing-along learning activity.
T and S join together to sing the sounds of the alphabet to the tune of the traditional ABC song. This game is an ideal follow up or introduction to reading and writing the letters within a phrase of focus for the lesson, depending on individual student needs.

Alphabet Phrases

This is an auditory game providing students practice producing letter sounds within one of the four phrases of the alphabet rather than all 26 letter at one time. Play the game in alphabetical order or reverse within each phrase. This game is an ideal follow up or introduction to reading and writing the letters within a phrase of focus for the lesson, depending on individual student needs.

Teacher: give the sounds of the letters in phrase 1 of the alphabet

Student: /a/ /b/ /c/ /d/ /e/ /f/ /g/