Kindergarten readiness skills include letter recognition, phonemic awareness, and phonics skills. If your child can already recognize letters and can hear and say letter sounds then you may be wondering what types of phonics activities you should be doing with him. The truth is that you don’t really need to do anything other than reading together every day, but if your child is ready to start reading playing phonics games can be both fun and motivating!
Walk the Word Phonics Game
One of our favorite ways to play with phonics is the Walk the Word game! Kids get to use their whole body to practice identifying and blending sounds together. Adding the gross motor aspect to it helps kids to internalize the process of sounding out a word.
How to Play Walk the Word
This game is simple to set up and easy to play! All you need is sidewalk chalk and a place to draw. Write easily decodable (sound-out-able), very large words on the concrete. Ask the child to start at the side you start reading at. Then have them step on each letter and say the sound. Prompt them or give them the sounds if needed (this is a game not a test) and have fun walking and reading the words!
This phonics game is fun and helps kids make the transition from saying the letters sounds to putting the letters together to form words. Making learning fun is the best way to help your child get ready for kindergarten!
Thank you to My Cute Graphics for the use of this superhero kids graphic.
This post is part of our Get Ready for K Through PLAY! series where a group of bloggers share weekly ideas that you can do to help get your child ready for kindergarten. Check out the Kindergarten book and literacy readiness activities shared by the other hosts:
20 Alphabet and Phonics Activities for Kids from Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas
Water Balloon Phonics from Mess for Less
Active Alphabet Activities from Toddler Approved
Learning Letters and Their Sounds from Mama Smiles
Chalk Letters from Rainy Day Mum
And catch up on my other Get Ready for K Through PLAY! posts: How to Read Aloud to Your Child, Math Activities for Kindergarten: Snack Time Practice, Teacher Says! Listening Game, Language Experience Story and 3 Independents Skills {You May Not Realize} Your Child Needs for Kindergarten.
Next week we’ll all be back sharing activities to develop skills needed for Kindergarten!
In the meantime be sure to follow our Get Ready for K Through PLAY! Pinterest Board for a huge collection of Kindergarten readiness activities!
What a great idea, Megan. I’m loving this whole series!
Thanks Lorie!!! Let’s chat about doing one together sometime!
What a great idea for kinesthetic learners! Thanks for sharing it.
Thanks Susan! It really helped my son “get it”!
I think this would be great for my wiggly kids! Thanks for sharing at Mom’s Library!
Thanks Ashley!
I agree that would be fun!
This is a great idea! Especially now spring is coming. We’d love to share this on our blog! Thank you. Dannie
I’m glad you can use it!
Helped my 43 y/o with sounds when speech therapy sent “homework” home, but can’t g
et through to a 4 y/o now. Need some help with the current sage of letter sounds and phonics that he will pay attention to. I want to help this youngster but don’t know exactly how
I’d say just worry about making time to read aloud to him is all you really need to worry about at this point! Reading is a process he has plenty of time to practice and learn before he needs to get it. You’re doing great!