I’ve been seeing a lot in the teachers’ groups this year (especially first grade) that the kids are coming back to school not knowing their letters. This is of course due to the pandemic and that leaves the teachers scrambling to deal with an unusual situation. As a Special Education teacher, letters and sounds are what we sometimes spent huge chunks of time learning. To make things fun, we often played letters and sounds bingo. The kids loved it and it was an easy and great way (especially in small groups) to practice letter and sound recognition. So here are some fun letters and sounds bingo games, as well as some other letters and sounds activities, you might want to use with your new or struggling learners.
Why Use Bingo Games to Practice Letters and Sounds?
- It’s fun and the kids love to play. My kids would ASK to play. Do they ask to do a worksheet? Sometimes but not often. Anytime they ask to do something and it’s teaching them something, pay attention.
- It keeps them engaged.
- They have to listen and pay attention.
- They have to focus.
- It builds stamina to have to attend to one activity for that length of time.
- It teaches winning and losing.
- If you play in small groups you can keep an eye on your students’ cards and watch for errors and redirect therefore teaching them their letters and sounds as they play. ie. If you call out the letter “P” and they cover “Q” you can point to the letter Q and say, “That’s letter Q. See if you can find letter P.”
- Because we played in small groups, I always had my students read the letters/sounds on their cards to me before we started playing. It helped them to be more successful playing and it also gave them extra practice with letter or sound identification.
- If your students are weak or need assistance, you can review the calling cards before and after playing (like flashcards). You can also say and SHOW the letter during play to scaffold the players until they can identify the letters.
- The winner is asked to identify the letters or sounds on the winning row. You could double the prize if they read them all correctly or whatever is appropriate for your classroom.
BONUS: In these updated versions of bingo, I’ve added activities to increase student engagement which makes the game even more fun …. keeping the kids even more engaged! There are multiple little activities that take just a few seconds to complete and they’re all optional … leaving you the choice of which ones to use, or not. Along with Bingo Bucks that can be traded in for prizes of your choice. *all bingo games have not been updated*
LETTERS AND SOUNDS BINGO RESOURCES
APPLES LETTERS AND SOUNDS BINGO
WINTER LETTERS AND SOUNDS BINGO
Games for all themes and seasons! 🙂
ABC BINGO FOR GOOGLE SLIDES™ RESOURCES
Apples ABC Bingo for Google Slides™
Christmas ABC Bingo for Google Slides™
Winter ABC Bingo for Google Slides™
New Year’s ABC Bingo for Google Slides™
St Patrick’s Day ABC Bingo for Google Slides™
Valentine’s Day ABC Bingo for Google Slides™
Spring ABC Bingo for Google Slides™
Easter ABC Bingo for Google Slides™
Watermelon ABC Bingo for Google Slides™
Ocean ABC Bingo for Google Slides™
More Letters and Sounds Resources
As you can tell from all the resources and links, I love bingo games for teaching letters and sounds BUT there are also other games and activities that you might want to add to your toolbox as well. One of my very favorites that I used successfully for years with my students and I blogged about in the past (you can read that post HERE) is the I See game below. *There’s also a freebie on that page for stamping capital/lowercase letters.*
I See … Letter Recognition and Identification Search and Find
Jack and Jill Matching Cards Letters and Sounds
So if you’re one of those teachers struggling to teach your students letters and sounds, I hope this gives you some ideas and resources to help you along your way. That’s a lot of links and resources, but even if that’s not enough, my TpT store has even more letters and sounds resources you might want to see like the Color by Code Glyphs. So check out the Letters and Sounds Category.
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