50+ PreK and Kindergarten Phonics Activities for Young Readers
Reviewed by Dr. Nika Fabienke
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Phonics is the foundation of learning to read, and dedicating time to phonics activities with preschoolers and kindergarteners can lead to gains in literacy. Plus, hands-on activities provide a fun and engaging way to nurture phonics skills. This extensive collection of phonics activities for young children includes quiet paper-based practice, interactive online games, hands-on activities, and active learning ideas to get kids up and moving.
What is Phonics?
Phonics is the idea that every word can be broken down into individual sounds (phonemes) and each of those sounds can be represented by letters.
If you’re new to teaching reading and phonics, start here:
Tip: Some of these activities are more challenging for young learners. Pick and choose the ones that you think are best suited for your child or adjust the activity to meet your child’s learning level.
Active Phonics Activities
Need to burn off a little energy while you learn? These active games and ideas are great options!
Rhyme Time
You’ll need at least two people to play this one, but more is even better. Toss a ball to a player and say a word. When the player catches it, they have 5 seconds to name a word that rhymes with the starter word. Then they toss the ball to another player, and so on. Play continues until you run out of rhymes!
Frisbee Phonics
Use a dry erase marker to write a letter sound, blend, or vowel team on a Frisbee, then toss it to your child. When they catch it, they have to say a word that includes those sounds before tossing it back. Erase the letter sound and write in a new one, then toss it to your child again. Repeat as many times and with as many sounds as you like!
Walk the Word
Head outside and use sidewalk chalk to write words on the sidewalk, spacing out the letters so your child has to take a step in between. The first time, have your child walk slowly or even hop from one letter to the next, sounding each one out. The second time, they can walk across at a normal pace, blending the sounds together. Finally, let them finish up at a run, saying the word all at once.
Long or Short
This is such a fun, active way to practice short and long vowel sounds! When you call out a word, your child decides whether it has a short vowel sound or long vowel sound. If it’s short, they squat down to the floor. If it’s long, they stretch way up high. Exercise and learning, all in one!
Phonics Ball Toss
Blow up a beach ball and use a permanent marker to write letters, blends, or vowel teams all over it. Toss it to the first player and ask them to look at the letter under or closest to their right thumb. They have 10 seconds to come up with a word that includes that sound before tossing it on to another player.
Phonics Race
Play this one outside or in a room with plenty of open space. At one end, lay out letter cards, tiles, or magnets, while players line up at the other end. When you call out a phonics sound, players race to the far end and pick up the matching card/s, tile/s, or magnet/s. Then they try to be the first one back to the start. This gets especially fun when you use blends like spl-, which require kids to find multiple letters before they run back.
CVC Letter Hunt
Write vowels on sticky notes and hide them around the room. Then, write a CVC word on a dry erase board, leaving the vowel blank (e.g. C ____ R). Send your child out to find a vowel that makes a valid word and stick it in place. Repeat with other CVC words. Use our CVC word list for kids to help with this activity.
Flashlight Phonics
Here’s another one for sticky notes: write letters, blends, and vowel teams on sticky notes and place them around the room, on the walls and even the ceiling. Then, turn out the lights and equip your child with a flashlight. As they shine it around the room and highlight a sticky note, ask them to say a word using the phonics sound shown.
Phonics Fishing
Write phonics sounds on paper fish, then attach a paperclip to the mouth end of each. Tie a magnet to the end of a piece of string and hang it from a pole, then let your child “fish” for letters and use them to make words!
Stomp and Clap
This is a classic phonics activity to help students learn to break words into individual syllables. As they slowly say a word, they stomp or clap for each syllable they hear. It’s a little noisy, but kids really get into it! Try our list of one syllable and two syllable words to help with this activity.
Phonics Balloon Volley
Blow up a balloon and write a letter or phonics sound on it, like “T” or /sh/, then bat the balloon from one player to another. The catch is that each time you bop the balloon back into the air, you have to say a word that features the letter sound written on it. Kids need to be quick on their feet for this one!
Cup and Ball Pitch
Write word endings like -all or -ish on the outside of plastic cups and set them out on a table. Then, write beginning sounds on ping pong balls, and start tossing! If a player gets a ball into a cup and the two together form a valid word, they get two points. If your child accurately applies phonics rules to pronounce the word, they still get one point even if they come up with a nonsense word. They get a second point if they can think of a rhyming word that is a real world. If they can’t think of any words, it’s the next player’s turn.
Phonics Charades
This is like regular charades, but instead of writing words on the cards, write letter sounds. Players draw a card and choose their own word that features the sound, then try to act it out for everyone to guess.
Balloon Dance Party
Ready to make a little noise? Write letters and phonics sounds on small slips of paper and slide them into balloons. Blow up the balloons with the papers inside, then turn on some music and have a balloon dance party!
When the music stops, kids grab a balloon nearby and sit on it until it pops. They unfold the slip of paper and read the word, then say each separate sound in the word. They can also identify any special spelling they see (blend, vowel team, etc.). Turn the music back on and go again until all the balloons are gone.
Phonics Obstacle Course
Set up a backyard obstacle course–with a twist. On each obstacle, place a sticky note with a letter or phonics sound. As the player reaches each obstacle, they must pronounce the sound or name a word using it before they proceed on the course.
Online Phonics Games
Designed by curriculum experts, ABCmouse’s online learning games are designed to enhance your child’s learning journey. Below, you’ll find a sampling of ABCmouse games focused on building phonics skills. Learn how to incorporate phonics games like these into your practice sessions. Please note that many of these games require an ABCmouse subscription to play.
Zoo Alphabet Finder
Take a virtual trip to the zoo and identify the animals based on the first letters of their names.
Picture Picker: The Very Special Letters
Master long and short vowel sounds with this phonics game featuring pairs of pictures.
Carnival of Fun
Step right up to explore long and short A, E, I, O, and U. Learning vowel sounds is much more fun with a carnival theme!
Goldie’s C and G Sounds
Goldie the giraffe is here to help kids work on those challenging letters, C and G, and help kids practice with their hard and soft sounds.
Austin and Scout: Doors of Mystery
Open the mysterious doors to help Austin and Scout complete the three-letter CVC words.
Last Letter in Line
Ending sounds are just as important as those at the beginning and in the middle. Work on identifying word sounds by experimenting to form new words one by one.
Street Beat: Letter Blends
Stroll along a city street, selecting the correct letter blends to complete the missing words in the story.
Ride the Roller Coaster
Load up the roller coaster with kids by matching the pictures on their shirts with the letter blends on the coaster cars.
Garden Vowels
Plant a family vegetable garden by selecting the correct vowel teams to complete words in sentences.
Rhyming Words Memory Match
Flip pairs of cards to match up the rhyming words in this simple but engaging phonics game.
Learn Phonics with ABCmouse’s Reading Program
ABCmouse’s reading program is packed with hundreds of activities designed to help young children build foundational phonics skills. Through a personalized learning path, kids can progress at their own pace, making learning fun and engaging. Dive into the ABCmouse Reading Program and start your phonics journey sign up today!
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Printable Phonics Worksheets Activities
ABCmouse has lots of fantastic free printables for teaching phonics to kindergarten and preschool children! Here are some of our top picks.
Letter Coloring Pages
Get uppercase and lowercase letter outlines for children to color and use for phonics activities. Try filling in each one with a color that starts with the letter on the page (e.g. green for G, yellow for Y, etc.).
Hard and Soft C and G Sounds Worksheets
Practice those tricky C and G sounds with these coloring pages.
Tip: Use the back of the page to make lists of more words that use the hard and soft sounds of C and G.
Vowel Coloring Pages
Color the pictures showing the long and short sounds for each letter. Then, cut pictures out of magazines and add them to the pages to create vowel collages!
Short Vowel Sounds Phonics Worksheets
In addition to more coloring pages, children will find letter tracing activities and fill-in-the-blanks to complete CVC words using short vowel sounds.
Word Family Phonics Worksheets
Working on CVC words? These word family worksheets are perfect for practice. Once your child completes a worksheet, write a fun poem together using the rhyming words on it!
Syllable Phonics Worksheets
Learning to break words into individual syllables is a key part of spelling longer words. This collection of worksheets includes helpful phonics activities like syllable matching pictures, fill-in-the-blanks, and more.
Consonant Blends Phonics Worksheets
When you’re ready to tackle blends like tr- or pl-, try this set of printables. The color-by-word pictures are a fun and interactive way to learn!
Digraph Phonics Worksheets
When two letters combine to stand for one sound (such as /ch/ or /th/), it’s known as a digraph. Use the missing letter worksheets, search-and-find sheets, and word searches in this roundup to practice this more advanced skill.
Spelling Worksheets
This large collection of worksheets features a variety of phonics activities, including a word search and crossword puzzle that feature simple phonics concepts. Most of the activities in this collection are best for more advanced students who are familiar with letter blends.
Phonics Worksheet Roundup
Find all the free printable ABCmouse phonics worksheets here, with find-it pictures, missing words poems, word writing stories, and so much more!
Hands-on Phonics Activities
These real-world preschool and kindergarten phonics activities get kids involved and hold their interest to help the learning stick.
Letter/Sound Hunt
Grab some old magazines or newspapers, then ask your child to circle or highlight specific letters when they see them. For more advanced learners, ask them to find examples of specific blends or vowel team sounds, like /bl- or /ay/.
Phonics Story
Choose a sound or concept to work on, then take turns telling a story sentence by sentence using as many words with that sound as possible. For instance, if you’re working on long vowel sounds, you might start: “Today, I baked a nice cake for Mike.”
Phonics Bingo
Print some blank bingo boards, then fill them in with words that include a mix of the different phonics sounds you’re currently working on, such as chase for the /ch/ phonics sound, sip for the /s/ phonics sound, and cat for the short “a” vowel sound. Then, call out various sounds and see who’s the first to fill a row.
Tip: It’s okay to write words on the card that include the same sounds, since that adds an element of strategy to the game as children try to fill in a row of words.
Playdough Letter Smash
Form letters out of playdough that represent certain phonics sounds and lay them out on a sturdy table. Call out a letter sound and let your little one smash the matching letter flat!
Letter Art
Try this one with our printable letter coloring pages. Color in and add details to the letters to illustrate a word starting with that letter. For example, you might turn a lowercase “a” into an apple, or a capital “C” into a curled-up caterpillar.
Phonics Spinner
Make your own phonics spinners with paper plates and a paper clip. Divide the plate into sections, then write in the various letters or letter blends you’d like to work on. Use a pencil point to hold a paper clip in place in the middle, then spin the paper clip to see what letter it lands on. In 30 seconds, try to list as many words as you can that include that letter sound. When the time is up, it’s the next player’s turn.
Roll a Vowel
Practice long and short vowel sounds with a pair of ordinary dice. For the first die, assign the values as follows: 1=a, 2=e, 3=i, 4=o, 5=u, 6=player’s choice. After the player rolls a vowel, use the second die to determine if they should use it as a long or short vowel–even numbers mean long, odd numbers mean short. (For example, if you roll a 3 and 1, your letter sound would be “short i.”) Younger kids can practice simply saying the correct vowel sound, while older children can come up with words that feature those sounds.
Letter Stamps
Stamp letters in playdough to practice sounds and spelling. No letter stamps? Press alphabet magnets or beads into the dough instead.
Phonics Locks and Keys
Pick up an inexpensive bulk set of small locks and keys with tags attached. On each lock, write a word ending like -ant or -ice. Label the matching key for each with a letter that forms a word. So, if you have a lock labeled -ant, the corresponding key could be labeled “pl” or “w.” Kids get a real kick out of finding the right matches and unlocking all the locks! Have them write a list of the words they’ve created.
Sound Sort
Gather up items from around the house, then ask your child to sort them into groups based on phonics sounds. For example, you could ask them to group items with the same beginning sound or ending sound or those that features specific blend like /sh/ or /tr/.
Phonics I Spy
“I spy with my little eye something that starts with the sound /ch/!” Challenge your child to look around and find the item you have in mind. (“Chair!”)
Phonics Jenga®
Pick up an inexpensive Jenga set at a thrift shop or dollar store. Write a letter or phonics sound on each block and stack them up so players can’t see what’s written on each one. As a player pulls a piece, they say the sound or name a word using the sound before they attempt to place it on the top of the stack. For the rest of the game, standard rules apply.
Clothesline Words
Hang your letter cards out to dry! String a line between two chair backs (or any other place that’s at a height your child can conveniently reach). Give them clothespins and letter cards, then say a word using a phonics sound you’ve been working on and ask them to clip up the card(s) that match the sounds or words you’re working on. This is a terrific activity for improving fine motor skills, too.
Phonics Zoo
Gather up your stuffed animals or small animal toys, then make a phonics zoo! Create a Long A section with apes and whales, and Short A section with cats and bats, and so on. When you’re done, let your child be a zoo worker giving you a tour!
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