A variety of free online games that can help children learn the letter sounds in a fun and engaging way.
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This activity from Crickweb develops the link between letters and the initial sounds of some common objects. This helps with letter recognition and phonemic awareness.
Students click on the picture that starts with the sound represented by the letter shown. You can choose several groups of letters and some digraphs by selecting the different levels at the start of the game.
Click on the image above to access the game in a new tab.
This simple game involves clicking and dragging the displayed letter towards the relevant picture. All the letters are printed as capitals so it wouldn’t be as useful for children who haven’t learned upper case letters.
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Letters float underneath bubbles in this game and the child needs to click on the bubbles for the narrated letter sound to pop them. There are different sets of letters you can choose from as you can see from the screen shot above.
Click on the images above to access the game in a new tab.
In this game, the narrator says a letter sound and the student has to click on the letters that represent that sound.
Sometimes, more than one letter or letter combination can give the correct answer. For example, ‘c’, ‘k’ and ‘ck’ all represent the same sound.
The game is simple but effective and letter-sound correspondences can be chosen from each phase of the UK phonics curriculum.
Click on the image above to access the ‘Find the Phonics Sound’ Game.
The student has to click on the duck with the letter that represents a spoken sound in this game. The ducks quack and swim away when the correct letters are chosen and kids enjoy this.
To access this game you will need to register with the Literactive site (it’s free). Once you’ve done that, click on the activities tab at the top then on the Level 1 link in the left hand margin. You should be able to locate the Rubber Ducks game and several other activities.
Children have to figure out which word ends in a different letter in this activity. The words are spoken so it also helps kids match the letters to the sounds.
To access this game you will need to register with the Literactive site (it’s free). Once you’ve done that, click on the activities tab at the top then on the Level 2 link in the left hand margin. You should be able to locate the Flying Kites game and several other activities.
In this game, children sort letters into groups based on their final letter. Each word is spoken when it’s clicked on so they can also hear the sounds.
To access this game you will need to register with the Literactive site (it’s free). Once you’ve done that, click on the activities tab at the top then on the Level 2 link in the left hand margin. You should be able to locate the Garden Leaves game and several other activities.
Children identify the word with a different middle letter in this activity.
To access this game you will need to register with the Literactive site (it’s free). Once you’ve done that, click on the activities tab at the top then on the Level 3 link in the left hand margin. You should be able to locate the Laying Hens game and several other activities.
The Teach Your Monster to Read site provides free access to a series of award winning phonics and reading games with increasing levels of difficulty.
In addition to the main games, they also have a variety of other activities including Digital Flashcards and Monster minigames.
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The Digital Flashcards activity sounds out each grapheme when you hover over it with your mouse.
If you click on the tick in the bottom right of the screen, it then introduces each grapheme individually.
You can ask your child to say the sound then click on the tick if they get it correct, or click the speaker symbol to hear the sound again.
Friendly monsters appear every time a new grapheme is shown.
Click on this link to access the Digital Flashcards and to read more about using them.
NOTE: The flashcards are for use on an interactive whiteboard or computer only (not compatible on tablet or smartphone).
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The Monster Minigames include a series of activities that can help children learn letter-sound correspondences. You can select minigames for any of the following graphemes:
s, a, t, p, i, n, m, d, g, o, c, k, ck, e, u, r, h, b, f, ff, l, ll, ss, j, qu, v, w, x, y, z, zz, ch, sh, th, th, ng, ai, ee, igh, oa, oo, oo, ar, or, ur, ow, oi, ear, air, ure, er
In this game, the student has to herd all of the sheep into the pen with the letter that represents the correct sound.
This game is similar to the sheep herding game described above except the monster moves ducks into the pond with the letter that represents the correct sound.
In this fast-paced game, you have to get the monster to collect flowers and the flowers tell it which letter sign to follow.
This game is similar to the one described above except the monster has to collect balloons instead of flowers.
In this game, the monster in the spaceship has to collect and stack blocks with the correct sound.
This game has a similar format to the one described above except the monster is in a submarine and there are also jelly fish.
The Teach Your Monster to Read site also has a series of phonics songs to help with teaching letter-sound correspondences.
Students have to identify digraphs in this activity rather than individual letters so it’s not suitable for absolute beginners.
However, the game has a fairly basic format and would be fine for children who have just been introduced to these digraphs as the words are written as well as spoken.
Click on the following link to access the Letter Planet game in a new tab.
Sound Sayer ict games
Choose a phonics phase and a letter or digraph and the pencil will write it out for you. You can then click to hear the sound said individually or in a group of words. Click on the image or the following link to access the sound sayer game.
Further Resources:
Another way to access free online games and activities is to register with some of the specialist reading programmes that offer free trials.
For example:
Parents and teachers can register for a 30-day free trial with Reading Eggs. This allows you to access over 500 highly interactive games and fun animations for developing Phonemic awareness, Phonics, Fluency, Vocabulary and Comprehension.
A 30-day free trial is also available from ABCmouse.com. This is a leading online educational website for children ages 2–8. With more than 9,000 interactive learning activities that teach reading, math, science, art, music, and more.
Although it’s not quite free, you can get a 30-day trial with the award-winning Hooked on Phonics programme for just $1.
IXL Learning cover 8000 skills in 5 subjects including phonics and reading comprehension. You can click on the following link to access a 7-day free trial if you live in the US.
If you live outside of the US you can get 20% off a month’s subscription if you click on the ad. below:
Click on the following link to see a variety of other Free Phonics and Phonological Awareness Online Activities and Games.
Or, cllick on the following link for a range of other Free Phonics and Phonological Awareness Resources.
You might also find our article on Phonological/Phonemic Awareness Activities for Parents and Teachers useful.