Games For Phonemic Awareness? Bingo!

It’s a universal fact known to all early years teachers – children love playing bingo! What better way to practise the listening skills required for phoneme segmentation than playing a fun, interactive game with a group of classmates?

How to Play Phoneme Segmentation Bingo

This resource has been designed for use in a small-group setting with a targeted group of students during your phonics instruction.  It contains three different sets of bingo games, with each set containing its own combination of words/pictures. Each set includes six game boards and the corresponding calling cards.

1. Pass out a game board and some counters to each student.
2. Using the corresponding calling cards, call out a word. The words are purposely segmented into phonemes, and this is how they should be read out to the students. For example, the word ‘bee’ should be called out as ‘b-ee’.
3. Have the students repeat the segmented word, then look for that picture on their game board. If they have it, they can place a counter to cover the picture. 
4. Continue calling out words from the list on the calling card. Once a student gets four pictures covered in a row, they win the game! 
5. Continue as many times as needed, or switch to a new set of game boards after each round.

Tips for Scaffolding and Extension

This activity has been designed to help your students gain practice in listening for and distinguishing between the discrete sounds in words. Some students may find this easier than others! Here are some suggestions for differentiating this activity for your students’ diverse learning needs.

• For students who require support, scaffolding is the key! Once you call out the segmented word, write it down on a mini-whiteboard so that students can see the initial letter. Support students in finding the matching picture by asking guiding questions, such as: “Which pictures start with that letter?” 
• For students who require extension, encourage them to have a go at encoding (spelling) each word as it is called out by writing it down on a mini-whiteboard.  

Download the File Format That Best Suits You

Use the dropdown menu next to the Download button to access the PDF or Google Slides version of this resource.

We recommend printing this resource on thick card for increased longevity and durability.

Store the game boards and calling cards together in a large envelope for easy storage.

This resource was created by Anna Helwig, a Teach Starter collaborator.