Short vowel bingo for single players

Today I’m sharing a set of short vowel bingo cards with words or pictures. These games are great for new readers!

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After a lot of playful activities, my Four has gotten the hang of blending sounds together. (Yay!)

(Want to learn my tricks? Join our free ecourse – How to get kids to sound out words.)

Today I’m excited to share one of my newest printables for helping him sound out words.

Short vowel bingo – with pictures!

I created 20 single player games that he can play all by himself.

Here’s what you’ll find in the download at the end of this post.

• Short a game #1 (with words)
• Short a game #2 (with pictures)
• Short e game #1 (with words)
• Short e game #2 (with pictures)
• Short i game #1 (with words)
• Short i game #2 (with pictures)
• Short o game #1 (with words)
• Short o game #2 (with pictures)
• Short u game #1 (with words)
• Short u game #2 (with pictures)

Play the game in three different ways

1. Provide the cards and the game board with the printed words. Your child can read each word, find its match on the board, and cover it with the card or a poker chip. I recommend starting with this version if sounding out words is still a challenge for your child. It’s also a pre-step for kids who can’t quite sound out words, but can match words by looking at their letters.

2. Provide the cards and the picture game board. I like to use this as a second step after we play with the word board. It’s harder because my son can’t rely on his matching skills. He really needs to read the word cards this time.

3. Read the word cards yourself and have your child find the match. So far I’ve just given my son the word cards to read himself and match to the board (pictured above). But another option is not to show the word cards to your child at all. Read them yourself, and invite him to find the matching word and cover with a poker chip.

Teaching tips

• If your child is new to sounding out words, start with the short a bingo games. They tend to be the easiest. Move on to short o. Save the others until your child is doing well at sounding out short a and short o words. (So far these are all we’ve done.)

• Start with the word board and move on to its corresponding picture board. If your child is interested, do another board. Two boards (a total of four games) is likely enough for one session.

• If this game frustrates your child, set it aside. He’s probably not ready for it. Check out my phonics activities page for an activity that’s more his speed. And be sure to take our free ecourse – how to teach your child to sound out words. (Sign up here.)

*A tip for storage

Note that the boards and cards are color coded. You might wish to laminate the word cards, cut them apart, and bind each set with a rubber band. That way they’re easy to grab for a particular game board.

*While I do intend to offer many printables in a blackline version, time constraints don’t always make this possible. If you don’t have a color printer, consider printing the games on brightly colored cardstock.

Enjoy!

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