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Free literacy games on the internet

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When kids like to muck around on computers, smart parents get them to use computers for LEARNING, cleverly disguised as fun.

Here are some good-quality, free literacy games on the internet, sorted from very simple to more complex, which you might like to try persuading your kid or kids are fun.

Note that a few of these games take a while to load, as they contain a lot of sounds and pictures, so be ready to distract/amuse your learner while that happens, so they don’t just decide the program isn’t working and take their goldfish internet attention span elsewhere.

For beginners – sounds and letters

Phonics Hero: This is the internet version of a great little Ipad app that starts off teaching basic sound-letter correspondences in fun activities, and works its way systematically up to spelling and reading words. Free 7-day trial, after which they invite you to subscribe.

Phonics pop: Choose a group of letters and sounds, and then one of these is spoken and the child has to pop all the bubbles that letter is attached to, and get them to fall into a container at the bottom of the screen.

3-sound words (CVCs)

The Word Wheels: Make words by starting and stopping wheels containing onsets and rimes, then scroll through the pictures to find the matching picture, and press the “check” button. Or you can choose the picture first.

Starfall: Collection of phonetically graded onscreen books, and when you click on a word it is sounded out, with each letter highlighted as it’s said. Really great except I wish they wouldn’t treat very decodable words like “is”, “and” and “has” as whole chunks, and sound them out too.

Phonics Play Buried Treasure: Click on the words “get coin” and a coin appears with something written on it. If it’s a real word, put it in the treasure chest. If not, put it in the bin. If you’re right, a pirate does a dance on the water. If you’re wrong, he moans and falls in the water. Another version of this game is called Picnic on Pluto, and a further version is called Dragon’s Den.

Pick a Picture: This game presents a word and four pictures. Learners have to read the word then click on the picture that matches it, to receive applause and balloons. If they make a mistake, a balloon deflates with an amusing sound that some kids will probably like. Unfortunately there are some two-syllable words mixed into the otherwise simple words presented, but they don’t contain hard spellings.

Poop Deck pirates: See below for details, this is mainly a vowel spelling game but if at this earlier level, use the Phase 3 CVC activity

Words with consonant blends

Phonics Play Buried Treasure: What is a real word and what isn’t? Identify the real words and drag them to your treasure chest, dump the non-words in the bin! Phase 4 of this game works on consonant blends. Another version of this game is called Picnic on Pluto, and a further version is called Dragon’s Den.

Vowel spellings

Phonics Finder: This is a wonderword activity where you choose a target spelling and then click on the beginning and end of all the words in the grid with that spelling to eliminate them from a list. Most of the spellings targeted are vowels, but there are also some 2-letter and 3-letter consonant spellings (sh, ch, th, ck, wh, gh, ph, tch) plus a couple of patterns used in 2-syllable words (ful, ly)

Poop Deck Pirates: A pirate says “Aha me hearties, read the words, and keep the good ones” then throws up coins with words and nonwords on them. Learners have to click on a cross if it’s a nonword and a tick for a real word. This game’s main focus is vowel spellings but it also has activities that practice CVC words, consonant blends and consonant spellings ch, sh, th and ng.

Starfall: There are many activities for practicing vowel spellings in Starfall (see above)

Phonics Play Buried Treasure: See above for details. Phase 5 of the game works on vowel spellings. Another version of this game is called Picnic on Pluto, and a further version is called Dragon’s Den.

Pick a Picture: See above for details. Phase 3 contains two and three-letter vowel spellings, and unfortunately a few two-syllable words.

Tell a T Rex: See details above, use levels 3 and 4.

Words with more than one syllable

Planetary Plurals: A singular noun (e.g. bone, church, army, donkey, half, sheep) is presented and the learner has to type the correct plural (e.g. bones, churches, armies, donkeys, halves, sheep) to get a cheering sound and a point. If they make a mistake, the game says “oops”. A variation on this game is called Pond Life Plurals

Starfall: There are some activities for practicing the spellings of multisyllable words in Starfall (see above)

ALSO

If you want to buy a phonics computer game for use at home, Wordshark gets good reviews from kids I know, and is based on sound synthetic phonics principles. There are also a number of free crossword-generating programs on the internet, into which you can feed a phonics-based wordlist (click here to find lots), add a clue for each word, then hey presto! print out your own crossword. Armored Penguin has one such crossword generator.