Multisensory Games for the Literacy Hour

A set of five independent literacy games. Designed by teachers for a SENCo support project in Greenwich, the games are simple, clear and skill-related.

Five games

Phonetic bingo - a matching game of phonetic alphabet onsets and related pictures. Once the card is drawn the children can match it to a card in their board. If you find you have more than one picture to a letter card, (or vice-versa) you can match them all in that go. You can hear the sound of a letter or the word of a picture by clicking on them.
Full deck - this deals using all the alphabet and all the pictures. It takes quite a while to find a match though. They need to have mastered the alphabet for this.
Related cards - random cards are chosen based on the answers.
Draw picture - letters are placed and you match pictures to them.
Draw letters - pictures are place and match letters to them.
NLS phonics - for those of you who prefer to work with initial letter sounds, without an added vowel.

Hangman - the traditional game, but you can specify the words used.
Word list - choose the list you want.
Edit list - type in a new list or edit an existing list.
Sequential words - choose words from the list sequentially instead of randomly.
Sound - can be turned on or off.
Vowels placed - displays the words with the vowels already in place.
First letter place - places the first letter of the word to begin with. Combine this with the vowels option to give the children a good starting point.
Show word - 'look, write, cover, check' method. Reveal the word at any time.
What letter next - forces you to guess the letters of the word in sequence. It is a particular good way to reinforce phonics and strategies of what is possible in English and what isn't.
Highlight vowels - colours the vowels red, to highlight them and make syllables easier to spot.

Onsets and Rimes
A two player game where you have to match the onsets with the rimes to make a word. The first player to make 4 words wins the rounds. Simply click on the onset you think would make a word or drag the rime to the appropriate onset. You can pass if you are stuck but there is no penalty for errors.
No score - when the game fist starts, the scoring is unlimited.
Best of 3 - first to score 3 rounds.
Best of 5 - first to score 5 rounds.
Draw Onsets - switches the card bank from Rimes to Onsets, so you can match the other way round.

Rhyming Pairs
The object is to match rhyming pairs by clicking on them.
Vanish - you have the option for the cards to vanish once they have been matched.
Words - leaves the words with the highlighted rhymes visible when matched if you prefer having the images of the text as the focus of the task.
No Sound - turn off the spoken sound so the child can't here the rhymes.
Match words - words appear on the screen instead of pictures.
Match Pictures - Pictures are used and the child has to listen to the computer, or say the word to themselves, in order to match them.

Syllables
Words of a given number of syllables are spoken and then displayed jumbled up. The child has to drag the correct syllables into the relevant positions to 'repair' the word. This game is not about phonemes but about syllables. Some children absorb the concept of breaking words into syllables more easily than they do that of phonemes.

All the games have speech support and are configurable for level of difficulty.