Most ‘traditional’ spelling games are based on students remembering a word based on its visual appearance rather than on understanding how the word has been encoded. In addition, typically the worst spellers are removed from the game the quickest and therefore have the least number of opportunities to practise!
Below are some modified spelling games.
1. Buzz Off
Have students stand in a circle. Choose a person to start. The teacher says a word students are learning to spell. In succession, moving from person to person around the circle, each student does one of the following in the listed order:
- Read the word.
- Put the word into a sentence.
- Say the first sound in the word.
- Say the last sound in the word.
- Clap the syllables.
- Identify prefix(es), stem and suffix(es) if relevant. Each of these should be contributed by a different student. As a group, provide the meaning of each morpheme.
- Identify specified graphemes (e.g., if the word was ‘paint’ the teacher would ask, “What letters represent the /ay/ sound?” and preferably link this to a specific picture cue).
- Without looking at the word, say the sounds in the word.
- Everyone writes the word on a mini-whiteboard without looking at the word. Students are shown the word and they check to see if the word was spelled correctly. If not, they make any necessary corrections.
Once all the activities have been completed, the next student says “buzz” and then the next student says “off” and that student sits down.
If a student makes an error, the next student along attempts the activity. If that student makes an error, go to the next student. Continue until the correct answer is provided. Once the correct answer has been provided go backwards in the same order with each student providing the correct answer until the student who initially attempted the activity says the correct answer. Then continue to the next student as if an error had not been made.
2. Hangman
On a whiteboard draw two hangman stands and two sets of boxes representing each sound in two different spelling words (Elkonin boxes). For example, if the word was ‘paint’, there would be 4 boxes.
Divide students into two teams. As a team, students choose a sound and the letters representing the sound. If they are correct, the teacher writes the grapheme in the appropriate box. If not, the teacher adds a limb to their man.
This could also be done in pairs or small groups, with one student selecting the word and controlling the game.
Another variation could be to focus on morphemes. Students could be given the stem and they have to work out the prefix(es) and suffix(es).
3. Tic Tac Toe
Divide students into two teams. Draw a large tic tac toe grid on the whiteboard. Give each team a different coloured whiteboard marker. Students from each team take turns to write the graphemes for an allocated word, in the correct order, directly onto their choice of square on the tic tac toe grid. If they write the incorrect grapheme, it is erased, and the other team attempts to write the correct grapheme. Continue with as many words as required until one team has three adjoining squares filled. For example, if the word was ‘paint’, teams would take it in turns to write ‘p’, ‘ai’, ‘n’, ‘t’.
4. Snowball
Onto small sheets of white paper write the graphemes that students have learned – one grapheme on each piece of paper. It could be a letter of the alphabet if students are learning the alphabet or a digraph (e.g., er, oi, etc.).
Scrunch the paper up into a ball. Throw the paper ball to a student who must unwrap the paper and say the sound and the picture cue (e.g., ‘oi’ as in coin). The student re-scrunches the paper and throws to another student who has to say another word containing that sound. That student then throws the paper ball to another student who has to write the grapheme.
If a student makes an error, the student throws the paper ball to another student. If that student is incorrect, the paper ball is thrown to another student. This continues until a student does the activity correctly. The ball is then thrown back to each student who made an error for them to do the activity correctly. When it reaches the first person who made the error and the activity is completed correctly, the game continues.
Start the sequence again using a different paper ball.
5. Swat It
Divide students into two teams. Write the spelling words randomly onto the whiteboard.
Stand the first two players, with their backs to the board, a short distance in front of it. Give them each a plastic fly swat.
Call out a clue to identify the spelling word. For example:
- This word means…
- The word rhymes with …
- The word contains the …. sound.
- The word has a prefix meaning…..
- The word has a suffix meaning….
- The word contains.….sounds or syllables.
- An antonym of this word is.…..
- This word is written in past/present/future tense.
The two players then race to be the first to swat the correct word on the board. The word is erased and all the players in the winning team have to spell the word correctly to win a point for their team. I would suggest that you make this a collaborative effort and allow everyone in the team to check each other’s work before showing the teacher.
6. Word Relay
Divide the students into teams. Each team lines up a short distance away from the whiteboard, facing the board. The first person in each team starts with a whiteboard marker.
The teacher draws two sets of sound boxes on the board (or lines would also be sufficient) to represent the sounds in the word.
Call the word for the students to spell. The first student in each team races to the board and writes the first grapheme of the word in the first sound box (e.g., if the word was ‘shout’ the student would write ‘sh’ into the first box) and then runs back to pass the marker on to the next team member who writes the next grapheme in the next sound box, and so on. Team members can correct an incorrect grapheme on their turn but they may not add an additional grapheme.
The first team to correctly spell the word scores a point.
7. Who Am I?
Write each spelling list word onto a large piece of card.
Select a student (the ‘Word Master’) to sit on a chair at the front of the room, facing the rest of the class. Attach the first word to a headband or hat which the student wears.
Different students are asked to give the Word Master clues as to the word on his/her head, without revealing the word directly. They can use rhyming words, synonyms, antonyms, gestures, phonemes, etc.
After the Word Master guesses the word correctly, he/she removes the word, so it can’t be seen by the other students, and they all write the word on a mini-whiteboard which they hold up. The Word Master checks everyone’s spelling. If a student has spelled the word incorrectly, the Word Master shows them the word so it can be corrected.
8. Missing graphemes
Line students up into two or three teams facing the class whiteboard. Each team has one mini-whiteboard.
The first person in each team has the min-whiteboard, a whiteboard marker and an eraser and turns to face away from the class whiteboard.
The teacher writes a spelling word on the whiteboard with one or more graphemes missing. For example, ‘paint’ could be p__ nt, ‘flower’ might be fl__ __
On “Go!” the team members turn to face the board. The first of these students to write the complete word correctly onto their personal whiteboard wins a point for their team.
They then pass the whiteboard onto the next team member and play continues.
9. Invisible Man
Line students up into two teams facing the whiteboard. Draw two large stick people on the whiteboard, one in front of each team, each with the same number of body parts. Call out a word for the first member of Team One to spell. If it is spelled correctly, he/she erases one body part from the other team’s stick person. If incorrect, the first member of the second team can attempt to fix the error. If the word is corrected, he/she can erase a body part from Team One’s stick figure. If it is still not correct, the next person from Team One has a turn.
Continue taking it in turns until the word is spelled correctly, then call out a word for the next Team Two player.
The game continues until one stick figure is completely erased. This team is the losing team.
10. Bingo
Each student chooses five spelling words and writes them onto a piece of paper.
Call out a phoneme that you know is in the list of words. Write the grapheme representing the phoneme on the whiteboard. At the same time, students cross out that grapheme if it appears in any of their chosen words. If the one grapheme occurs multiple times, all those graphemes are crossed out. For example, several words may contain the ‘er’ grapheme so all ‘er’ graphemes are crossed out.
The first student to cross out all the letters in all his/her words wins.