My Favorite Kindergarten Spelling Games

Published: March 12, 2023
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Kindergarten spelling games are a fun way to incorporate spelling practice of CVC words, sight words, or a list of your own words! These fun spelling games are my favorite ways to bring engagement to practicing those word lists.

The Science of Reading and Kindergarten Spelling Games

As kindergarten teachers, we all know it’s important that our students learn to spell. Research says that kindergarten students should over-learn spelling patterns they’ve been explicitly taught during our Science of Reading lessons because it’s essential for them to develop a concrete foundation to grow their reading and language skills.

As part of the Science of Reading (SOR), spelling games can also be a great way for kindergarteners to practice and reinforce essential spelling patterns that we have already explicitly taught during our lessons. While it may seem redundant, let’s take a moment to remember why it’s important that our kindergarten students learn to spell:

Learning to spell simple words helps young students to develop important language and literacy skills.
Spelling helps students to become more proficient readers, because they’ll start to recognize and understand the vocabulary words they’re reading.
Spelling proficiency also helps to increase writing skills: it follows that our students need to know how to spell words in order to write them correctly.

While learning to spell with supportive spelling games, our students will also gain: self-confidence, patience, empathy, fine motor skills, and build a sense of community with their classmates. It’s clearly a win-win for all when you implement supportive spelling games!

Spelling Games are Better than a Spelling Test

When students are given the opportunity to practice spelling in a fun game format, they’re more likely to remember spelling patterns too. They start to develop confidence when writing down each new word correctly. We also know that by repeatedly practicing certain words with similar spellings, kindergarten students can become increasingly familiar with different letter combinations as well.

With these games, you can feel positive about a fun spelling activity that actually helps them to become more competent when working with new words. Kids learn that a certain list of words may contain similar letter combinations, but with different letters, and then their confidence with spelling (and reading) really starts to grow!

Favorite Spelling Games for Hands-On Practice

Like many teachers, I really don’t like classrooms broken up into team activities. I dreaded these as a child and I suspect most of our students do too. I like supportive games and activities, the kind where partners encourage and help each other and there’s no real winner or loser.

So, one of the aspects I like most about the spelling games that I’m excited to share with you, is that they have a strong community-building component, as well as helping our students have fun with spelling! With so many fun spelling activities in this bundle, there’s sure to be a perfect game for every style of learner in your class.

I like to create and use games that emphasize group collaboration, respect for others, and working together to provide a sense of belonging and security. Games where children can learn to interact with each other in a positive way and build their social skills move to the top of my list. In addition, games help children develop better problem-solving abilities and patience (yes, you must wait until it’s your turn).

Playing games that focus on team-building (as well as the target academic topic), can help students of all ages recognize the importance of taking turns, following rules, and being considerate of others’ feelings. These types of activities not only benefit each individual child but also promote an overall sense of community and connectedness in your classroom as a whole.

Kindergarten Sight Words

This bundle of supportive spelling games is designed for kindergarten and first grade students. These games are perfect for helping students improve their reading and spelling skills in a playful and engaging way. The interactive spelling games include a game board, letter cards for handwriting practice, and 70 high-frequency word cards.

The word cards cover a wide range of sight words that are commonly used in early reading and writing. The response sheets and student-friendly instruction page are also included, so younger children can be independent and play the game on their own. The word cards are also editable so you can easily add your own words or spelling lists to meet the needs of your classroom.

These games are versatile and adaptable to meet the needs of all students. The games can also be used for letter identification, letter writing, sight word identification, sight word games and spelling, or spelling word practice.

The bundle includes 18 different themes to practice those kindergarten spelling words throughout the entire year! You can find the bundle by clicking the link below:

Editable Sight Word Spelling Game Bundle

Because learning styles and abilities differ among our young learners, the number of exposures a kindergarten student needs to learn spelling words varies greatly. Research tells us that an average students needs 6-7 exposures to master a word, while others may need 30-40 exposures. That is a huge difference!

It is critical that we are providing students with multiple opportunities to practice spelling new words. This could include activities such as verbal spelling, or using manipulatives like magnetic letters, shaving cream, tiles, or old-school style written practice on a piece of paper. But my choice will always be to use learning games.

These spelling games can be edited for use with easier words or customized with more difficult words for advanced spellers. By engaging kindergartners and 1st grade students in a variety of learning activities in an engaging spelling game format, we can build some very strong readers as they move into 2nd grade.

Learning to spell words, especially within the context of a fun and supportive game, helps build self-confidence in young children. Playing a game while learning to spell new words makes that learning process much more engaging and oftentimes, effective. Spelling games can benefit kids of all ages, especially throughout elementary school.

These climb and slide games are not only great for practicing spelling words, but also letters and beginning sounds. Check out the year-long bundle with seasonal board games here: