Parents and teachers often struggle to keep their children hooked to learning spelling. Can you blame them though? It is hard to be interested in memorizing words from a list, to be honest. So, are students going to stop learning spelling after a while? No way, Spelling Fun Games are here to save the day!
Spelling games are innovative ways to teach kids spelling. They apply multi-sensory interactive methods where students learn spelling while playing fun games. Many games have points and ranking system to reward the students for their efforts.
Now, are the games only useful for children? Of course not, there are thousand types of games suitable for students of any level and age; and many of them are available online. Offline games are also useful for class and home-school.
Most of the modern games are designed considering students with dyslexia and other learning disabilities. They also let the student learn at their own pace.
In this article, we will know about different types of spelling fun games to help your children learn spelling with fun.
Spelling Fun Games for Kids
Most of the teachers now apply interactive activities to teach spelling rather than the traditional memorizing technique. Kids, especially the ones beginning to learn spelling, will be more interested in games than lectures.
When teaching spelling, letter blocks or shapes are exceptionally useful as the students focus on the shape of a letter and use their visual memory a lot to spell correctly. Most of the games mentioned below involve letter shapes. You can also write letters on papers or cards to use them.
Spelling Stairs
This game is immensely effective for memorizing spellings. Give your child a word, tell him to add one letter at a time to make a stair. For example,
T
TA
TAB
TABL
TABLE
Spelling Scramble
There are different levels of this game.
- In the beginning, take the letters of a word and scramble them. Tell your kid to arrange them accurately to make a word.
- After mastering previous level, take some additional letters along with the letters of the word. Tell the child to find correct letters and arrange them.
- In the advance level, the student should be able to find the letters from the whole alphabet.
- You can also increase the length of the word with each level.
Spelling Train
Along with teaching spelling, this game can also evaluate your vocabulary range.
- Write a word on a paper.
- Tell your kid to write a new word with the last letter of the word, and then another new word with the last letter of the previous one.
- You can also compete with your child in writing new words and build a word chain.
Here is one example of word chain for you:
One
Eat
Two
Oats
Sand
Dog etc.
You can also add rules such as only words of same length would be used. For example:
Cat
Toe
Egg
Gem
Man etc.
Why is my vocabulary getting worse? Can spelling fun games help me learn it better? We have answers to all your questions, so check out our guide on it now!
Spelling Games for Adults
There is a misconception that spelling games are only for kids and adults should only depend on memorization which is not true at all. Plenty of multi-sensory spelling fun games are designed for the adults so that they can also have fun while learning spelling.
Scrabble
There is hardly anything that can beat Scrabble when it comes to spelling. It is an age-old family game that has evidently enriched vocabulary and spelling skill of many people. If you don’t have enough time to sit with the traditional board, try the online version and play it with your friends and family on your way to your work!
Crossword Puzzles
Meaning, spelling, synonyms- all 3 can be learned from just one game, Crossword puzzles! They are available in your newspaper; you can buy puzzle books from any newspaper stand or departmental store. There are also numerous apps you can install in your device to play them in your free time.
Spelling Games for the Classroom
The spelling fun games mentioned above can be easily applied in classroom, but not all of them are suitable for group activities. Here are some group-based spelling fun games for your class.
Step On the Lily Pads
- Cut boards or thick papers in the shape of large Lily Pads. Make 26 of them.
- Write a letter of the English alphabet on each pad.
- Place them on the floor of your classroom.
- Pair your students.
- One student will speak a word, other must step on pads to spell the word.
Spelling Tic-Tac-Toe
- Write words on cards.
- Pair your students.
- Place a tic-tac-toe board in the middle or draw one on the board.
- Call two groups to compete against each other.
- A student from one group should draw a card and speak the word aloud.
- The other student of the group needs to spell it correctly. If they can, then they will be able to draw a ‘x’ or ‘o’ on the board.
- The group to get tic-tac-toe first win.
Roll the Dice
- Make a list of spelling words.
- Divide your students into groups and give them a notebook.
- Give them a dice and ask them to roll.
- The group that rolls the biggest number wins the round. They can copy as many letters into their notebook as they rolled within a given time.
- The group that completes copying all the words wins.
But the game doesn’t end here.
- Next day, make the same group and roll the dice.
- The group that rolled the lowest number in a round needs to spell as many letters as they rolled within the given time.
- If they fail to spell correctly, they will not have the chance to participate in the next round.
- The group that completes spelling all the words correctly wins.
Want to improve your spelling skills faster? Check out our guide on how to improve spelling skills right now!
Spelling Games Online
Online spelling fun games are convenient for everyone as you can easily access with your phone. All the traditional spelling games now have online versions and many new spelling games are being invented.
There are several websites that offers different types of spelling games online. Students can earn points, badges, and other rewards by spelling words correctly. There are also global spelling competitions offered in many websites which will help your child build sportsman spirit.
Below are some of the top spelling games website:
Spelling City
Starting in 2008 when online education was just a concept, Spelling City has become one of the biggest websites for spelling on the internet. They have more than 40 types of spelling fun games for students from kindergarten to grade-12. You can also customize the word lists of these games which will help the teachers to teach the students according to the school curriculum.
Check Spelling City Review for more information.
ABCmouse
ABCmouse is immensely useful for beginners as it offers more than 10,000 learning activities with 800 lesson plans for students from age two to eight. It is the most downloaded learning programs for kids in iOS and android.
They use animated videos so that kids have fun and learn a lot of things without realizing it. For example, in one game, Prospector Paul and his mule Trauss find letter combinations together. From this activity, students learn a lot about letter combinations while enjoying the journey of Paul and Trauss.
Make sure to check ABCmouse Review for more information.
Spelling Master
As the name implies, this game will help you master spelling with it’s multilevel spelling games. The levels ensure you have enough knowledge to advance to learn new words. You can also correct your mistakes in spelling with the spelling quizzes. In addition, the listen-and-spell feature teaches you proper pronunciation of the word.
SpellQuiz
SpellQuiz is your most trusted spelling program to teach your kid. It has spelling tests divided by grades so that all school students can evaluate their skills. Also, there are quizzes for adults so that ESL students can also benefit from the website. In the beginning, you can assess your vocabulary range with vocabulary test to determine from which level you should start taking quizzes.
One of the most unique feature of SpellQuiz is that it offers adaptive spelling program where students can advance at their own pace, allowing them enough time to memorize what they already learnt. If your child loves competition, they will enjoy Spelling Bee Online where students around the world compete against each other.
Concluding Thoughts
Now that you have a better idea about spelling fun games than before, you need to know about some other things before playing spelling fun games with the students:
- Don’t use too many words at once for spelling games. If necessary, continue the same game for a few classes.
- Instead of dedicating a whole class for games, make these games a part of your lesson plan. That way you can assure constant learning and practicing.
- You can try different types of games for different types of words. You can divide them based on the patterns of the words or the length.
- When using props such as letter shapes or other stationary items, make sure students use them under your supervision so that no hazardous situation rises.
- If your child has learning difficulties, you can repeat same game a few times. You can also teach the same word using different games to understand which process work better for them.
- Use the spelling games to assess your kid’s skill instead of traditional exams.
- Even if these are games that children enjoy, it takes a lot of energy. Give them a break after a few rounds to recharge themselves.
If you are looking for more fun activities for your class, check SpellQuiz Blogs for innovative and interactive activities to learn spelling.