Play and learn is always one of the best approaches towards teaching toddlers. They learn so much while they are playing and it makes learning effortless and fun.
These are my favorite games to teach phonics to kids!
Scavenger Hunt:
Say the phonetic sound and ask the child to get anything with that sound from the house. You can add a timer to the game if the child is older and you are revising. For example: Find me something from “c”. The child might come back with a cup, card or carrot!
Treasure Hunt in a Bin:
Create a fun bin with lots of small things/animal figurines etc. Say the sound and ask your child to find something from that basket. This is requires you to run lesser and more suited for a smaller child so that they can look for things without having to remove them from their original place. You can use one object per sound or multiple based on difficulty levels.
6 Alphabet Bowls:
Make Alphabet Chits or you can use any alphabet flash cards you have and randomly divide them in 6 bowls and number the bowls. Roll a dice and ask your child to pick out an alphabet from the same number bowl. The child has to say the sound and a word from that!
I Spy with the Little Eye:
We love playing this while we are out on the road or want to do something impromptu. I assume most of you would have played it but let me tell you in case you haven’t. For example: You say “I spy with my little eye something starting with “d”. The child might say dog, dustbin, dump truck depending of where we are!
Match the Sound:
This is an easy one but still a lot of fun for kids. You say any word and the child has to say a word with the same sound.
Say a word, example: Apple, now the child has to say another word with the same sound like alligator.