Summer is a time for fun and relaxation, but it’s also when many young readers can lose ground in the literacy skills they worked so hard to build during the school year. Whether you’re a parent trying to support reading at home, a tutor planning engaging summer sessions, or a teacher looking for take-home ideas, these 10 summer phonics activities will help keep early literacy skills strong!
From card games and printable resources to online tools, books, and even podcast-inspired ideas, this list is packed with fun, flexible ways to keep phonics skills sharp all summer long. You’ll find creative inspiration and time-saving tools, many of which I use myself as a dyslexia interventionist.
It gets even better– over half of these summer phonics ideas are totally free! Ready? Let’s kick off the list!
1. Play Phonemic Awareness Games in the Car
I frequently share resources from Reading Rockets with private tutoring clients who are looking for ways to support their children at home. Reading Rockets offers phonological and phonemic awareness games to play with your preschool, kindergarten, first grade, or second grade child that can easily be implemented at home in a playful, stress-free way.
2. Try Out Printable UFLI Supplements and Home Practice
The UFLI Foundations Toolbox offers decodable passages, roll & read games, and homework assignments aligned with the Foundations scope and sequence. Even if you’re not using UFLI Foundations, the passages are a great summer phonics assignment because there’s space to illustrate the story, which motivates many of our students! And I don’t need to convince you that roll & read games are a fun way to sneak in extra decoding practice.
If you’re a teacher using UFLI Foundations for summer instruction, the Home Practice pages are perfect to offer parents between sessions. It tells the parent what concepts and irregular words were taught and offers word chains with parent-friendly directions, as well as sentences students can read or write.
3. Paws and Spell: Online Word Chains with Theo the Dog
Paws and Spell is a game that I created because I couldn’t find a digital, science of reading-aligned word chain activity for my summer tutoring students. Word chains are a high-impact activity, meaning they offer several benefits in one simple activity. Completing word chains improves phonemic awareness, boosts spelling and decoding skills, and encourages the orthographic mapping process! Now imagine if your child or students could practice all of those skills at the same time in one simple, online activity that’s also fun. That’s the experience you’ll have with Paws and Spell!
Want to give Paws and Spell a try? We’re offering five word chains for you to test out. If you love it (and we think you will!), you can snag a subscription to unlock all 110 word chains. Click here from a desktop or laptop computer to play! (Paws and Spell is not currently compatible with mobile devices.)
4. Complete Word Chains the Old-Fashioned Way
If Paws and Spell isn’t right for you because you’re limiting screen time or you don’t have the right device, you can complete word chains the old-fashioned way on a whiteboard. Grab this comprehensive list of over 100 word chains organized by phonics skills, ranging from basic CVC words to words with vowel diphthongs. Never used word chains before? No problem! The super simple directions are included in your download.
5. Invest in Some Quality Decodable Books
This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase through my links, I may earn a small commission.
Decodable books earned a bad reputation in the past. “The cat sat on the mat” doesn’t always make for the most exciting plot line. But times have changed, and now there are engaging chapter books and graphic novels with decodable text that aligns with many foundational literacy programs. Browse some of my favorite decodable chapter books on Amazon or check with your local library.
6. Incorporate Art into Sentence-Level Fluency Practice
My Read and Draw worksheets were a big hit among my students when I worked in a public school setting! It’s a simple task: first, students read five sentences, and then locate and record words within the sentences that feature a specific phonics skill (e.g. digraphs, bonus letters, suffixes).
Next comes the fun part: Choose a sentence to illustrate and ask someone to guess which sentence you illustrated! In a classroom setting, peers can guess each other’s sentences. At home or in the tutoring setting, adults can be the guessers. If you have an artist at home or in your small groups, this summer phonics activity is sure to be a hit!
As a bonus, the Read and Draw worksheets are just one of the four activities included in each sentence reading fluency resource! You’ll also download roll & reads, student reader pages, and printable sentence cards, all aligned with phonics skills ranging from CVC words to multisyllabic words with Latin bases.
7. Sprinkle in Some Phonics Games
Got It! Learning makes card games that can be adapted for reading and spelling! Each deck of cards includes directions for five different games. The games can be played with two to four players and only take a few minutes to complete. They’re a perfect way to end a tutoring session or sneak in some summer phonics practice over the summer!
Keep Reading and Learning’s subscribers also have access to my POP! phonics game in the free structured literacy resource library. Already on the list? The password is included at the bottom of each email, sent twice per month. Not yet a member? Sign up here!
8. Schedule (or Sneak In) Time for Handwriting Practice
It’s so important to keep fine motor skills strong over the summer! Reluctant writers can play with clay, complete mazes, build with Legos, or any other task that supports the development of the muscles that support handwriting.
However, it’s also important to solidify letter formation skills in the early years. Fluent letter formation skills free up cognitive effort for other tasks, like spelling and expressing oneself clearly in writing. Make letter formation practice fun by trying out a handwriting app like LetterSchool, using novel writing utensils like erasable gel pens or sidewalk chalk, and sensory-rich experiences like writing in shaving cream on the wall during tub time. If you try an app, grab some stylus pens so your child can practice proper pencil grip instead of writing with their finger.
9. Sneak in Some Authentic Writing Opportunities
If your kids aren’t keen on dedicated writing practice over the summer, try sneaking in authentic opportunities to put pencil to paper. Here are a few ways you can tempt hesitant writers to practice:
- Ask them to help write the weekly grocery list, or write down the ingredients needed for a recipe you’ll cook together
- Request their help writing out the packing list for an upcoming summer day trip or vacation
- Create a summer bucket list together with ideas for sunny days, as well as ideas for rainy days
- Send a postcard or a handmade greeting card to a family member
- Creative kids will enjoy learning new poetry styles and composing their own rhymes
10. Build Comprehension Skills with Engaging Audiobooks and Podcasts
We know that strong phonics skills are key to becoming a fluent reader, but background knowledge and vocabulary skills also play a major role in the development of reading and spelling skills. According to Lehr et al., (2004), “One of the most persistent findings in reading research is that the extent of students’ vocabulary knowledge relates strongly to their reading comprehension and overall academic success.” A reader needs to understand the individual words to understand the bigger message, right?
Having a strong vocabulary impacts more than just reading comprehension. A strong vocabulary also helps children develop phonemic awareness skills and helps them connect sounds to print. How? If a word is already in a child’s oral vocabulary, they will be able to identify the word in context with greater ease than if they have never heard it before.
If you need another reason to jump on the background knowledge and vocabulary train, consider this: Hesitant readers may not have as many opportunities as their peers to expand their vocabulary and knowledge by reading a variety of texts. However, we can counteract this by providing opportunities to listen to stories.
Audiobooks and podcasts make it simple to find whatever piques your child’s interests! My family listens to podcasts on Spotify, but there are several apps to choose from. In no particular order, here are some podcasts my family has enjoyed listening to together.
- Mystery Kids
- Story Pirates
- Brains On!
- But Why: A Podcast For Curious Kids
- Smash Boom Best
- R.L. Stine’s Story Club
Listening to audiobooks can be a family affair, or your kids can listen on their own. Many libraries now offer devices like Yoto Players and Playaways. These allow your kids to plug in some headphones and listen anywhere. (Bonus: You’ll be amazed by how quiet your house becomes when your kids are listening to their audiobooks!) In addition to devices, there are also apps for audiobooks. Check with your local library to find out which apps you have access to with your library membership. At my fantastic local library, we can choose books from Hoopla, Libby, and Cloud Library!
My family will occasionally dive into a chapter book together. Sometimes we listen to a whole book on a road trip, and other times we listen to a couple of chapters each night at bedtime. I have taken this opportunity to revisit some of my childhood favorites, like James and the Giant Peach and The Chronicles of Narnia.
