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 11 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.
Disclosure: Some links in this post are affiliate links, meaning I may earn a small commission if you click and buy (at no extra cost to you).
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
Phonemic awareness is the ability to notice and manipulate the smallest units of sound within our language. Examples of phonemic awareness activities include:
- blending four sounds into a word: /b/ /l/ /a/ /k/ = black
- deleting the /r/ sound from the word trip to make the word tip
- changing the last sound in a word to make a new word: cart becomes cart
For students to read and spell accurately, they must be able to hear and manipulate these sounds. Fortunately, building phonemic awareness skills can be fun! 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 Printable UFLI Supplements for Summer Phonics 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 or tutor 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. In case you skimmed over it in the last section, I’ll reshare the benefits of word chaining: It improves phonemic awareness, boosts spelling and decoding skills, and encourages the orthographic mapping process.
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. Snag Free Literacy Packets from IMSE
IMSE has graciously offered two free summer literacy packets for K–5 teachers to send home before break: one designed for younger students (K–2) and one for upper elementary (grades 3–5). Both come in English and Spanish.
The K–2 packet focuses on foundational skills like phonics, fluency, and reading comprehension, while the 3–5 packet takes a deeper dive into word structure and meaning through over 100 pages of activities. Everything is free to download and print, making it an easy, no-cost resource to help students hold onto their reading skills over the summer!
6. Invest in (or Borrow) Some Quality Decodable Books
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.
Learn more about popular decodables here. Ready to buy? Browse some of my favorite decodable chapter books on Amazon or check with your local library.
7. Incorporate Art into Sentence-Level Fluency Practice
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).
Now 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 including CVC words, silent e, open syllables, consonant -le, multisyllabic words with Latin bases, and words with prefixes and suffixes.
8. Sprinkle in Some Games for Summer Phonics Fun
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!
Looking for something you can print and play at home or in summer school settings? Hesitant readers will enjoy playing these food-themed phonics card games that cover skills from CVC words to vowel diphthongs and r-controlled vowels. Parents and teachers agree: Jenni S. says her kids “don’t even know they are learning,” and second grade teacher Sara E. puts it simply: “Who doesn’t enjoy a game with pizza? We love it!”
9. Schedule (or Sneak In) Time for Handwriting Practice
For younger learners, 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 do 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.
10. 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.
11. 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.
Which summer phonics activity will you try first?
Summer doesn’t have to mean losing ground. With just a little intention (a car ride game here, a card game there, a podcast at bedtime), you can help your child or students hold onto the literacy skills they worked so hard to build. The best activity is simply the one they’ll actually do, so start with whatever feels like the most natural fit for your family or classroom.
Have a question about any of these resources, or want to share what’s working for your readers this summer? Drop a comment below or send me a DM on Instagram. I’d love to hear from you!
