Hi Hannah,
Thank you for the question! Because you state that this is a parent asking you this, I’m assuming you mean more along the lines of a board game (making this question especially timely- with the holidays fast approaching!) or app that can be purchased, rather than the type of low-prep “game” a teacher might use as an activity with their students like Lights Out or some of the other engagement strategies in the Coaching Corner section of many of our Lesson Toolkits.
As you may be aware, the term “science of reading” refers to a comprehensive body of multidisciplinary research on literacy instruction and development. To my knowledge, there is no research that investigates the effectiveness of any specific game in teaching students letter-sound correspondences or decoding skills. Thus, when we are thinking about what makes something (be it a game, activity, worksheet, text, etc.) “SOR-aligned,” it’s not a question of whether or not it has a mythical stamp of approval, but more about whether it can be used in ways that support this foundational reading skill development. It also bears repeating that learning phonics is only one of many interconnected skills that contribute to proficient reading.
With that in mind, the question becomes: what makes a game or activity effective in teaching children phonics? We know that phonics instruction should be explicit and systematic. Because ‘explicit instruction’ and ‘game’ are a bit mutually exclusive, we’ll consider any such game not as an initial introduction of a letter-sound correspondence, but more so an opportunity to practice the skill to the point of automaticity and mastery, as described in Subskill Automaticity. This goes hand-in-hand with our next term to consider: systematic. Phonics instruction should have a planned, logical sequence. Thus, parents would need to be mindful if the game being considered only includes (or can easily be altered to only include) correspondences that have already been introduced by the scope and sequence used in their child’s classroom.
Unfortunately, this might not be apparent at first glance. For example, a game that provides letter tiles for a child to read and spell consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words may look appropriate enough to a parent who knows their child has been introduced to all of the letters of the alphabet. However, students are initially taught the consonant /r/ sound for the letter <r> (e.g., run), rather than the vowel-r phonemes that occur when <r> comes after a vowel (e.g., car or for). Thus, if a game does not control for this letter to only come in the beginning of CVC words, it might expect students to read words like jar, which they would likely not be able to do successfully before being introduced to /ar/ correspondences. Similarly, words like gem, cell, old, and kind all look simple, but use correspondences that- while regular- would likely not yet have been introduced to young students who have not yet been introduced to alternate sounds letters can represent, such as the ‘soft’ sounds for <c> and <g> or the long vowel sounds.
Another thing I have noticed in some phonics games is that they use capital letters. While students do need to recognize both capital and lowercase letters, we rarely decode words written solely in capital letters. So, a child playing a game that expects her to sound out CVC words written with capital letter tiles, such as BAG or DID, would not provide the type of practice that supports automaticity with reading lowercase letters like I would want.
Finally, when I’m thinking of a game that children would play at home, I’d expect some sort of balance between fun and what would be considered effective practice. The appropriateness of those proportions will be individual to that child/family. Is the parent interested in a game because the child is just so excited about learning alphabetics and beginning to read, so their parent wants to give them more opportunities to shine? Or is the child struggling to remember and apply these skills, so the parent wants to build more opportunities to practice in more engaging ways than worksheets and flash cards? This sort of nuance will help parents determine if the speed of play and turn-taking (i.e., how much time children are spending reading or spelling the words/sounds versus performing the game action) is appropriate. Parents will also want to consider factors such as:
- Is the child expected to determine if a decoded sequence of sounds is a real or nonsense word?
- Is there an expectation that the parent corrects the student if a letter or word is misread?
- Is speed or accuracy (or both) necessary?
I know it would be much easier to hand the parent a list of green-lit games, but as you can see, I can’t make any blanket statements about what would be best for all children. Hopefully, though, this gets your wheels turning enough to steer them in the right direction!