Phonemic Awareness Bingo

Phonemic Awareness Bingo

1. Each student is given a bingo card or bingo worksheet containing a different random selection of letters, and a marker pen (or set of counters).
   
   Here is an example of a typical Phonemic Awareness bingo card:
   
   
   
2. The teacher (or parent) chooses a letter at random, and reads out a common word beginning with that letter, for example, if the letter was "A", the parent or teach might say "Apple" or "Ant".
   
   Here is list of suggestions of possible words to call out for each letter of the alphabet (teacher can of course choose your own words if they prefer):
   
   

   Letter	Suggested Words
   A	alligator ant apple arm axe
   B	ball bed boat book bus
   C	car carrot cart cat cow
   D	dinosaur dog doll door dot
   E	egg elbow elephant elk emerald
   F	farm father flower fox frog
   G	game gate girl goat grapes
   H	hair hat hawk hen house
   I	igloo iguana ink insect itch
   J	jail jelly job joke jump
   K	kangeroo kick kid kite koala
   L	lamb leaf lion lip lost
   M	map mat monkey mother mouse
   N	nap net nice numbers nut
   O	octopus orange orangutan ostrich owl
   P	parrot pencil penguin pig potato
   Q	quack queen question quick quilt
   R	rabbit rat rope rose run
   S	sheep slide snake snow sun
   T	teacher teddy tiger tomato turtle
   U	ugly umbrella uncle under unicorn
   V	vest vine violin viper vulture
   W	warm wash water wheel wind
   X	x-ray
   Y	yacht yak yawn yellow yolk
   Z	zebra zero zigzag zipper zoo

   
   
3. Students have to figure out which letter begins the teacher's (or parent's) word, and then look for squares containing that letter on their bingo card or worksheet. If they find it, they cross off that square (or cover it with a counter). Students start off with one square they can mark off without waiting for it to be called out - the "Free Space" square in the middle of the bingo card.
   
   
4. The winner is the first student to achieve a winning pattern and call out "Bingo!" (the teacher or parent should check their card at this point).
   
   It is of course essential that the teacher (or parent) should explain what is required for a winning pattern before play starts:
   
   
   • If you want to play a short game: The winning pattern could be any straight line (horizontal, vertical or diagonal) of five marked off squares.
     
     
   • If you want to play medium-length game: The winning pattern could be any two intersecting straight lines of five marked off squares.
     
     
   • If you want to play a long game: The winning pattern could be to mark off every square on the bingo card. Please note however, if lots of your students are prone to miss matches, you might never get a winner this way! Also, note, if using only 26 letters, then all the students are likely to finish at more or less the same time (since the bingo cards contain 24 callable squares) - however, there is a way round this which we will discuss in our Suggestions for Variations of the game (see below).
     
     
   • If you have lots of students, and want to have multiple winners: You could have multiple winner patterns - the first winner is the first student to mark off all four corner squares, the second winner is the first student to get a straight line of five marked off squares, the third winner is the first student to get two intersecting lines of five, and the fourth winner is the student who is first to mark off all the squares on their bingo card.

1. Try varying the winning pattern.
   
   
2. Try using different words.
   
   
3. Try removing a letter from the bingo cards, and replacing it with one or more letter-pair beginning with that letter. For example, instead of putting "C" on the bingo cards, you might print bingo cards with "CH", "CL" and "CR" - in this case, the teacher would make distinct bingo calls, depending on the particular letter-pair, for example "chain", "close" and "crate". This variations allows you to play a longer game, and also can solve the problem of everybody finishing at more or less the same time, if only using 26 letters and requiring a full bingo card of marked off items as a winning pattern.

1. Start the Bingo Card Printer.
   
   
2. Click New... on the File menu.
   
   
3. Choose Alphabet (Upper Case) or Alphabet (Lower Case) (depending on whether you want the bingo cards printed with upper or lower case letters) as the type of new template, then click OK.
   
   
4. If playing the standard game, the list of items is now ready (proceed to the next step). However, if you want to play the variant using letter-pairs (like "CH", "CL" and "CR" instead of "C"), you will need to add some new items, and remove some existing items:
   
   
   • To add an item: Type the new item into the field entitled Type your new item here.
     
     
   • To remove an item: Select the item (by clicking with the mouse) in the list of items, and then select Delete Item on the Edit menu.
   
   
5. Optionally: If you want to, you can change the colors and/or fonts for the bingo cards using the Colors... or Fonts... options on the Format menu.
   
   
6. Optionally: If you want to, you can change the printing options (such as the number of bingo cards to print, or the number of bingo cards per printed page) on the main screen of Bingo Card Printer
   
   
7. Click Print... on the File menu. Change any of printer options if you want to, then click OK to begin printing.

1. Note: To make use of these materials you will need the registered version of the Bingo Card Printer. The materials were prepared using version 3.20 of Bingo Card Printer, so if you have an older version of the software on your computer, please upgrade to the latest version of the software first.
   
   
2. You can download the settings file bingo_phonemic_awareness.bcp by clicking here. Save the file to a folder of your choice on computer.
   
   
3. Start Bingo Card Printer.
   
   
4. Click Open... on the File menu, then select the file that you saved in step 2, and click OK.
   
   
5. The template will now open, and you can use it, modify it, etc., as you wish.
   
   
6. Note: Expert users who wish to download all the settings files (for all the bingo projects on this site), and all the PDF files (containing our free printables), as one combined ZIP file (which you will then need unpack to extract the individual files), can do so by downloading bingo_templates.zip by clicking here.