I recently posted “Homemade Resources – Phonics Flashcards”, where I explained how to design phonics flashcards should you not find anything similar to the Read Write Inc. ones in your minority language (ml).
Besides the traditional use we made of them (visualizing and learning), I also made an original use of them that was a hit with both my daughter and myself: we played Happy Families with them.
Our flashcards are in the Majority Language (ML) as my daughter is frustrated at her ML reading skills not being as good as her English ones.
Our ML is French and the (nasty) peculiarity of Molière’s language is that one sound ( e.g.: S) can be made by several different letter combinations (e.g.: S – SS – C – Ç). Worse, one letter can make two different sounds (e.g: S can make an Sss, or Zzz sound).
This gave me the idea of using our flashcards for a Happy Families’ game.
Meet the Sss family 🙂
We played it just like the traditional game except that instead of asking something like “In the Dog family, I would like the Dad”, I would say “In the Sss (sound) family, I would like the Ç (letter/letter combination)”. This means the players have to know what letters/letter combinations make up that sound family. Obviously at the beginning, my daughter will not know all of them but over time, as we play she will build up her knowledge of these sound families. And to help us, we keep our French phonics table at hand.
To be honest… we had such great fun! It was such an entertaining way for my daughter to think and learn all her letter/letter combinations per sound. I can already see the early benefits on her ML reading skills!
Tip:
- Have a phonics table that matches your flashcards.- I decided not to make a couple of flashcards as I deemed these sounds (“o” as in sonne and cloche) were too close to other ones (“o” as in rose) and would for now most likely confuse my daughter. Problem is that she uses the table for inspiration as to what caught ask, and unavoidably she eventually picked some of the sounds I had deliberately excluded.
- If you have English as your ml and have the chance to use the Read Write Inc flashcards, this Happy Families version is still an interesting option to strengthen your child’s phonics by maybe playing it for the Complex Speed Sounds. Maybe start with a bunch of 4 or 5 sound families before adding some new ones. 😉
Our ml home 
