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Educational Games Foster Cognitive Flexibility

Educational games do more than entertain—they train the brain. When students play spelling games that sort words by vowel teams or consonant blends, or adapt to changing rules in card games like Crazy Eights and UNO, they’re developing cognitive flexibility. This skill helps them switch between tasks, adjust to new information, and think creatively—making them more adaptable learners both in and out of the classroom.

How Educational Games Foster Cognitive Flexibility in Students

In today’s dynamic learning environments, educational games are proving to be more than just fun—they’re essential tools for cognitive development. One critical skill they nurture is cognitive flexibility, the mental ability to switch between thinking about two different concepts or to think about multiple concepts simultaneously. This skill is crucial not only for academic success but also for navigating everyday challenges.

Spelling games, for instance, offer powerful cognitive training. When students sort words by multiple attributes—like beginning sounds, syllable count, or spelling patterns—they’re engaging in flexible thinking. A game might challenge them to group words by vowel teams in one round, and then by consonant blends in the next. This kind of task-switching encourages students to adapt their mental strategies, boosting their ability to pivot between rules and patterns.

Color-coded phonics games also can enhance cognitive agility. Matching games that combine vowel teams (like “ea” in “bread” or “ee” in “tree”) or consonant blends (like “tr” or “bl”) with colorful cues help students create flexible associations. They learn to recognize that one sound can appear in different letter combinations and that the same visual cue may apply to multiple sounds depending on context.

CVC Uno-style game. Build cognitive flexibility with the foundational short vowel sounds.

Even classic card games adapted for the classroom, such as Crazy Eights or UNO, can be educationally potent. These games require players to respond quickly to changing rules. Like changing suit, color, or numbers, Which mirrors the kind of flexible thinking needed in learning environments. When teachers modify these games to include vocabulary, math facts, or grammar prompts. Students can seamlessly blend content learning with cognitive skill-building.

Support Reading Skills with Games

Practice Adapting, Shifting and Applying

Incorporating such games into the curriculum provides students with playful, engaging opportunities to practice adapting, shifting, and applying knowledge in real-time. The result? Stronger minds, sharper problem-solvers, and learners who can think on their feet. This Uno-style CVC game is a simple tool for practicing the basic

Flossy Uno Decodable Reading Game

Heart Words Uno-style Schwa Game

Learning the schwa spelling pattern can be a lot of fun.

Practicing Schwa words is easier with this Schwa sound activities game. There are some spelling patterns to learn. Match the sound patterns and win.

Kids are WILD about heart words UNO. They learn as they play. They want to play again and again.

The secret to this game is extra wild cards.

All the cards in this game are words that have the schwa /short u sound.

Some of the words follow the: v, m, n, th spelling pattern for the vowel /o/.

love, some, none, other, ….

Get your copy of the game here

Some have the vowel /a/ pattern.

above, again, extra, …

Some are Wild Spelling patterns:

idea, balloon, dinosaur, the, what, of, because, ….

48 Schwa words

16 are wild

+ 8 action cards: Skip, +2, +3, Regular Wild

Full rules and explanation included.

Players can match to color group or letter pattern. They must read the word on the card.

Heart Word Mapping Manual

Heart Word Mapping Manual

How to teach the heart words just got easier with this mapping manual for teachers. Decoding and encoding by the spelling patterns. Sound articulations and spelling rules all organized in one place.

Detailed sight word mapping by sounds, with articulation support.

Help is at your fingertips with these colorful tabs on the teacher’s manual. Low Prep organized Teacher’s Guide. Support your students by explicitly teaching heart word mapping sorted by sounds. Differentiated levels, cumulative instruction, phonics, and spelling patterns. Student worksheets. Articulation images with detailed explanations. Great for reading intervention!

Heart words grouped by the sounds make it easier for students to practice and retain the information.

Unique Heart Word Decoding Elkonin Boxes

Full Red Heart – Focused heart sound skill
Heart Outlines– Previously learned pattern
Green line – Decodable sound
Green line with a Dark outline – Long vowel that says its name
White line with X – silent letter

Articulation Instruction

Mouth image with airflow lines
Voiced and unvoiced marking under bottom lip ~
Detailed descriptions of lip and mouth movements
Helpful descriptions of sound: bursts, vibrates, air pushes

Spelling Patterns – Tabs

Vowel Sounds, Schwa, 2 Long u sounds, Digraphs, R-Controlled, R-Trigraph, consonants, th/th voiced and unvoiced, wh

Consonants – Begin c, k, ending ck, ending k, ke, ic, soft & hard g, dge, ending l, ll, le

more

s = z sound

The suffix – ed has 3 sounds

contractions

tricky Y

How will this help you?

Well-organized resource. Easy to grab and teach with No-prep work.

Heart Words are orthographicly mapped for you. Explicit phonics.

Code-based spelling instruction.

Color-coded decodable sounds are green or darker outlines for long vowels.

Heart Words and decodable words are grouped together by similar sounds, which makes teaching them easy and sound-focused.

Sound checks on the back cover.

Vowel articulation on the last page.

Detailed sound articulation directions are at your fingertips.

Student worksheets are versatile to use. Follow the link to see the video.

Cumulative Instruction

Heart Words and High-frequency words grouped by sounds are presented in a sequential and cumulative format.

Starting with the simplest words first and then progressing to more advanced words.

Example – short a

at,

an,

and,

am,

as * ( this one is the heart sound, s = z) The other words were decodable.

How to Teach the Schwa Heart Words

Suffix Eraser Whiteboard Game

This is an easy no-prep whiteboard game that we did the other day. We simply used some words from the UFLI lesson 107 suffix spelling changes roll and read. They had to remember to erase the double consonants and the suffix.

Students are challenged to find the hidden root words.

Added suffixes seem to come very naturally when we are speaking, but it grows more challenging when we need to spell or read these longer words.

Students are often intimidated by the length of a word. They often say “I don’t know” or “I can’t.” too quickly. Plural words and past tense words may be some of the first words they will encounter. I have made fun games for both of those skills.

This is an easy no-prep whiteboard game that we did the other day. I simply used some words from the UFLI lesson 107 suffix spelling changes. I wrote the words on the board and then the four students took turns trying to find the main root word. All the words that I chose had the double consonant pattern.

I used simple words like bag, pop, slip, win, and more…

The girls enjoyed it so much that we had to adapt the game and play it again the next day.

There are a lot of spelling skills that you can teach with just the suffix -ed.

1:1 Doubling
Drop the Y and add i
Drop the silent /e/ on long vowel words

Ed Said, “d, id, t.” Suffix Game

You can also use the game cards for sound sorting activities or making sentences for past and present.

Heart Word Uno Game: th, wh, w

th, wh, w Heart Words. By focusing on a target skill, teaching these sight words can be easier for some students. Instead of choosing random sight words that may span over many new skills and spelling patterns. Choosing similar words will help them focus on what they are learning and help them escape the guessing game. I have found this very helpful strategy during reading intervention, especially with dyslexic students.

There are some tricky sight words that may leave many students guessing. Without lots of heart word practice, they may be relying on predictive reading strategies.

Heart Words

What is a heart word? Simply put and heart word is very much like a Sight Word, or a High-Frequency Word with one expectation. The heart word has at least one part of the word that needs to be memorized by heart.

The word they.

The word (they) may be decodable for more advanced students who know that the /th/ is a digraph and sometimes the letters /ey/ can make the long /a/ sound as in the word obey. For other students, the word (they) could be overwhelming as they try to decode four letters that are not making their normal letter sounds.

Grouping th, wh, and w, Words Together

By focusing on a target skill, teaching these sight words can be easier for some students. Instead of choosing random sight words that may span over many new skills and spelling patterns. Choosing similar words will help them focus on what they are learning and help them escape the guessing game. I have found this very helpful strategy during reading intervention, especially with dyslexic students.

th wh w uno targeted heart words. Pure Joy Teaching

This game has th, wh, and w, words.

Wh, and w – usually make the same /w/ sound. Except for words like: who, whom, whose, and whole. In the game, these words are wild cards, because the /wh/ is now making the tricky /h/ sound. This may be hard for ESL students to understand when they read these words in isolation or come across them in text. That is why this game is so helpful. It gives them advanced practice with these spelling patterns. Notice that they all have the letter /o/ after the /wh/.

How to Teach the Schwa Heart Words

How to Teach the Schwa Heart Words

Do you need help understanding how to teach the SCHWA Spelling pattern?

Surprise! There are a few tricks to this spelling pattern that can make it easier to teach and fun for students to learn.

Do you need help understanding how to teach the SCHWA Spelling pattern?

Surprise! There are a few tricks to this spelling pattern that can make it easier to teach and fun for students to learn.

Kids love to play games. This Schwa UNO-style game has a very predictable sound pattern. All the words have at least one short /u/ sound. It is not just the final letter /a/ that can make the schwa sound as in: pizza, tuna, and comma.

The truth is any of the vowels can make the schwa sound. So be on the lookout and listen for all the vowel patterns in this game. Vowels: a, e, i, & o, might be making the short /u/ sound.

Letter a

was
what
grandma
about

The vowel /a/ might make the schwa sound, it can be in any position in a word. It may depend on your country, region, or dialect of English. It is often called the lazy /a/ sound. The open-mouth schwa sound is easier to say.

Letter e

The vowel /e/ may be the first schwa sound word that trips up the young student decoder. Letters /th/ are a digraph that they might know, but then the letter /e/ changes and is now making the schwa sound. In the game, there are both capital and lowercase cards for /the/.

Letter o

love
other
done
some
of

The vowel /o/ makes the schwa sound more often than you might think. There is a very predictable spelling pattern for some of the words. When the vowel letter /o/ is followed by: v, m, n, or th, it might make the schwa sound.

v, m, n, th

Examples are these words: oven, love, glove, and shovel.

some, come, done, none, money, other, mother, bother.

The word /of/ is a true heart word. The letters: /o/ and /f/ are both making a different sound.

Get your game on TPT

Blending Board Letter Storage Idea

The magazine file holders are a perfect fit for my shelf. They are within reach of my reading table. The boards slide right in. They are big enough to fit smaller cookie sheets too.

A Magazine Storage File, Makes a Great Divider on My Literacy Shelf.

Easy Way to Store the Different Letter Boards

There are many reasons why I took the time to create extra blending broads. Then, I needed a way to store all the extra boards. The magazine file holders are a perfect fit for my shelf. They are within reach of my reading table. The boards slide right in. They are big enough to fit smaller cookie sheets too.

Clear L-Pocket Covers

Each whiteboard is covered with a clear plastic L pocket before it is put on the shelf. We call it the clear blanket. The younger kids say, “Time for the letters to go night-night”. After they put all the letters back in place, they slip each whiteboard into the pocket. Making sure the open end is at the top and the folder end is at the bottom. So, no letter tiles will escape.

The cookies nest together very nicely, we usually don’t cover them.

Leveled Letter Groups

UFli is great. They have wide range of free things in the toolbox. The Satpim order is not taught in the UFLi scope and sequence, but the decodable books that were available at my school were the Satpim style. So, I adapted some of my blending boards to have less letters. This was helpful for a few reasons.

Fewer letters to start with.
Less to clean up or lose.
Less distraction on the blending board.
Costs less – fewer magnets needed.
Sorted pre-made boards for differentiated invention groups.

Blending Without Tears

Some students can’t handle all 26 letters at once. One boy started to cry. He was new to group and he did not have all his sounds yet. When we switched to less letters it was easier for him to keep up.

The result was more organized system that flowed will with the scope and sequence of each group.

Lines Under the Letters

I also added lines under the letters. To help aid the students with the letter reversal issues. b, d, p, q, n, u, m, w. All these letters were creating problems. Some students said things like, “I have two m’s.” I had to admit without the bottom line as reference it did look like she had two letter m’s.

Extra Letters

It has proven to be helpful to have a box of extra letters near by. With out fail some how the letters get misplaced. This large shorting box has been very handy.

Vowel Importance – Red Letters

Sometimes we need to do a little extra vowel pratice. These cvc word builder sheets let student put the missing vowel sound in the word next to the picture. The self-checking flap help it to feel more like a game.

Mnemonic Letter Tiles

Some struggling reader need little bit of extra phonemic support with the letter sounds. It is another way to scafold the learning.

CVC Uno game for Emergent Readers

I Spy Worksheets

Blending two-letter words can be easier for students when the second letter is a stop sound. Teaching students to blend two sounds is a good start for emergent readers are they build up to CVC words.

For Letters and words

I hear with my little ear, I spy with my little eye…….

This is a great way to make learning fun. Capital I and lowercase /i/.
Words ‘it’ and ‘It’
is and Is
Letters a, A
Letters b, B
h, n
h, b
Fall letters g, p, y
Words that make ‘z’ sounds is, his,
Sounds of b, d,

Handwriting Sheets for

h,b,
r, n,
n, p,
c, a,
a, d,
a, g,

Games

Tic-Tac-Toe

Worksheets here on TPT

Vowel Consonant Blending

Blending is hard for some students. They may know all the letter sounds insolation but struggle to blend them in CVC words. This resource is designed to help those struggling blenders. VC blending is just two letters. Vowel + Consonant with picture mnemonics to help students succeed.

CVC builder Hot dogs dramatic play easy booklet

An, and Word Family Game

An, and, ran, tan, Jan, ant, more

This game has a funny backstory. Once during a reading group, one of the students told me, “An is not a real word. I asked my mom and she said it’s not real.”

It was good reminder that this word is underused and needs to be taught.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/An-and-word-family-game-Capital-and-lowercase-as-board-style-Emergent-readers-9169042

When teaching emergent readers the word “an,” it’s important to explain it in simple terms. This is one example of how you might do that:

Explain the Role of “An”:
“An” is a word we use before a noun when the noun starts with a vowel sound (like “a,” “e,” “i,” “o,” or “u”). It helps us say things clearly, like in “an apple” or “an umbrella.”
Give Examples:
- “An apple” (because “apple” starts with the vowel sound “a”).
- “An egg” (because “egg” starts with the vowel sound “e”).
- “An ice cream” (because “ice” starts with the vowel sound “i”).
Contrast with “A”:
You can explain that “an” is used only when the next word starts with a vowel sound. If the next word starts with a consonant sound, we use “a.” For example:
- “A dog” (because “dog” starts with the consonant sound “d”).
- “An apple” (because “apple” starts with the vowel sound “a”).
Practice with Simple Sentences:
Help them practice with simple phrases:
- “I see an apple.”
- “She has an orange.”
- “He wants an umbrella.”

By connecting “an” to things they are already familiar with and using it in simple sentences, emergent readers can start to recognize and use “an” correctly in their reading and writing!

Vowels are important

Vowel knowledge is essential for early learners. As educators, we often use terms like “CVC words,” but young learners may not fully understand what CVC, consonants, and vowels mean.

This is a great reminder that the five vowels are special and not the same as the other letters. The game below has the vowels marked in red.

CVC Uno game for Emergent Readers

Pure Joy Teaching

Tic Tac Toe Board with Electrical Tape

Students like to play this game. I choose skills or words that they need to practice. Great for handwriting practice, cvc words, sight words, or tricky vowel sounds.

Create a reusable whiteboard to practice handwriting and spelling.

Tic-Tac-Toe was one of the first games I learned to use as a tool, to help teach my preschool students. Simple x’s & o’s, and the spatial awareness of drawing the lines. The kids think of it as a game and are more willing to pick up a pencil or crayon if it feels fun.

White Board with Tape Lines.

Using electrical tape has created something reusable. I was surprised at how much the kids loved erasing the words, and the lines stayed. It was like magic to them. They wipe the letters off and rush to play again. Hooray!

Adding the lines has given new life to this old scratched-up whiteboard.

Cutting the Tape

The original thickness of the electrical tape is wide. Making the lines thinner, by cutting with scissors was too hard. Using an Xacto made it easier to cut.

Carefully cut away from yourself.

Cutting a straight line without a guide was too hard. Don’t try it! I found a plastic milk cap that was a nice thickness. With the electrical tape flat on the table, I could keep the Xacto knife flat on the cap. Rotate the tape slowly and cut the tape with a little bit of pressure to cut the tape. Be sure to cut away from your body.

Pure Joy Teaching

Try CVC words.

CVC words are great for this game. After we play the Uno CVC game, I will choose some words they need to practice writing.

Using the tic-tac-toe game is great for practicing sight words. Try capital letters and lowercase letters. Especially in words like the letter /i/ (It, If, Is, In) Those are good words to work on. Remind the students to sound out the word as they write it.

Sometimes we practice just the letters b, and d. This helps with letter reversals.

Hu bu hu bu Handwriting – Helps with b d reversals

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