Gamify encoding success with scrambled words. Students love unscrambling the words. Targeted phonics skill are building as the decode and encode words that match the images.
Encoding and decoding can be overwhelming for some students. These unscrambling cards were a big success.
Success is Satisfying
Unscrambling words can feel super satisfying for some students. cvc, cvcc & ccvc. This was created for one of my wonderful students. He finds it easier to encode the words when he has letters to choose from on the cards. It is easier than decoding. This is really helping him build up his phonemic skills, and he is not as frustrated.
Get that Reluctant Reader to Engage
Used the card with the blending board huge success.
Building Cognitive Flexibility and Supporting Reading Intervention with Uno-Style & Crazy 8 Spelling Games
These colorful, engaging card games are more than just fun—they’re powerful tools for building cognitive flexibility and reinforcing essential spelling and decoding skills. Designed in the style of popular games like Uno and Crazy 8, these four targeted spelling games support reading intervention while keeping learners motivated and engaged.
Each game focuses on a foundational spelling pattern:
CVC – Simple consonant-vowel-consonant words, perfect for early readers. Carefully selected to avoid confusing endings like “r” or “z.”
CVCC – Emphasizes ending blends and introduces nine essential spelling rules (like ck, wa, qu, double consonants, and soft c/g). Blends such as nd, mp, nk, and others are practiced with separate flashcards.
CVCe – Also known as the “Magic e” pattern, this game incorporates six spelling rules, including when o says /ŭ/ and when s sounds like /z/.
R-Controlled – Covers patterns like ar, or, ur, er, and more complex sounds like air and oar, along with homophones and tricky combinations (w+ar, w+or).
How These Games Build Cognitive Flexibility:
Cognitive flexibility involves shifting attention, adapting to new rules, and recognizing patterns—skills that are constantly exercised as players sort, match, and interpret cards based on multiple spelling rules and phonics cues. The color-coded format strengthens visual memory and reinforces sound-symbol correspondence.
Ideal for:
Reading intervention groups
Small group instruction
Independent centers
Home practice with families
Students can use these as traditional flashcards or jump into fast-paced gameplay, practicing decoding, blending, and rule application in a low-stress, highly engaging format. Wild cards representing spelling rules further deepen understanding and allow teachers to differentiate instruction with ease.
In short, these games blend play and pedagogy, making foundational literacy practice fun, effective, and flexible.
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.
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
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
more
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.
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.
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.
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
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/.
