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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

UFLI Inspired Word Lists

UFLI inspired anchor charts with words lists and picture embedded vowel teams. Visual aids for quick spelling lessons helps to draw students into reading with well organized spelling patterns.

Word list with the extra picture embedded phonics images.

Spelling cheat sheet that students love to read. Grouped by sounds to help students remember spelling patterns. Amazing anchor charts.

UFLI lessons 20, 21, 63, 76, 99, 106, & 110..

Get your word lists here.

Plural suffix endings S ES IES VES & more. Organized reference materials with word lists, spelling rules, and engaging picture-embedded phonics posters and cards.

Included-

S – Unvoiced

S – Voiced /z/

ES – Voiced /z/

IES – Voiced /z/

VES – Voiced /z/ – change /f/ to /v/

Bonus Doubling Rule (+y, +ed, +er, +ing, +est)

Lessons 44, 54-59 & more. K sound endings

k, ck, ke, ic,

Are the students struggling with when to use ck, ke, k, or ic when writing words? Final k sounds can be tricky. There are some spelling rules to teach them about vowel sounds, vowel teams, multi-syllable words, and the suffix -ic. Posters with word lists, picture-embedded letters and color-coded word spelling words.

You get 4 posters – They can be printed on double-sided.

UFLI Lessons 48 & 71 ch & tch

Get these anchor charts here.

ick or ic, the answer is in the syllables.

tch or ch, the answer is in the syllables.

3 different posters and word lists on the back.

Spelling rules /tch/ will follow a single syllable short vowel, and the letter t will be silent.

ch can follow vowel teams, r-controlled, or consonants.

Posters have mnemonic pictures embedded for visual spelling clues.

The letter c has teeth to chew or chop the h shaped chicken leg.

UFLI Lessons 60 & 61 Soft c & g

Find soft C & G list here.

Learning soft c & g can be tricky! Knowing the patterns can help.

These anchor charts have mnemonic picture-embedded letters, word lists, and spelling tips to help learn and remember some of the soft c & g tricks.

The vowels e, i, y, are very important to the spelling pattern.

Anchor charts have colorful visual reminders and word lists that follow the same spelling pattern. Some have spelling tips and clues to help teach this as a lesson or to place it in the classroom as a reference guide, with some homophones included.

UFLI lessons 58, 89, 90, 91 +more “ui” spellings

Vowel teams ue, ew, u-e, u, have 2 long u sounds. The tricky spelling is organized on reference posters with word lists, spelling rules, and engaging picture-embedded phonics posters and cards. Great companion materials for

Ue, ew, ui, oo, u-e spellings

What are the Two Sounds of long U?

Listen for the /y/ sound “Y-oo”. The letter name.
Listen for the /oo/ sound – “oo”

You Get Both

Posters – Double-sided with word lists, spelling pattern notes, and Phonics Phoneme images.

Included- 4 double-sided posters – 8 pages

Basic “Y-OO” sounds u-e, ue, ew (3) spelling patterns
Basic “oo” (3) Spelling patterns u-e, ue, ew, u, eu,
1st long U spellings (5) U-e, eu, u, ue, ew “Y-oo” s
2nd U-e, oo, ew, ue, ui, ou, u, oe, “oo” sound (9) spelling patterns

These posters and word lists are great for students. Pictures are attention-grabbing and memorable sound clues to phonics vowel teams.

Help for students

Lesson 98 silent letters

kn, wr, & mb. Spelling pattern on TPT

Lessons 111 & 121 er, ar, or

Tricky er spellings and suffixes er, or, and ist. TPT

Lesson 111 er, ar, or

er, – runner, jumper

ar, or (not always a suffix)

-or = /er/ doctor, author, actor, sensor, scissor,

-ar + /er/ sugar, polar, solar, collar, dollar,

Lesson 121 er, or, ist

+er – Makes a verb or action into a noun

+or – Makes a verb into a noun

+ist = Makes a noun into a skilled person

————————————————————–

Lesson 112 – air, are, ear + more

Great resource to support the many spellings of “air”. Spelling are, ear – Lesson 112, plus more eir, err, arr, ere, & ur. Colorful picture embedded letters (phonographs) and word lists. NO PREP! Easy to help reinforce the trigraph r-controlled vowel teams. Full of homophone words.

Lesson 112 air sounds spelling – air, are, ear +more

UFLI Lessons 118 & 120 Ch sounds Sh, K & Ture

Get your copy here.

Many sounds and spelling of ch, emergent to advanced alternative spellings.

/ch/ /k/ /sh/

ch, tch,

vowel digraph+ch

vowel consonant +ch

alternative ch spelling /tu/

tue, ture & other suffix endings.

Heart Word Mapping Manual

What is UFLI? – It is a great evidence-based approach to teaching structured literacy. You can find out more about UFLI foundations toolbox here.

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

Free Potato Person Drawing

Super Easy. Low Prep Art, Lable, and Writing Lesson.

Have your students ever been upset when they had to put Mr. Potato Head away? Or when they had to share it. You can take a picture of it. Or they can draw their picture, write about it, and label it.

We only had one potato head in our preschool classroom. I always thought we needed more. A good substitution is a large amount of homemade playdough, or these playdough mats.

These worksheets can help you turn a silly toy into a model for a class drawing and writing with very little prep. Get your free worksheets here.

A book about drawing that your students may like in your classroom is:

If a Pig Could Paint.

If a Pig Could Paint, would he hog all the colors?

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

Punctuation for Comprehension

Are the students reading past the full stops? There are lots of things involved with reading comprehension, but punctuation might be a foundational item that is easy to fix quickly.

A few years ago, one of the teachers at my school asked me how she, “could improve the comprehension for her students?” I did not have a quick answer for her. My focus was more on the spelling patterns and helping students to decode words. But her question has lingered, and many other teachers have asked the same question over the years.

Can’t Level Up Without Comprehension

Teachers were reporting back to me that overall reading and spelling skills were improving after intervention, but students could not be leveled up because of the low comprehension scores. The targeted structured approach was working for the decoding skills, but the students were still missing an important step.

Stop and Take Notice of the Full Stops

It is never a surprise to me when one of the younger students reads past the full stops in their decodable books. They are younger, so I would stop and teach them the skill. I have one resource for that here.

What is it? Cavemen looking at a full stop at the end of a sentence.

When an older student did it, that was a helpful reminder that punctuation has a purpose.

During a running record test, one of my students was struggling with a sentence because she had read past the full stop. She tried rereading the words, with no success. She repeatedly used the last word of the sentence as the first word for what she was trying to make sense of. This was a perfect example of how punctuation affects the reader’s understanding. That has stuck with me and serves as a good example of why punctuation is important.

The Purpose of Punctuation Is to Help Readers Understand What They’re Reading

There is a really good article from Bedrock Learning.

Comprehension Is the Reason for Reading

The Reading Rockets article says, “Comprehension is the reason for reading.” Strong readers should think actively as they read. That is a great way to explain it. It is not a race to read all the words and finish.

There are lots of other things involved with comprehension, but punctuation might be a foundational item that is easy to fix quickly.

Schwa Bundle

The schwa sound can be challenging to teach and learn. While there are some tricky words, there are also predictable spelling patterns. These games and lessons can be helpful in mastering it.

Following the scope and sequence, some of the first words students may encounter are in the first lesson. These include words like: the, was, what, of, some, come, and from.

Learning the Schwa Spelling Pattern is Easier with Games and Posters.

Looking for a way to introduce and practice the schwa sound?

How to explain the schwa sound — Explain the schwa sound to emergent readings

The schwa sound is more than just the letter /a/ making the /u/ sound in words like banana, grandma, and pizza.

Students may first encounter the sound in the words the, was, what, and the word of. As well as the words come, some, from, and love. The bundle below has my favorite tools for introducing the schwa sound and spelling patterns to students of many levels and skills.

schwa spelling bundle educational games — Schwa spelling bundle

The schwa sound can be challenging to teach and learn. While there are some tricky words, there are also predictable spelling patterns. These games and lessons can be helpful in mastering it.

Following the scope and sequence, some of the first words students may encounter are in the first lesson. These include words like: the, was, what, of, some, come, and from.

The first poster set includes them. The warning sign theme helps reinforce the visual reminder that some words have tricky vowel sounds that we will call schwa.

schwa warning signs — schwa words of, the, was, what, warning signs. Pure Joy Teaching

The schwa sound is typically the short /u/ sound. What makes it more challenging to teach is that any of the vowel letters can represent the schwa sound.

You may choose to group the spelling patterns together to help students better remember them.

One option is to introduce the letter /o/ as a schwa sound, with a predictable pattern that students may encounter.

schwa love, dove, glove, oven — schwa love, dove, glove, Pure Joy Teaching

This schwa sound UNO-style game is excellent for helping students master words that feature the schwa sound.

Fast pasted fun educational game students will love to play.

The Letter U has Many Sounds

More than just schwa…………….

The letter “u” sound can be quite confusing, but this fun mnemonic sentence and image of the letter “u” pushing a super unicorn can serve as a memorable spelling aid.

Letter u has many sounds — letter u has many sounds Pure joy Teaching

Many Sounds of the Letter u.

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